Strategizing for the Future: How Will Events Change in the Post-COVID Era?
After almost two years of the COVID pandemic, the event-planning industry is at a crossroads. At ELE, we are finding that many clients are planning to get back in-person for their annual events but still want to make some of their convenings accessible for those who can’t physically be there and capture the live content for future use. The very nature of our clients’ events is evolving and we’re getting as creative as possible to meet their needs.
For the National Italian American Foundation, we took footage of their wonderful in-person awards ceremony and gala and professionally produced an 90-minute video that was presented as a "show" soon after the live event. This format is akin to functions like the Kennedy Center Honors which is filmed live, produced, and broadcast several weeks later for the public. For the Black Male Educators Conference, we professionally produced all panels and content from their virtual conference and made videos available on-demand for all conference attendees, providing a library of what went down “in the “room(s) where it happened.” In both cases, it’s important to note that during pre-pandemic, in-person events, we rarely captured content and resources for later use to the extent we are doing so now. And often panels or breakout sessions were more of a showcase or networking opportunity vs. a deep conversation for future consideration. Capturing content and reframing the purpose of event components has been a crucial innovation for events in the COVID and Post-Covid eras. The facts that video and virtual content can be captioned for the hearing impaired and make an event more accessible (or accessible at all!) for so many populations, is another blogpost in and of itself.
As for the future, the conference and meetings industry is seeing a slow but steady return to pre-pandemic levels, particularly for smaller meetings of around 100 attendees (the size of many an ELE-planned event). They also point out that leisure travel overwhelmingly rebounded, a good indication of rising levels of comfort in travel. Industry experts are optimistic that in 2022, small meetings, and even large conferences and conventions, will return to near pre-pandemic levels. They do point out, however, that taking a more strategic approach to planning events and meetings is critical to their future success and now is the time for organizations to dig in and reimagine just what their events can be.
At ELE, most of our clients are planning in-person events over virtual for 2022, with precautions in place. We are witnessing that some organizations are keeping certain assets virtual like speaker series events and convenings that are important but may be inaccessible to their key audiences if only offered in person. We absolutely predict that clients will want to capture content from their events for future use and we are thinking ahead about how our clients can continue to do so in a high-quality format. We may even see a reimagining of how to use that precious in-person time more meaningfully, rather than overloading it with plenaries and panels that can be done virtually. How do you see your in-person events evolving? Let us know, we are eager to have this discussion!