Event organizers are problem solvers. It is normal for us to deal with obstacles. Even though the scale of this obstacle is the biggest some of us have ever dealt with, it is our nature to figure it out.
As long as we are legally allowed to gather by the government of the destination, we are required to fulfill our contracts in many cases. We need to fulfill the goals of the event but we don’t know how else to do it. These are two of many compelling reasons event organizers are trying to solve the problem of how to gather attendees in 2020.
Just because you can design a floorplan that tries to keep your attendees six feet apart and you can order masks with your sponsor’s logo on them, and serve food in containers, doesn’t mean that you should. We’re talking about nasal swab tests before our attendees can enter the event. What about a waiver that says if you get sick, you won’t sue us?
The atmosphere we are creating by making it all work “on paper” does not translate to an environment that will be conducive to achieving our objectives, or our attendees’. If we proceed with these plans, it will be the biggest risk most of us have ever taken.
Hosting an event within these parameters isn’t the answer. Collaboration and problem solving are the results of us bringing people together. This is the value of what we produce, not the gross domestic product of what we spend. The magic created is often a byproduct of our work and will not occur in these scenarios. Our attendees need to have intimate conversations to make that magic happen.
If we are bringing people together, only to keep them apart, then why are we doing it?
I welcome you to leave a comment in the box below and let’s get a dialog going.
Elizabeth Glau, CMP, is CEO of Event Integrity and one of Prevue’s Industry Influencers.
