Oddity Events
Describe how Oddity has changed since the pandemic took hold , and how will you broadly approach the return to live business ? As a young business we are quite agile . Before the pandemic we mostly worked flexibly and remotely anyway , so it wasn ’ t a huge overhaul in that sense . For us it was more about ensuring we could still be creative , communicative and collaborative .
When we go ‘ back to business ’ we will operate a largely similar remote working structure , with one day a week when we ’ re all together , but for me the priority is to encourage the team to go out to events , go to venues , meet suppliers so they can start to restore those important relationships and gather points of reference for delivering great live events again .
Has the pandemic shifted the skillset you require from your events personnel ; are you placing a greater emphasis on the need for digital skills ? Yes , there is more emphasis on digital skills however I think the identity of some eventprofs is evolving from ‘ event manager ’ to ‘ project manager ’ which covers a very broad spectrum of skills , including digital . In the past I would always call myself an event manager above anything else , but now we are dipping our toes in other areas to ensure our offering stays relevant ( content production , digital marketing and strategic communications ) it ’ s clear that our skills as eventprofs are hugely transferable across multiple
marketing disciplines . Perhaps we have always been project managers , but in disguise .
Tell us about your recruitment plans for 2021 , including full / part time staff and the use of freelancers . Oddity ’ s model as a start-up is to be lean and scalable . There are only four ‘ official Oddities ', but we have a network of great freelancers that we call upon when delivering more complex projects .
Luckily , our little agency has survived the course of the pandemic ( so far ) and we are now projecting growth in 2021 . At the moment it ’ s hard to say what the permanent workforce at Oddity will evolve into while confidence in our industry rebuilds , so I ’ m keen to keep the business very lean while the dust settles . My ambition is to launch an internship programme where we can make use of a great pool of young talent and allow them to gain valuable experience , but also get the extra help we need .
We will also continue to support our freelance friends through the very competitive and uncertain landscape . Hopefully we will be in a position to make some permanent new hires in 2022 . Watch this space .
Tim Collet , head of live events , WRG , a division of The Creative
Engagement Group
Describe how WRG and TCEG has changed since the pandemic took hold , and how will you broadly approach the return to live business ? The change that has happened within our business during the pandemic has been something of a paradox , while the need to create
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physical meetings went away , the need for rich and engaging virtual connections has increased over ten-fold .
Our virtual and hybrid team have been at the forefront of supporting the training and development of our people to deliver engaging virtual [ online ] productions as well as seamless virtual logistics . But flawless delivery has not been enough , by keeping true to our content-first philosophy of creating moments that inspire lasting change , we have launched our behavioral science unit which has helped us build human engagement in this online world .
The return to live will come slowly and having an integrated virtual [ online ] and live event team will enable us to be able to move people into the right projects as they come through .
We are investing in our team now to ensure we have the right capacity and skillset in place for the return .
Has the pandemic shifted the skillset you require from your events personnel ; are you placing a greater emphasis on the need for digital skills ? As we look forward to a return in live business we are conscious that the world has changed and there will an even greater place for digital in all our engagements our need for digitally savvy team members will be a must in the future .
Tell us about your recruitment plans for 2021 , including full / part time staff and the use of freelancers . We are currently recruiting for full time live and virtual [ online ] online event producers , project coordinators and technicians . The use of freelance resource will always be part of our industry and our ability to deliver at pace and www . conference-news . co . uk