Opinion
Stay connected, look ahead
AEV director Rachel Parker, with
the help of member venues,
continues to push the agenda to
government and support learning
through AEV’s own initiatives
W
e don’t know when it will be,
and we don’t know how it will
happen, but the whole event industry
will need to be quick out of the gate
when the Covid-19 restrictions are
finally relaxed enough to allow events,
exhibitions and conferences to resume
in the UK.
To call this a challenge is a
breathtaking understatement, given the
current situation and the lack of any
clear milestones on the way towards
the eventual lifting of restrictions. The
establishment of the new norms we are
all going to have to adopt is a long way
off.
But it is obvious to everyone that
this necessary moratorium on mass
gatherings will be amongst the last to be
lifted, which puts the event industry in
an even more difficult position - having
to catch up with a fragile economy
48 — May
March
that will be badly in need of confident
consumers.
It’s gut-wrenching to see this trail
of economic devastation spread, and
frustrating to have to stand by and
seemingly watch it all unfold. However,
there is much to do between now and
the time when we can hold events again,
and the pressure is on for the AEV,
ESSA and the AEO to make sure that
our members are primed and ready.
Together, the associations continue
to lobby government departments for
specific interventions on behalf of the
event industry, including the Ministry
of Housing, Community and Local
Government. We have advocated on
the need for business rates relief for
exhibition & conference centres, and
asked the Department for Culture
Media and Sport for the inclusion of the
event industry in the ‘leisure, tourism
and hospitality’ support package
planned by the government.
A number of our members will
continue to have meetings with the
Minister for Tourism, to express our
position and contribute to government
planning. We are stressing at every
opportunity that clarity and inclusion
of the event industry on any relief
packages, whether they are event
industry-specific, or under the leisure,
tourism & hospitality umbrella, is
critical. Above all, we want to seek
clarity and guidance on when mass
gatherings will be allowed to run again.
Staying in communication and
supporting member engagement with
working groups, the board, the EIA,
and individual members has become
the focus of our internal activities now.
We pulled together a virtual EIA Board
meeting for each association to share
how their members were being affected
and to start the discussions on how we
will continue to work together to get
the events back up and running. Our
working groups have switched to virtual
meetings too.
Through the working groups, board
meetings, cross-association groups
and member contacts, we are looking
forward to what venues and the
industry will need to do when mass
gatherings are once again permitted.
There will be new cleaning regimes,
catering specifications, and exhibition
layout considerations needed, to pick
just three examples. Our newly created
AEV Events Reopen Ops Group will be
looking into all these areas, together
with organisers and suppliers, to
produce guidance and advice for the
industry.
We accept the reality of many
months of social distancing measures
in some form, and we will work with
the government and its agencies to
bring about the return of live events
and gatherings as soon and as safely as
possible. We will continue to make our
voices heard at the highest level in our
efforts to protect and ensure the future
of the UK event industry, as the future
of many others will depend on it.