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: Kaitlyn Mello Maxted
Company Name: Garnish Event Management
Job Title: Co-Founder/Account Director
Years of Experience: 18
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?
After months of research and learning, we found our place in the virtual event world. This helps us quickly transition in-person or hybrid events to entirely virtually if the pivot is needed because of increased case counts. That will be part of our service portfolio for the foreseeable future, whether for a virtual event or a hybrid event. As event planners, we needed to be flexible and agile before the pandemic, and this skill set has helped us evolve and adapt to the new/disrupted meetings landscape.
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?
It adds a layer of planning to the in-person meeting, which can be time-consuming. We are working with new clients that handled events in-house before March 2020 but see the value of using an agency now for guidance, as a time saving, and to operate as an extension of their team. Event technologies need to be streamlined for hybrid events. Your typical in-person technologies like the mobile app will need to be integrated with the virtual platform, etc., for an efficient planning process and attendee experience.
In your opinion, what do you think the biggest value for your attendees is in regards to returning to live events?
In-person networking, interaction, and learning.
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 planners and hoteliers will focus on partnership after this pandemic experience and its impact on this events industry and we will work towards the most efficient and thorough RFP, proposal, and contract process possible.
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.