REIMAGINE THAT
Kate
Bullard and Michelle Rees , directors , Eventprofslive , discuss the changing face of corporate events e are currently in a period of reimagination for corporate events . To ensure an event and the content delivered are enticing and beneficial to all parties , we need to rethink our whole approach .
While this is super exciting and provides several opportunities for planners to grow , develop , and be creative , there are also many challenges that we are currently facing . According to the conversations we have within our Eventprofslive network , this seems to be an issue for all of us .
Short lead times Events taking place in 2022 come with a new ballgame . In terms of lead times , many of our events have terse ones . This not only puts us event planners under extreme pressure , but also every other stakeholder ( internal and external ) we work with . Short lead times are also having a knock-on effect on the different challenges set out below .
Response times Venues , agencies and other suppliers within the industry were struck with scaling back their teams via redundancies , and the staff shortages are now impacting planners . Gone are the days of a 48-hour response time ; we are now looking at five to seven days ( and in some cases no reply at all promoting copious time spent chasing ). Unfortunately , this does mean that many companies are losing out on business due to
Michelle Rees and Kate Bullard
these slow response times ; it is very much the fastest response that will win the business now .
Understanding appetite We pride ourselves on having all the stats to help us predict the number of attendees , cancellations and no-shows at our events . We ’ ve honed this skill over many , many years . But currently , these stats are utterly unknown to us ( it ’ s a guessing game ). Understanding the appetite of our delegates to attend events varies week from week , and we now question ourselves daily with questions such as ‘ are Tuesday ’ s the new Thursday to hold events due to hybrid working ?’; ‘ are content-led events so 2019 and it is now all about experiences ?’.
Contracting Signing contracts can now take up to two weeks due to the stricter guidelines and processes in place , with legal teams having to review and sign off on all
contracts with external suppliers . Setting expectations with venues / suppliers is key to this , on top of asking for their contracts / T & Cs upfront in the initial brief , to speed up this process – that has been a big lesson to us all .
Budgets Budgets have always been a challenge . Sadly , those of us working in the corporate world don ’ t always have as big a budget as venues / suppliers might think we do . And these are , in some instances , even smaller than ever . As many of us have had limited event spend over the past two years and not set budgets since late 2019 , the 2022 costs have been a big surprise in some cases . Natural inflation , combined with the impact of Brexit , staff shortages , supply chain issues and the recouping costs from the pandemic , has meant we are facing some tricky conversations both internally and externally . CN www . conference-news . co . uk