Counting The Cost Of 2020 - What Now For Live Events? 2020 taught our industry many new things and forced us to reconsider plenty that we had overlooked or forgotten. For some it was painful, but perhaps it was necessary – and certainly, in t

Counting The Cost Of 2020 - What Now For Live Events? 2020 taught our industry many new things and forced us to reconsider plenty that we had overlooked or forgotten. For some it was painful, but perhaps it was necessary – and certainly, in the long run it will make us better at what we do. The most important and furthest-reaching lesson was that our services, processes and tools are only as good as the rules and realities in which they operate. When those rules and realities change, we have nothing to offer. That’s not just a disaster for our industry, it’s a disaster for our clients who rely on us to help build their brands and their businesses. Our clients need to be able to plan ahead. That’s not possible when the services they depend on us to deliver have become obsolete overnight. Waiting for it all to blow over was never an option. We had to adapt, show our agility, and offer clients new ways to reach their audiences. That inevitably entailed a focus on creating virtual and hybrid live experiences, with new platforms to host them and new approaches to measurement.

It also caused us to reassess the fundamental nature of our business, and be reminded of a critical fact: we do not exist to sell clients live events, we exist to apply creativity to business messaging with the intention of moving hearts and mind

It also caused us to reassess the fundamental nature of our business, and be reminded of a critical fact: we do not exist to sell clients live events, we exist to apply creativity to business messaging with the intention of moving hearts and minds. A live event of some kind might be part of that. And it might not. That’s a scary prospect when you’ve only ever seen your business as one thing, when you’re always a hammer looking for a nail, but for clients it is liberating. They can plan their year knowing that contingencies won’t be de-railing, they can apply more blended and targeted programmes to their audiences, and if our experiences of 2020 are anything to go by, they will get equally good and often better results compared to how they did things before.

It’s in times like these, times of constraint and challenge and change, that we discover what we have and what we need, and we innovate towards better outcomes. As an industry we have learned, we have applied what we have learned with intellig

It’s in times like these, times of constraint and challenge and change, that we discover what we have and what we need, and we innovate towards better outcomes. As an industry we have learned, we have applied what we have learned with intelligence and pragmatism, and we have more to offer. If 2020 was the year when plans fell through, we now know enough to make sure that 2021 is the year of better, more confident, and more sophisticated planning. 21.01.21 < Back to news