Events - Responding to a Changing Environment Part 2

Other ways of classifying events Below we look briefly at some other ways of categorizing events. FREQUENCY Christmas and New Year celebrations are obvious examples of events that occur annually, although many are spread across several months, from November to January. Business events such as quarterly sales meetings, monthly staff awards and annual prizegiving as well as daily team meetings are also events that can be catego- rized by their frequency. Music festivals often take place annually, while international sporting events often take place every four years. GEOGRAPHY Sporting competitions are a good example of events that can easily be categorized by geography. In sports such as athletics and football, there are World and European Championships, with events occurring every two years. Many countries around the world host both regional and national athletic championships each year. There are also events for international groupings, such as the Commonwealth Games, a multi- sport event for members of the Commonwealth of Nations, a political association with 54 member states that were territories within the former British Empire, cover- ing a geographical area of almost 39 million sq km. In Europe, the annual Eurovision Song Contest includes competitor nations from across the continent of Europe, with other nations able to compete by invitation, including Australia, which has partici- pated since 2015. SECTOR There are many different industry sectors, and they all have events. In corporate (or business) events, there are event management professionals and agencies that special- ize in developing and delivering events for specific industries, such as the financial services industry or the pharmaceutical industry. This is partly because these indus- tries require specialist knowledge and experience when managing their events, for example when there are specific regulations that impose restrictions on what is or is not allowed. Equally, the sector concept applies to the different types of events, such as festivals, music and entertainment, versus conferencing and exhibitions, or sports events. The events industry offers diverse opportunities in all these areas, and when you are beginning your journey as an events professional it helps to gain experience in as wide a range of events and sectors as possible. INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL Examples of internal events include staff team-building events, training, and staff meetings. These events are usually only attended by employees working within a particular organization and are often referred to as ‘in-house’ events. Large organi- zations such as the National Health Service in England, with some 1.4 million employees, require lots of events to communicate with their staff about new policy developments. External events, on the other hand, are used by an organization to engage with people from outside the organization. These can include events such as product launches, media events, business-to-business and businessto-consumer exhibitions. Size of the events industry With events taking place all around the world, providing any accurate data about the size of the industry is extremely difficult. Table 1.2 shows the host cities and countries for the world’s biggest sporting spectacle (the Summer Olympics) and one of the most global political events (the G20 Summit), which demonstrates that events are truly global. The events industry is fragmented, made up of lots of small companies (often employing only one or two people) operating in the sector. Consequently, it is chal- lenging to calculate the number of companies that exist, or even the number of people employed in the industry. To further complicate matters, there is significant overlap between events organizations and those in other closely related sectors (e.g. tourism, hospitality and sport), which means that categorizing or grouping busi- nesses neatly into a specific sector is almost impossible. The period of the pandemic has caused additional complexity in making calculations about the size of the indus- try, partly because of the 18-month period during which there were no physical events allowed, and the fact that many people who work in the events industry are employed as freelancers, who were not eligible to be furloughed along with employ- ees. Since 2020, lots of events companies and event venues have unfortunately folded for a range of reasons, including uncertainty and lack of income and cash flow for an extended period. TABLE 1.2 Host cities and countries for the Summer Olympics and G20 Summit Summer Olympics G20 Summit 2020 Tokyo, Japan (moved to 2021) 2024 Paris, France 2028 Los Angeles, USA 2032 Brisbane, Australia 2021 Rome, Italy 2022 Bali, Indonesia 2023 Delhi, India 2025 Brazil (city location to be confirmed) 2026 South Africa (city location to be confirmed) Despite the difficulties in obtaining accurate data about the size of the events industry, prior to the pandemic there was a general acknowledgement that the events sector was growing quickly. Unfortunately, the restrictions introduced as part of national and global attempts to reduce the impact of Covid-19 caused a devastating reduction in live events of all kinds. Recent research reports do attempt to provide us with an indication of the size, scale and growth of the industry, so we can compare the emerging situation in 2022 to 2019, prior to the pandemic. The box provides some key statistics regarding changes in the economic value of the events industry. FACTS AND FIGURES The British Visits & Events Partnership (BVEP) provides key facts and figures about the value of business events and conferences to the British economy: In 2019, prior to the pandemic, the business events sector was estimated to be worth £31.2 billion to the UK visitor economy, as shown below: ● ● ● ● Conferences and meetings £18.3 billion Exhibitions and trade fairs £11 billion Incentive travel £1.2 billion Corporate outdoor events £0.7 billion Leisure events were estimated to be worth £38.8 billion in 2019: ● ● ● Arts and cultural events £5.6 billion Music events and festivals £23.6 billion Sports events £9.6 billion. Prior to the 2020 pandemic, around 80 million people attended 1.5 million confer- ences and meetings annually, and in the UK the sector’s 25,000 businesses employed some 530,000 people. The Covid19 lockdowns resulted in the closure of 17.5 per cent of exhibition businesses in 2020 alone, and 126,000 job losses during March– August 2020. While there is evidence of returning demand for events, especially since September 2021, the impact of the pandemic has continued to be felt – for example, because so many weddings were postponed during lockdown periods, the demand for wedding venues has led to the displacement of conferencing and exhibition busi- ness, especially while people continue to work from home. International travel disruptions affected inbound events visitors, but recovery is expected by 2025, and in February 2022 most travel restrictions were lifted. While there is uncertainty about what the future of the events industry will look like, there is encouraging news for some areas that are expected to grow, while others will continue to shrink. Sustainability will be an increasingly important factor in the post-pandemic world, with the integration of hybrid events into the calendar, especially in business events, with conferences and exhibitions becoming more experiential to attract people to attend in person. By Q2 2022, CVENT reported that 87 per cent of UK event plan- ners were searching for venues for physical events, while some 38 per cent of business events offered a hybrid option. Some 68 per cent of event planners reported 2022 budgets were increased over 2019 figures. The impact of Brexit on the UK events industry continues to impose new barriers across the supply chain, with new work restrictions requiring visas for speakers, exhibitors and music touring, along with the requirement for import licences for equipment and other goods. The Association of Australian Convention Bureaux (AACB) provides statistics to show the importance of international business events to the Australian tourism market. Australia closed its international borders in March 2020, and by December 2021 some 259 international conventions and exhibitions had been cancelled. Many of these events are hosted by locations around the world and so this global rotation means that it may be 5–10 years before these events are able to return to Australia. The pandemic has resulted in the loss of over 700,000 delegate days and $420 million in anticipated revenue from tourism and events businesses from these events alone. Prior to the pandemic, business events held in Australia attracted 900,000 inter- national delegates a year, while international business event delegate spend was previously $2.7 billion in GDP in total (21 per cent of all international visitor spend). Some 30 per cent of international business event delegates were from Asia, and the business events sector created 22,500 jobs. Research commissioned by the Events Industry Council (EIC) identified a signifi- cant increase in global demand over the previous year by Q3 2021, with over half of companies reporting domestic business travel, and the greatest positive growth in the Middle East, Asia Pacific and North America for hotel room bookings for groups. Structure of the events industry The very nature of an event brings people together (as attendees or participants), but it takes a range of individuals and organizations to ensure the smooth running of an event. We group these into three categories: 1 Event clients 2 Event organizers 3 Event suppliers. Event clients Event clients are the buyers of events: the people and organizations who hire or employ event organizers to plan, organize and run events on their behalf. Typically, it is corporate companies who have a budget to hire professional event organizers, although private individuals hosting elaborate weddings and parties may also use the expertise of a professional event planner. Event organizers Event organizers are professional individuals and groups who plan, organize and run an event on behalf of their clients. An event organizer acts as liaison between their client and suppliers and is ultimately responsible for the smooth running of the event. An event organizer can be tasked with running an event on behalf of their own organization as well as be hired by an external client. For example, in larger compa- nies, certain events such as Annual General Meetings (AGMs) and annual conferences are often run by an in-house event organizer. The potential for problems to arise in running any event means that organizations risk their reputation when they do not use professional events managers. Event suppliers Event suppliers make up a wide range of specialist organizations by providing the goods and services needed by the professional event organizer to ensure the success of an event. The larger the event, the greater the need for goods and services, and the more complex the event, the greater the need for increased technical and specialist support, for example sound and lighting engineers or pyrotechnics operators. Figure 1.3 (although not to scale) represents the relative position and size of the event organizers, suppliers and clients in the industry. At the heart of any event, you will find an event organizer tasked with managing the event on behalf of their client and liaising with various suppliers to ensure the smooth running of the event. In essence their role is to work as an intermediary between their client (or buyer) and the suppliers. You will notice that each of the boxes in Figure 1.3 is a different size, with the smallest box representing the event organizer who, as already mentioned, is often only one or two people. The event organizer is likely to be setting up a number of events at any one time and dealing with multiple clients, so the box representing the event’s clients is larger. The last box, the biggest of all, represents the event suppliers who for any given event (particularly larger and more complex ones) will include a plethora of organizations providing the goods and services needed to make the event happen.