LIGHT AT THE
END OF THE TUNNEL
efore I joined Conference News four years ago I
worked on the web desk for a broadsheet
newspaper. Part of my job was to cover breaking
stories over the newswires, and in the space of
about three weeks I found myself leading rolling coverage of
two plane crashes and the death of Muhammad Ali. What I
learned from those intense experiences – especially the air
disasters – was that coverage moves in natural stages. It
starts with the bang, moves to scrabbling for facts, then sets
into a rhythm of analysis before the true scale of the
consequences come to light some time later. You must, at all
costs, avoid overloading your readers with too many opinions
from too many sources.
The Covid19 pandemic has swung an axe through the
events industry like nothing before it. There is no business in
the land – Hell, maybe the world – which hasn’t been
impacted. As you can imagine, this magazine looks very
different to how it was supposed to only two weeks ago. As
the dawning realisation of the gravity of the situation
became clear, I’ve had to make some changes. Some
content went in before it really kicked off, so you may take
comfort to learn that there is still plenty of content in here for
‘normal times’.
I have been inundated with calls and offers from people
who want to share their views on this crisis, but I have
5
Editor’s Letter
resisted all of them. Over the last couple of decades, we
have been saturated with ‘experts’, and now when we
actually need proper ones, a lot of people don’t want to trust
them. For this issue’s Covid19 coverage we have stuck to
facts, speaking only to the trade associations who are
working on your behalf.
Here, we have been working incredibly hard to help you as
best we can. Since the last issue I have been on BBC News
and LBC twice, as well as fielding calls from newspapers. We
even wrote an open letter to prime minister Boris Johnson,
asking for more funding and the deferment of new IR35
rules – the latter of which I’m pleased to say was considered.
Make no mistake, this is a dark time for the events
industry, but there may be signs the clouds could be
beginning to lift in Asia.
China, South Korea and Singapore may be the first
countries coming out of the other side, and while that offers
little consolation to those with an empty business diary
today, there is, at least, light at the end of the tunnel.
We are here, in part, because we have been unable to
raise sufficient awareness of the value of the business visits
and events industry. This must change, now. Tell everyone
you meet that it is worth £70bn to our country and – to date
at least – employs 700,000 eventprofs. The government has
a duty to look after us all. We are all in this together.
Martin Fullard
Editor
Conference News
www.conference-news.co.uk