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 Stone
Company Name: American Society of Concrete Contractors
Job Title: Meeting & Event Planner
Years of Experience: 14
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?
It’s a relief to know that there are options for us to meet virtually if we can’t meet in person for any reason. We meet online more frequently than we did pre-pandemic because our members have learned that t’s not expensive or complicated. Yet offering a hybrid option for our conferences is not financially feasible for us. As a non-profit, we don’t have a budget available to add the technical component that is required. The majority of our members want to attend in-person meetings again with very few requesting remote access, so I anticipate our meetings will return to pre-pandemic behaviors.
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?
We continue to use Zoom and Teams as we did throughout the pandemic and will continue to use an app for our Annual Conference. However, we are actually positioned to use less technology than we were before. Since needs for hybrid and virtual meetings skyrocketed, so did affordable technology. In 2022, we have to pay the same amount to use an app at one conference as we did in 2021 to use two.
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?
As I previously mentioned, our events that were in-person previously will remain in-person only. Our virtual meetings will remain virtual.
In your opinion, what do you think the biggest value for your attendees is in regards to returning to live events?
Networking. Networking. Networking. Our feedback forms consistently rank networking as one of the most valuable parts of our program. I think it will be even more meaningful going forward. I also think being able to shake hands or hug will be much more appreciated than ever before.
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 staffing issues resolve so that site selection details, contract negotiations, and planning conferences can return to a faster pace. What used to take 24-48 hours often takes 1-2 weeks now.
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.