Charlee Gough (pictured), divisional director for corporate at MCI, a global engagement and marketing agency, talks to CMW about corporate events, recruitment challenges and sustainability within the industry. Click here to read the feature in the CMW May/June 2022 Magazine.
How far has the international events industry recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic?
The word ‘recovered’ seems to suggest that everything will go back to the way it was, but I don’t think the industry will look the same as it did before. So, I don’t believe it can recover in the same way.
People are getting braver and are starting to look at how they can potentially bring face-to-face back. There is certainly a lot of excitement about coming back together, but there still seems to be quite a lot of nervousness from a client perspective.
In recent experience, organisations are leaving these decisions to the last minute. As an industry we’re getting a lot of last-minute requests from clients who seem nervous to commit. There isn’t long term planning going on. Whereas before brands would plan out their activations, meetings and engagement strategies throughout the year and into the next. Currently, things seem to be very immediate because of uncertainty around corporate budgets, stakeholder buy in and the disruption of Covid-19.
With this lack of long-term planning and shortening of lead times from clients, teams are forced into a reaction mode. Therefore, instead of ‘recovery’ for the international events industry, it’s reaction.
Recovery also suggests we’ll return to the same point again, I don’t think we will. You could say that the industry is showing signs of growth again, but I don’t think you could say it’s recovering or recovered.
Are event organisers still planning to use hybrid and virtual events in the post pandemic world?
Yes, this is never going away. I think every event that we do in a face-to-face environment these days will have a hybrid element. There have been seismic changes to how people want to engage and interact; some are keen to have that in-person experience, while others prefer to be remote and have on-demand options. We’re seeing a blend of that, with one day in-person and the next as a virtual experience. It’s an expectation from the attendee to have that ability to choose whether they attend. From a corporate perspective, companies will need to have that flexibility for their internal and external audiences.
The interesting thing is that virtual events have been cheaper. Especially for corporate internal kick offs and sales meetings because they’re not having to make anybody travel, with additional expenses to pay. Plus, there’re no venue or catering costs.
I also think that most organisations now have a platform that they’re licensing, so there’s no additional setup fees. It’s just using what they already have and what they’re comfortable with. That took a long time to get to, but a lot of the big corporates now have two or three platforms that they prefer to use.
The minute you go back to face-to-face, your budgets need to significantly increase, with hybrid being two different experiences.
That’s the educational thing for me, is getting clients to understand that hybrid doesn’t mean that everybody has the same experience. We have so many clients saying ‘we want everyone to have the same experience’. That’s just not going to happen, you must treat them as two separate events and treat those two audiences as separate. You must make sure you’re handling them individually, and that is essentially two different events.
On-demand features are essential. Even if you were to go to a face-to-face event, there is an expectation from attendees to have access to online content. Whether or not you’re streaming live from an event, there should be an expectation that you are recording everything. With the added uncertainty of whether people can travel to the in-person experience, you need to be prepared with virtual as a contingency.
The cost of hybrid makes it prohibitive to some people and at that point they’ll just stick with virtual for a while. The bigger events will likely have a hybrid element.
Are event organisers currently finding recruitment into the industry an issue?
Absolutely. The industry was massively impacted by the pandemic and as there are more enquiries for in-person events, across the board it seems to be hugely challenging to find the talent.
With all the short-term planning from clients, you’re just reacting, and everything needs to be done quickly as the event’s only six weeks away. You can’t recruit quick enough. It’s finding that balance of getting new work to grow and support your team and clients. It’s tricky and it seems to be the same across many global agencies, with hundreds of vacancies available across the industry.
How has sustainability changed the nature of event organising since COP26?
To be totally honest I don’t think it’s had much impact at present, as we haven’t gone back to everybody flying around the world to attend events. What it has done is given the industry more opportunities to talk to clients about ways to be sustainable and inclusive.
When they do think about coming back to in-person, that’s where we can see more of that positive change being discussed and implemented. That’s not to say that virtual events don’t have a carbon footprint and need to be more accessible, but we can look at the wider impact of events holistically. We were involved in COP26, and we’re passionate about the World Charter that we signed. With shorter lead times to events, ensuring sustainable practices are becoming more challenging.
However, we’re seeing requests from our association clients, who usually have much longer lead times to their events, wanting to have impact reports done. Where possible we always encourage this and for best sustainable practices to be scoped out. For us all to reach those SDGs, we need to work together and have a long-term holistic mindset.
