The Show Must Go On – Event Industry Rising To The Challenge Of COVID-19

We are navigating this public health crisis one day at a time. To flatten the curve, businesses are shutting down for the foreseeable future. And if there is one industry that is disrupted, it is the event industry. Waking up to event cancellations has become the new normal thanks to COVID-19, and the event industry is being asked to find ways both to survive the losses caused by this storm but also think of new ways to protect the health and safety of its staff, sponsors and event attendees.

Canceled Events Have Affected All Industries

According to estimates that data intelligence company PredictHQ pulled for Recode, the direct economic loss from the cancellation of more than 10 major tech conferences has surpassed $1.1 billion. And considering this was reported back in March, that the figure is assuredly much greater than that. 

The biggest tech loss was incurred by GSMA's Mobile World Congress that amounted to $480 million, as it was supposed to host more than 100,000 attendees in Barcelona in February. South by Southwest (SXSW), which had 280,000 attendees last year, also announced its cancellation, resulting in at least $350 million in direct losses. Alphabet Inc's GOOGL GOOGL I/O, a 5,000-person developer conference, had a direct loss estimate of nearly $20 million. On the bright side, Facebook FB, Adobe Inc ADBE and Apple Inc AAPL all had virtual components to their events, allowing them to salvage some portion of their conferences.

The French Open at Roland Garros has been postponed until September. French Open organizers are holding on to a thread in an effort to try avoiding losses amounting to $284 million.

As for the Olympic games, there is an additional cost of ¥22.5 billion (approx. $206.8 million) in terms of extra maintenance costs for venues and the Olympic Village. Another ¥390 billion (approx. $3.6 billion) will be needed to keep organizations in place for a whole year. And post-Olympics effects will take a hit of  ¥218 billion (approx. $2 billion) as a result of the delay. The U.S. television network NBC owned by Comcast Corporation CMCSA paid the IOC $4.38 billion for the rights to the games through 2020 so hopefully, it doesn't interfere with their 2021 summer program.

The new James Bond film, Daniel Craig's last, has been postponed for November, costing MGM MGM Studios $30 million. Even Tom Cruise's eagerly awaited Maverick has also been postponed, as it needs to pack theaters to return its investment of over $150 million.

Event organizers planning large events in the COVID-19 aftermath will surely need to be in contact with both local and national public health authorities for a long time after all this is over.  Even when authorities start allowing large gatherings, there will need to be serious precautions and potentially more severe hygiene regulations.

New Trends And Best Practices To Cope With This Large-Scale Disruption

Virtual events are taking place more than ever during the last few weeks as almost half of the world's population is stuck at home. Meetings and conferences have been redesigned to become virtual events and they are doing a great job in keeping people connected. Just ask Microsoft Corporation MSFT whose Teams application now has over 44 million users.

But as this crisis comes to an end, there will likely be a lot of hybrid events that will feature a mix of live and virtual components. For example, The Event Institute in Paris has not given up its activities, as it's organizing virtual open doors for its prospective students at its LéCOLE which trains future event managers across Paris' finest venues. Of course, the logistics involved in such type of events is more complex as it requires both the physical and digital infrastructure. 

We do not know how or when this crisis will end, but we know it will end. So, rest assured, the event industry will be among the first to adapt its operations to the new post-COVID-19 era that awaits us. 

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