Exhibition World Issue 4 — 2020 | Page 25

JMIC campaign who led one of the regional webiars, added: “Businesses and governments realise that the most effective way to communicate is through live events. That’s why we were in a high in January 2020. We must remember and convey that in our messaging.” Some urgency was injected by Lesley Williams, MD BestCities, who said it was “tragic” that our industry has had to practically crumble before government realised how valuable it is. Along with the strong comments underlining the value of meetings, Lyn Lewis-Smith, CEO of Business Events Sydney noted that “the world had changed and turned upside down and stopped in its tracks in terms of us acquiring international events”. Fellow Aussie Geoff Donaghy, CEO of ICC Sydney added that industry revenues had dried up in Australia: “The A$35bn that industry creates is no longer happening and that money is not flowing through to local businesses.” It was a chain of thought echoed by Maurits van der Sluis, COO of RAI Amsterdam, who noted: “A lot of people are without work and a lot of companies are going bankrupt.” Alessandro Cortese, CEO, European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology, made the point that the losses were by no means just financial. “There is now less interaction at scientific level and fewer transfers between the business world and science and the development world,” he said, while Tommy Goodwin, International Association Advocacy Practitioner, said universities were missing collaborations and local government was not leveraging knowledge because of the lack of conferencing. It was a point IAPCO CEO Martin Boyle, attempted to answer: “Governments that are serious about their economic and social recovery should be looking for drivers to facilitate this. I believe the business events industry will do “Business events are a strategic tool in innovation ecosystems” just that.” James Rees, ICCA president, added that introducing a destination to such knowledge-rich communities was indeed a driver for transformation and a perfect platform which, in turn, could secure the investment and knowledge transfer they require. Kai Hattendorf reminded that it was exactly exhibitions and business events that were the meeting places and market places that everyone needs to recover after Covid-19. Professor Clark concentrated on the relationship between meetings and business events and cities, noting that business events contributed to diversification and projected the soft power of a city. Meetings also provided strategic connections and long-term legacy in terms of breadth of supply chains. Meetings could also help form a new normal, noted professor Clark and he identified several themes for the future, including nations becoming more self-sufficient in critical goods, a massive uptick in digitisation, new implications for human health and the environment and better connectivity. Meetings should be aligning with these themes, he thought, and added there would also be new spatial patterns and ways of organising our lives, which all provided critical challenges but opportunities, too. Business events, he said, are a strategic tool in innovation ecosystems. Professor Clark also saw associations as great “accelerators” for destinations, providing unique opportunities for storytelling and branding. He did warn, however, that the coming likely recession and restrictions on travel would have a “dulling effect” on the market. He saw a more blended meetings model between digital and real physical meetings emerging and forecast more clusterisation and combined events. In another of the video clips, Arnaldo Nardone, director FIEXPO group, Uruguay, drew the distinction between organised business events and uncontrolled gatherings. “We can control events and meetings; we know the people who are coming; we know we have excellent protocols.” Singexpo Singapore’s CEO and president of venue association AIPC, Aloysius Arlando weighed in with some wise words. “Events need not be just a physical event but ongoing web engagement,” he noted. And he urged us all “not to waste a crisis. Necessity is the mother of invention”. IBTM World director Shane Hamann warned that events in future would look very different and the GCB’s Matthias Schultze advised working “on innovative concepts and to think future events on different levels; F2F, hybrid and purely digital”. BE Sydney CEO Lyn Lewis-Smith thought immediate future meetings would likely be local, and the problem would be how we beam them to the world. Tommy Goodwin believed that destinations that were better at embedding their event in the community would have a competitive advantage. “Destinations that get it right will have a huge leg up,” he said. After the Manifesto is published, what is to be done with it? David Peckinpaugh, president Maritz Global Events urged the industry to focus on economics when dealing with politicians. Lewis-Smith said the narrative needed to be around innovation and knowledge. “This is our opportunity to be heard and become a strategic partner.” Caroline Teugels added that we should be seen as not being in the long queue for handouts from governments but in the short queue for helping drive forward economies. We leave the last word with professor Clark: “We should position business events for the agenda that emerges out of Covid-19. Not just critical to recovery, meetings are powerhouses for the future shape of economy we wish to have.” www.exhibitionworld.co.uk Issue 4 2020 25