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: Erica Parker
Company Name: GitLab
Job Title: Senior Corporate Events Manager
Years of Experience: 10
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?
Safety guidelines. It has become so important to make sure your staff attending an event and attendees attending your event feel safe and like the company cares of about your heath and safety. We have an actual health and safety team that reviews all our GitLab internal and sponsored events to make sure it is safe to attend or if we should pivot to virtual or not attend in-person. I also keep in mind health & safety when creating a trade show booth experience that is fun and interactive but can be done with the least amount of contact. Where you can still give a great demo or presentation in the booth and a fun interactive experience that is memorable.
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?
I love the hybrid model. B.C. (before Covid), attendees couldn't always attend because of travel costs, ticket costs or interfering with their work. With a hybrid model conference attendance has grown so much and it has become more about the content. So those who attend your session, workshop or download a white paper in your virtual booth are qualified marketing leads. There may not be as many as an in-person trade show but at least you know right away they took time out of their day to register, attend and maybe even take a survey about your presence. With this new model, you will have in-person leads, live demos in the booth but you will also have a virtual presence that if you plan for can also bring in MQLs.
In your opinion, what do you think the biggest value for your attendees is in regards to returning to live events?
Hybrid events aren't going away, so I feel those who want to just get the content quickly will continue to attend virtually. However, those who are miss and value that in-person experience and meeting face to face will be returning to live events.
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?
The hospitality industry needs to be more flexible when it comes to contract cancellations due to unforeseen events like Covid. I know that is easier said than done but on the other side there should be insurance coverage to cover these sort of large cancellations due to an event like Covid. This would protect the company booking a venue or F&B company and the hotel or restaurant loosing the contract. Now when I contract any sponsorship events, we make sure their is a cancellation clause that covers if their happens to be a Covid spike where it is no longer safe for our company to attend in-person.
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.