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platforms. The label never felt like it captured what we actually did.
That’ s partly an industry communications failure, and partly human nature. Doctors say they’ re doctors. Lawyers say they’ re lawyers. We tend to say what we made or who we worked for, because‘ events’ doesn’ t tell the story.
EW: Would you like to see a day when you say,“ I work in events”, and you ' re not met with a confused stare? Genuinely, yes. Because the confused stare reflects a gap in understanding that costs us. It costs us talent, brilliant people who don ' t consider the industry because they don ' t know it exists in the way it does. It costs us credibility in rooms where decisions are made about our sector. And it costs us our own sense of professional identity, which matters more than people admit.
I ' d love for“ I work in events” to carry the same immediate weight as " I work in media " or“ I work in finance”. We’ re not there yet. But we ' re not trying hard enough either.
EW: Do you think the industry has a perception problem, or does it simply not matter that we’ re not in the public consciousness? It matters. I used to think it didn’ t, that we were a B2B industry, and the general public ' s awareness of us was irrelevant. I ' ve changed my mind on that.
Public perception shapes political perception. It shapes where smart graduates look for careers. It shapes how journalists and policymakers frame our value. If nobody outside our world understands what we do, we’ re permanently fighting on the back foot whenever we need to make a case for ourselves. And increasingly, we do need to make that case.
EW: Do you think better public awareness would help us have more productive conversations with governments? Without question. When I was at
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Clarion, the conversations around venue contracts, international travel, visa access, planning permissions, all of it, were harder than they needed to be because we were constantly having to explain our own value before we could get to the actual issue. If policymakers understood instinctively that a single major trade exhibition drives millions into a local economy, creates thousands of jobs and serves as genuine trade infrastructure, those conversations start from a completely different place.
The pandemic made this brutally clear. Events were among the last sectors to reopen, with very little political will to prioritise us. We didn’ t have the public visibility or the narrative infrastructure to argue our case loudly enough. That was a failure we need to learn from.
EW: Do you think perceptions might shift once AI takes hold and face-to-face becomes the only truly trustworthy medium of exchange? This is the one I find most interesting, and most hopeful. There ' s already evidence that people are recalibrating how much they trust digital interaction. When everything can be generated, simulated or fabricated, being in a room with someone carries a weight it simply didn ' t before.
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“ We’ re not the old-fashioned alternative to digital. We’ re the verification layer. We’ re the place where the trust that makes business possible actually gets built.” |
Not just emotionally, but commercially and legally. A handshake at a trade show means something different when you ' ve been in the same space, breathed the same air, and looked each other in the eye.
The industry has a genuine opportunity here to reframe what we do. We’ re not the old-fashioned alternative to digital. We’ re the verification layer. We’ re the place where the trust that makes business possible actually gets built. If we can say that clearly and mean it, I think the perception shifts quite quickly.
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