How were you able to adapt during COVID-19 when the meeting and events industry got disrupted?
COVID has brought the biggest challenges I have seen to the event industry since the devastating events of 2001 and financial crisis of 2008. First challenge, the transformation. I had never been tasked with pivoting on format so quickly. “Pivot” and “time of uncertainty” – if I never have to hear these terms again, it will make me the happiest planner in the universe. As it was becoming more and more clear that our largest event was in jeopardy, the AME International Conference that had been taking place in-person for 36 years - I had to accept these terms and begin our strategy for moving forward. First step was to focus on the skill set required to make informed decisions. As any good planner would do, I went to our top industry resources for guidance and found what I needed through countless hours of educational and informational webinars, articles, social media industry group chats, virtual events, benchmarking, certification programs, and basically sought out every possible opportunity to enhance my knowledge of virtual events. This was all in an effort to find the golden nuggets of information that would increase my virtual knowledge base and help me become fully immersed in all things related to strategy, planning and executing virtual events. As a part of my development process, I even found a minute to earn the Certified Meeting Professional (CMP), after over 20 years in the industry.
I appreciate how the event industry associations and partners worked quickly to turn out content to keep us (first) informed, (then) trained, and (now) updated for moving forward with virtual and hybrid events as well as towards getting back to the business of in-person events. Another challenge in the transformation process was the learning curve. All the typical jargon I have been fully versed in over the last 20 years took on a whole new meaning – broadcast, webcast, hybrid, platform, streaming provider, bandwidth, network traffic, on demand, API, background, chat box, encoders, transcoding, network speed, dedicated connection, modem, router, data integration, tech support, PII, GDPR, optimized, digital security, time zones, oh my!
Defining our virtual value proposition was another COVID related challenge. What value will a virtual conference provide to our members? How many days should the virtual format contain, how much content, how many hours? After creating a lengthy list of questions that would later be used to define our virtual strategy, I pulled together a virtual committee comprised of a few of our fabulous AME volunteers and staff. This A-team would help to make the tough decisions about our next steps. As a not-for-profit 501c3 association, we know that maintaining a conference that generates revenue is key to ensuring that we have a future. So we began the thoughtful planning of strategy and the realization that we were in a position to re-create, re-imagine and re-invent our approach to design.
I think the hardest obstacle I had to tackle were all the major adjustments that had to be made to accommodate not only the virtual environment but the stakeholder expectations. First things first, I had to level-set. Collaboration was key now more than ever – with speakers, keynotes, CVBs, DMCs, hoteliers, staff, volunteers, vendor partners, exhibitors, sponsors, attendees and our national board on important items like the budget, planning, experience and outcome. With the prominent challenges of creating a conference that encompasses learning and networking, in an environment where you can’t be with each other to have those engaging experiences, it was clear that innovation was needed. In the virtual environment engagement is everything. Engage, engage, engage! Did I mention we need to focus on engagement? Recognizing that not all elements of an in-person event will translate to virtual is critical. Realizing that technology will not always be there to work for us without fault is paramount. The rate of change is rapid and remote innovations are important, down to the virtual delivery method. I began a conversation with our speakers around virtual format and style and a revolution of new delivery methods came about for us – we went from the standard talking head to interviews and storytelling methods.
We must push on. Don’t waste a crisis, as I have continually been told (and just recently reminded of by my new friend Luke). Virtual and hybrid events are here to stay, let’s face it. Our 2020 conference was a success – connecting over 1200 lean and continuous improvement leaders from around the world virtually for the first time – and offered over 30 hours of on demand content (another first!) Virtual went from a nice to have to an essential part of the events industry, literally overnight. Our 2021 conference will be nothing less. I accept that I have a lot more learning and benchmarking to do. I am looking forward to the days of being onsite again – back to the precon meeting, the much-anticipated keynote opening session, the smell of fresh lanyards and badges, the daily 80,249 steps around the venue (with blisters to boot), the end-of-day continuous improvement debriefs, the smiling faces of our exhibitors and staff and, my personal favorite, the AME standard conference-closing high-five. Our next in-person conference-closing high-five is in the somewhat near future; I can feel it in my planner bones. And this high-five will mean more to us than ever before – and we will embrace it with familiarity and a sense of normalcy – followed by a spritz of hand sanitizer.
As a planner, what was the number one thing you learned over the past year?
I would say the number one thing I learned over the past year is that virtual events are a lot of work! You basically have to be ready for the technology to fail, spend tons of time educating and prepping each of your stakeholders and ensuring you have enough staff and resources to support your event. Also, there is no copy and paste from the previous year!
Is there anything you are changing in your planning process moving forward as a result of the pandemic?