As we head towards the end of 2020 , our industry is poised , ready and eager to welcome back live events . The one thing that we have had little influence over is how corporate companies have reacted to Covid and how they have adapted their event strategies for this year and next but understanding their actions and being able to react will help us all to plan for 2021 . To get an insight into how corporates have adapted their event strategies , I spoke to Candice Kass , an in-house organiser within the educational sector with over 14 years ’ experience , as well as a corporate event planner from a major energy company who wished to remain anonymous .
“ Our events strategy hasn ’ t changed ,” explaines Kass , “ but we will be looking at how our virtual offering is received , and this will feed into how we plan our events for 2021 and 2022 . We are running our first online conference next month . The appetite seems to be there so we will review following this .”
In the energy sector , the corporate event manager has seen a massive shift from live events to online events this year . “ The number of regular events has reduced , perhaps due to a shift in focus and personnel changes . Companies are putting their energy into trying to adapt to reduce loss or survive . However , as time goes on , we are seeing
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engagement levels drop with online experiences . Therefore , the challenge now is to keep audiences engaged , motivated , and up to speed using the tools and means we currently have .”
Budget changes will be dependent on the industry , the audience and the purpose of the event . Kass says that her budget is unlikely to decrease next year because “ we feel we have a strong audience base that rely on our events for their CPD .” While in the energy sector , budgets are being reduced : “ Our event budgets are cut as revenue has reduced and therefore savings need to be made across the business . I ’ d say roughly budgets have been cut by around 50 %, for events that we know are happening , with an even heavier focus on ROI ,” the corporate event manager says .
Neither corporate event manager is planning any live events this quarter though . “ We were planning on holding our national conference as a physical event in November , unfortunately we have had to pivot to an online offering very quickly due to venue intervention and customer confidence decreasing daily . We also had to postpone all of our regional conferences until 2021 ,” says Kass .
The organiser from the energy sector is also planning only online events this year , saying : “ Some of our events have been postponed to 2021 , but most have been cancelled until further notice or turned into online experiences . The sector that I work in does not want to pioneer
Jill Hawkins speaks to corporate organisers to find out how their event strategies have evolved to accommodate 2020 www . conference-news . co . uk