Another show , another Planet ...
Paul Colston puts some questions to Ray Bloom , chairman and founder of the IMEX Group e live in uncertain times . At IMEX you seem to have taken a clear , long-term view and dealt quickly and openly with the 2020 in-person show cancellations and implications . How did that approach help you formulate the PlanetIMEX solution for keeping your / our global community together ? Despite having had to cancel our shows this year , we ’ ve never changed our long-term view of the industry and believe that , in the long run , our community will come back stronger than it has ever been - but it will take time .
Back in March , once we decided that IMEX in Frankfurt wasn ’ t able to take place and our team was working remotely , our thoughts immediately switched – how can we make a contribution to the industry and keep IMEX in touch with our marketplace globally ? In a matter of weeks we had created PlanetIMEX .
Many are suffering in our great events industry community , how confident are you in the adaptability and resilience of the industry , given its experience with overcoming disruptions such as bird flu , volcanoes , global recession , etc ? I have great faith in the future of the industry but am fully aware that it will take time to get back to the scale that we enjoyed previously . We have seen the re-emergence of hybrid meetings and they will undoubtedly play an important part in our industry going forward . In the long term ( once travel is enabled ) I believe that , even with the added element of hybrid meetings , meetings and events will return to the levels they once were .
What has the industry learnt in terms of political lobbying ; how much more can be done for governments to truly recognise and support the business events sector ? Meetings Means Business is a good example of an organisation that was established in a previous crisis ( the economic crisis ) and therefore has experience of lobbying during difficult periods . I sit on the board of the coalition which provides a very useful function , mainly in North America , bringing together the industry and lobbying government .
Looking outside of North America , while a great deal of work is going on within the UK , our industry is very disparate and we ’ re competing with many other sectors that also need government support . We often don ’ t like to explain our industry in terms of economic impact , because we know that bringing people together means so much more . However , economic impact figures resonate with politicians and we have some powerful stats to hand to convince them of the value of our industry . A good deal of work is happening but there ’ s more to be done both at local level as well as national level . However , there has been one overriding goal for our sector over the past few months – securing government approval to host meetings and events in the UK . In this matter the sector has worked very well together . In fact , it ’ s reasonable to say that the industry has come together more during Covid-19 than at any other period I ’ ve ever experienced .
What new skills and experiences have you and your team learned during this period , in terms of technology and new approaches to business ? Our team is structured and focused around delivery of live tradeshows . In the digital world , however , everything was new . The IMEX Group had to learn to work in a new way and adopted an agile project management approach while collaborating for the first-time using Microsoft Teams . The collaboration process created many cross-team squads who worked together and really fostered a strong sense of teamwork and pride . www . conference-news . co . uk