This post is part of the HopSkip Planner Spotlight Series where HopSkip spotlight's planners across the industry to bring awareness of how they adapted to COVID-19, communicating and lessons learned and sharing how they are viewing the meetings and events industry in a post-pandemic world.
Name: Alicia Montanaro
Company Name: Sports Video Group
Job Title: Meetings and Events Manager
Years of Experience: 5
How do you think you are positioned, after months of persevering with the pandemic, to take advantage of our new and disrupted meetings/events landscape?
At Sports Video Group, we have positioned ourselves well throughout the pandemic to become truly adaptable and resilient. Zoom has especially become one of our most valuable assets and we plan to continue using it moving forward. It has been vital to connect face-to-face with our members, sponsors, executive committees, and internal team during this unpredictable time. For example, when the pandemic first started in 2020 and the NAB Show in Las Vegas was cancelled, we utilized Zoom to connect with all of our sponsors that we would have normally caught up with at the show for our SVG Sports Tech On Demand series. This series allowed our sponsors to continue to share their latest product releases, projects, and company news with the SVG community. It was so beneficial to our sponsors and our members that we launched a 2021 version of the series the following year. We want to continue generating this type of interpersonal content to keep our supporters updated in all facets of the sports and media industry. In addition, Zoom provided a platform that allowed us to continue having events! When we were unable to meet in person throughout the pandemic, we were still able to gather speakers and transition to holding virtual panels for all of our normal events. At the end of our events, we also hosted speaker Q&A Zoom rooms that allowed attendees to network, directly connect with panelists, and ask specific questions.
As our community moves forward with planning in person meetings, what new technologies or processes are you implementing that you may have not looked at before?
First and foremost, we are following guidelines/processes to keep everyone safe at in-person events, including (but not limited to) vaccination checks, providing masks, wiping down microphones after sessions, and a heavier focus on QR-codes to stay informed. We will also continue to leverage Zoom and other virtual components to prepare for hybrid-events. Another technique that has helped us tap more into the community after a streamed virtual event is promoting on-demand videos to the attendees. With upcoming live and in-person events, we plan to build out our on-demand platform to attract viewers at their own convenience and keep our content prevalent long after its airdate.
As we see virtual meetings transition back to face to face, hybrid meetings are beginning to be the vehicle to return to normalcy. What are your thoughts on hybrid meetings versus traditional fully in person meetings?
The hybrid meetings space is definitely something Sports Video Group will be putting more effort towards in 2022. Over the last two years, we’ve seen a greater reach towards new attendees that may not have been able to attend our in-person events, especially due to travel budgets. We have not only been able to reach our access to more members geographically and demographically, but also towards individuals with a wide variety of jobs. SVG wants to keep this expanded audience through more in-person attendance, as well as live streaming and a focus on our on-demand strategies for future hybrid-events.
In your opinion, what do you think the biggest value for your attendees is in regards to returning to live events?
The biggest value for returning to live events again is face-to-face networking! It is difficult to completely replicate the interpersonal interaction of introducing yourself to someone new, discussing the latest trends in the industry over a cup of coffee, and personally handing them your business card. However, Sports Video Group will continue to use our SVG Connect platform that we created during the pandemic to connect attendees throughout our events, especially as we continue to still have virtual and hybrid events going forward.
As the pandemic fades away and we return to face-to-face events what do you hope changes, either for planners or hoteliers, in the traditional RFP and proposal process as a result of all of the learnings from the last 20+ months?
I hope that the line of communication continues to remain open, consistent, and flexible. For example, with the recent Omicron surge, Sports Video Group had to move previous planned in-person events from Q1 in 2022 to later in the year. It is beneficial to us that the hotels can be adaptable and accommodate sudden changes in the proposal process. Venues can also work with organizers on providing more hybrid options to accommodate the necessary at-home audience.
This post is part of the HopSkip Planner Spotlight Series where HopSkip spotlight's planners across the industry to bring awareness of how they adapted to COVID-19, communicating and lessons learned and sharing how they are viewing the meetings and events industry in a post-pandemic world.