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: Mary Hefton
Company Name: Mary Hefton
Job Title: Event Planner/Marketing 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?
The unique thing about us is that we were already hybrid prior to the pandemic. We had been doing both Live-Stream and in-person conferences for many years, so when the pandemic started and shut everything down, we transitions to solely Live-Stream events and were able to continue to reach people who needed help.
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 take the health and safety of our attendees very seriously. We want to create an environment for them to feel safe to attend and have peace of mind that they are a top priority. With that, we are working with venues to make sure there are measures in place and what those requirements are so that we can relay them to those attending.
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?
There is nothing like being in-person and having face-to-face meetings. You are able to ask questions, network, and interact far greater in person than virtually. However, we know that it's not possible for everyone to travel, so we are still keeping with our hybrid meetings at our base location to allow us to reach those not able to travel. Though, when we travel to hold our conferences in various states across the US, they are completely in-person only events.
In your opinion, what do you think the biggest value for your attendees is in regards to returning to live events?
The interactions with fellow attendees and our team members. During our break times, attendees are able to talk with the speakers and other team members to ask questions and network with fellow attendees, something that is not easily done at a virtual event.
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?
Learning to work together to make the events the best they can be and creating contracts that work equally to benefit both parties. Also, giving grace and mercy to one another, knowing that we've all been through a lot.
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.
