It’s been a whirlwind 18 months, from no events to zoom fatigue and now the emergence of our hybrid future. I am sure I’m not the only one who has had the biggest rollercoaster ride of their career, but in many ways I think I am better for it. Although I have had to adapt in a very short space of time in order to simply survive, it has brought out again possibly the greatest attribute that those of us in the events industry have, the ability to make things happen by thinking outside the box and delivering no matter what is thrown at us.
I do remain optimistic that we will be back to full steam ahead again soon and things will return back to some kind of normality, but what that is going to look like is the question i am sure most of us are wondering.
I think one thing is for sure, I will have to up my event budgets to accommodate some form of live streaming. After a year of attending all events from the comfort of your new home office, I think there will be a new expectation that if you can’t attend an event you can still watch it remotely. Hybrid is definitely here to stay but i am confident in my opinion that live events are not dead, in fact i think the craving for them has increased tenfold.
I was chatting to a friend who works at MSP Global and they were telling me that they can’t keep up with demand at the minute for live event AV support, but the deadlines that they are working to have decreased, along with the number of freelancers available. That does seem to be one of the negative things to have happened to the industry thanks to the pandemic, due to lack of support many really talented people have walked away from the industry completely. Hopefully they will be lured back in the near future along with a new generation of engineers!
As i sit in my little home office … desk in the spare bedroom … i do keep smiling to myself as i dream about standing at an event in foreign lands once again creating that wow experience that only a face to face event can bring. Hopefully 2022 will be a better year for the industry as a whole.
Happy Planning
