The last few years have been an incredible learning curve for many industries. Events in particular have been impacted in ways we couldn’t have predicted. The pandemic forced many conferences and large events to stop and the industry needed to react because events were never going to be the same as they were.
2 years on from the pandemic, we’ve dealt with a number of challenges and it’s great that the events industry is up and running again. Concerts and weddings are happening as normal, conferences and training continue as they were and you would think nothing had happened. But in fact, there has been a significant change in events and the way people attend, learn and feel about them.
All change
The biggest change is the significant uplift in online events largely due to the pandemic but also because of the increase in companies taking serious note of sustainability.
We’ve discussed virtual events and sustainability in our previous articles which you can read here:
Our key learnings
2020 and 2021 were not easy for us, an events company set up just before lockdown kicked in. Despite over 20 years in the industry for each of us, these last few years have taught us a lot, most importantly, we’ve learnt how to be patient, how to plan for the unknown and how to embrace change.
As a business, we wanted to share the three areas that were the most important to us as a key player in the events industry.
1. Communication is key
2. Embrace technology
3. Work local
1. Communication is key
We’ve changed and adapted the ways we communicate internally and through our events, continually searching for new, engaging and interesting ways to share content with live and virtual audiences.
Following an event, we know HCPs want bite sized snippets of information and we aim to provide access to downloadable short form info in the form of videos, webinar recordings and summaries, downloadable pdfs and much more.
We have also needed to (and continue to strive to) look at how we transfer the singular interaction at a congress or an investigator meeting into something that’s more a continuum of communications
2. Embrace technology
Our attitude to technology has always been to embrace it and implement it for the right audience. Our clients have been looking to us to guide them through new technology and how we feel is best to implement into virtual and Face 2 Face events.
We’ve learnt that virtual communication isn’t easy and transferring the experience from Face to Face to Virtual needs to be planned and adapted to help the audiences digest the content in the right way. Planning a multi channel approach in advance has helped us to communicate effectively.
3. Work local
We’ve always worked with the best team for the job, whether that’s event crew or production staff from our network of suppliers or your preferred suppliers. Whilst this hasn’t changed, we’re still flexible and ready to work around you, we now have access to a global workforce.
By using our industry expertise and healthcare event knowledge, we can work with suppliers local to events and provide a greater edge and flexibility whilst retaining the high standards we’re accustomed to delivering to our clients.
Constantly evolving
So whilst the last 2 years have been tough on us and everyone in the industry, we’ve learnt that you can learn something new everyday to help you become more streamlined and ultimately more productive.
We’ve evolved to become a partner that has the capability of working with and guiding clients to deliver exceptional healthcare events that have an impact.
