Planners Moving Forward Series- Ocea Jacobs, Matador Network
Ocea Jacobs, of Matador Network, brings 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.
Luke Whalin
Aug 22, 2022
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: Ocea Jacobs
Company Name: Matador Network
Job Title: Trips and Experiences Manager
Years of Experience: 9
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?
We are coming out of the pandemic stronger and more energetic than ever. The nearly two year hiatus was certainly an unexpected pause in in-person events and travel in general, but Matador Trips was able to use the time to reorganize internal roles, focus on strategic partnerships within the industry, and most importantly to connect to our clients and the travel and event industry. As experts in our field, we focused on sharing our expertise of the travel space with individuals and other businesses, as well as hosting a variety of informational virtual events to keep people engaged and continue to provide value even while our main business had to take a back seat. The renewed hunger and excitement for in-person events and travel is inspiring to the whole team, and we expect this demand to increase.
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 at events has become paramount to planning and execution, and this has a different meaning than it had in the past. I also feel that attendees of events now appreciate a much more personal touch and direct communication than they had before, as they are trusting the meeting planners to execute in-person events that meet the standards of the new safety protocols and regulations. As a company we try to be as available to questions and concerns by individuals as possible, as there is more sensitivity around attending an in-person event. There are many new event technologies that have arisen to lessen physical contact and touch and I believe those are here to stay, including QR codes, event apps, virtual gifting, no-touch registration, etc.
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 see the value of hybrid meetings for a lot of industries to respect individuals different levels of comfort as we move toward the "new normal." For Matador Trips, we have found that smaller, intimate events have been our sweet spot and people seem to gain the most from these highly curated, smaller in-person experiences.
In your opinion, what do you think the biggest value for your attendees is in regards to returning to live events?
I think people value human interaction more than ever before, both for business and in their personal lives. I feel gratitude and appreciation from attendees for the work that goes into planning an event much more strongly than ever before, and this makes it all worth it for me at the end of the day. It's amazing to be able to help foster returning to live events in a safe and sustainable way.
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 think that because of many people leaving the industry in the last few years, the RFP and proposal process is having growing pains and moving slower than it used to and less efficiently than it should. I believe that as companies and hotels hire more employees, and new people to the industry gain more experience we will streamline the RFP process on both ends and be at the top of our game.
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.