The importance of community to the survival of the event industry

Events are meetings of micro communities – people with specific interests in business, music & entertainment, fitness or sport. The pandemic has highlighted how valuable community is to all aspects of society. Connection, shared interest, learning, interaction cannot be replicated online – this is gained through connection and shared experience. Brands that have flourished during lockdown have been online community driven such as Brewdog – who have run initiatives such as hand sanitiser production and even offering their bars as vaccination centres. The titan online fitness clothing brand Gymshark always smash it with their community engagement and the bringing together of local restaurants with online delivery has boomed for companies such as JustEat, Deliveroo and our newest client Weezy who deliver 15 minute groceries to local London communities.

The key to getting the IRL events sector back up and running – is highlighting of value of events as the bringing of communities back together safely. But there will undeniably need to be changes but these may also inadvertently benefit the industry. The one gripe of exhibitors at tradeshows has been that visitors haven’t been targeted or relevant to their company. Working on stands myself – I often had discussions with non relevant sales marketers and members of the public – this will have to change for events to come back safely.

Safety is going to be a key factor when brands and organisers consider running an event and their undeniably will need to be changes. Organisers will require greater targeting pre-event promotion to reach their community. There will also need to be more detailed pre-event registration to ensure that visitors are properly monitored before arriving at venues. Smaller venues and pop-up events for instance such as retail pop ups are also perfect events for brands to consider – they are in small-medium spaces, are always highly targeted and always encourage social media interaction which further grows the community.

The event industry as a whole has come together as a community during the lockdown. ESSA – the Event Supplier and Services Association and the AEO – Association of Event Organisers and the AEV – Association of Event Venues – have brought together their event supplier communities. The Ops Nest – a team of event organiser professionals have also had numerous community events and CIPD qualifications.

We need to continue to inspire confidence and promote the value of events as community events – as a highly targeted meeting of people and promoting the benefit and value of bringing together people of shared interest offline when we can meet together safely again.

experience staff are a worldwide event staff, exhibition and promotional staffing agency. We provide legally employed, professional event staffing solutions for events, pop ups and roadshows across the United Kingdom, Europe and Worldwide. We have created thousands of effective staffing experiences for marketing agencies and event organisers. Our agency is a proud member of the IPM – the Institute of Promotional Marketing the trade body representing the promotional and event services industry. We are a Covid-19 safe agency and provide safe, social distancing staffing services and best practice for our clients.