LIVE EVENTS COVID-19 SUPPORT

23 June 2020

3 months ago – as everyone questioned what lockdown meant – I also questioned what I could do to support as many people as possible. Aside from some life-saving expedition survival stuff, I’ve no useful medical training – so can’t cure COVID and I don’t have a few billion tucked away to fund any bailouts.

I’ve always been a practical type though – preferring doing over just talking and positive thinking. Therefore, I decided to create all manner of tools and guidance demonstrating how you, and we all… together, can emerge from our lockdowns better prepared for a world that will demand more considered work, better value, and more creative work and working.

MORE FOR LESS & MORE CREATIVITY

If you’re looking to do more for less, streamline how you or your company works, find or create greater creativity or more ideas, want more value or to create more impact – these tools and guidance are for you. They’re offered free and based on over 20 years of ‘research’, having worked for, run and built my own multimillion-pound businesses, worked client-side, agency-side, government-side and my own side and having been responsible for some of the most ambitious live events, campaigns, architecture and entertainment in recent history.

If you have anything to do with live events or exhibitions: you own them, you work in government, you’re an agency, an organising committee, a supplier, in the media, sport, the arts, marketing or you’re a freelance specialist… I’ve produced a stack of articles and dozens of videos – over 2 hours of material. All free to feast on.

You may have seen a few of them, here’s a summary of some and what they can do for you. Feel free to share this article.

IT’S TEMPORARY

Whoever you are, whatever you do – understand that humans are humans, and whilst behaviours and habits change, human nature doesn’t. Humans will always want to meet, greet and show off. It’s in our nature. This disruption is temporary… and there is significant evidence to back this up:

TALENT & LEADERSHIP

If you work in government, an agency, a production company or have your own events and teams or committees, understand how to best structure those teams and the critical questions that need answers – without which, you, your team or external partners will be wasting time, money and effort – whether you realise it or not:

And then – how do you best find this talent – even if you don’t know what you need:

You’ve found the talent, teams are in place and structured properly – yet how are they led? Live events exist in a unique environment. You want the best out of them and the best value for your spend, whilst creating the greatest impact possible. You need a particular sort of empathy:

PROCUREMENT

I’ll admit… this isn’t an exciting subject. But across most of the live event and exhibition world, procurement is a mess. It’s broken. It often does the very opposite of what it’s supposed to do and few realise it’s costing them a fortune, killing value and crippling creativity and ideas. 3 videos that explain why and how to fix it:

Be sure you understand how money really works in live events too. 4 of the most commonly misunderstood and misused words are covered in this video, and how they’re best used – solving all manner of issues you may not even know exist, and that needn’t be issues at all:

SUPPLY CHAIN

If you’re a specialist event supplier or production company, you have enormous opportunities across the live event and exhibition worlds currently. 2 videos for you:

CREATIVITY & IDEAS

Why on earth go to the effort of producing a live event or exhibition in the first place? This is a question surprisingly rarely asked. Without giving the question proper rigour though, you’ll waste a stack of money and likely get nowhere near achieving what you want to – or could otherwise. Two videos to clarify why and what to do about it:

Happy to proceed? If you’re then looking for new ideas, creativity and innovation… do you know what this actually takes – practically? And what kills it dead? 2 videos with practical guidance on how to find, create or nurture ideas and creativity – tangibly:

REDUCING COSTS, TIME AND RISKS

This video summarises a number of videos but also explains how, with much of the knowledge above, many of the financial, operational and reputation risks considered ‘normal’ with live events and exhibitions are completely unnecessary and how to mitigate them:

VIRTUAL… OR NOT?

A quick final thought… there’s a whole (virtual) debate about whether virtual and remote working works, and whether it’s the future. From someone who’s worked remotely and non-remotely (is that a thing?) since before things like Dropbox and Skype were things… it’s about a balance of both, there’s little that’s new about virtual and remote working. Remote working can lead to smarter working and thinking though:

ANYTHING ELSE?

As I say, I can’t cure COVID or offer a bailout, this material will prove hugely valuable though, and see you coming out of this COVID catastrophe stronger, in knowledge and confidence, than when you went in.

If you need help, advice or a sounding board – just drop me a line… and if I can help… I will.

Anything else I can do… again… just let me know.

If you think anyone else would find this material useful – please share this post or forward it. Thank you