AIPC
Re-opening for business – differently
BY AIPC CEO SVEN BOSSU AND BOARD MEMBER JULIANA LÓPEZ BERMÚDEZ, CEO GRUPO HEROICA
“Paris good to go from September”
(p.39, CMW Issue 107). That headline
brought smiles to many faces, sparking
hope that other local authorities would
follow and allow to re-open for business
events.
Situations are of course very different,
region to region, but overall authorities
are convinced of the importance of
organised events for relaunching the
economy and are trying to balance this
with health and safety challenges.
This is not an easy task and venues
need to provide their authorities with
insights on how and why organised
events need to take place. AIPC supports
this effort by providing clear guidelines
and does so in partnership with
international industry associations ICCA
and UFI to ensure messages are
streamlined and come with a stronger
voice.
More needs to be done. We will need
to leave the event reality we loved and
lived in and move to a new one that we
are still defining. Change will need to be
embraced in order to sculpt this future,
but the core mission will remain the
same: to bring people together for a joint
purpose and to enable these communities
to share ideas, plans and projects which
will bring them to a brighter future in
their respective fields of profession.
Taking the time to profoundly
re-think this will result in opportunities
and increased value for all stakeholders
involved. Classic event business will
remain, but needs to be enriched with
new products and services. For example:
technology which needs to be deployed
for providing a safe and secure
environment – such as crowd
management tools – also facilitates
obtaining deeper insights into overall
participant behaviour. Collecting such
data on a continuous basis allows the
creation of better delegate experiences.
Technology also allows for an
increased reach to complement the
on-site event with virtual elements,
targeting not only professionals who are
no longer allowed to travel but also
audiences who until now were ‘unserved’
with the on-site experience not being
accessible, for whatever reason.
Identifying and implementing these
opportunities will result into a different
value proposal, with a key focus on
engagement, whether that is through
physical or virtual components. As a
The core
mission will
remain the
same: to
bring people
together
for a joint
purpose
and to
enable these
communities
to share
ideas,
plans and
projects.”
Bottom, left:
Juliana López
Bermúdez, CEO
Grupo Heroica
Bottom, right:
Sven Bossu, AIPC’s
CEO
colleague said during a recent meeting:
“We do not run buildings, we manage
experiences”. To deliver upon this, an
even closer partnership between venues,
destination and event organisers is
needed to profoundly understand each
other’s goals and link these with shared
event objectives. In this way, organised
events become platforms for achieving a
multi-layered set of goals.
The classic example is matching
events with regional economic or other
policies. Imagine a region suffering from
high cancer mortality and match this
with a medical congress focusing on
cancer treatment. By using the congress
as a catalyst for creating increased local
awareness on cancer and cancer
treatment and translating this into
tangible action plans, both the local
authorities and the medical congress
achieve their goal. In addition, such an
approach will foster engagement with all
the communities involved, including the
local population.
This is, of course, not new – many
destinations are already exploring these
routes to create other types of value.
What is new is the momentum created
by the current crisis to re-think and
re-shape organised events in ways which
were not conceivable six months ago.
Very similar to the fact that nobody
could imagine that working from home
could actually work on such a massive
scale. Given the concentration of creative
forces within the event ecosystem,
organised events will be back – with a
twist.
ISSUE 108 / CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD / 17