If you are in the live event business and have ever worked on a show in September- October, you have most definitely run across an episode of how to prep or do an event during hurricane season.

Once an hurricane has begun to be tracked by the weather service with a path, the first thing you’ll want to do is educate your client.  Clients that do not live in Florida do not understand the overall event,  as well as supply and demand,  impact a hurricane can have on an event.

An approaching hurricane can affect Florida’s labor force, delivery and attendee travel.  

The labor force may not be able to make it to a venue if the storm is upon the state as police ask people to stay off the roads.  

Deliveries may not be guarantee if not ordered prior to the hurricane alert a few days prior.  This means that the supplier may not guarantee they will have the items delivered if an order is placed a few days before the storm due to anticipating delivery, power and labor issues/ delays from the storm.  Keep in mind, vendors will need to close down their offices for hurricane prep for the company and their staff, as well as during the storm and aftermath clean up.

If a hurricane is approaching, your attendees may have travels delays, as airports close during the storm.  This will cause  flight cancellations and rescheduling.

The event venue will also put certain protocols in place.  If any part of the event is to take place outside, those elements will be reconsidered for an indoor location.  They will also take into account if the venue loses power.  The venue also put a plan in place staffing, which may be lower than normal for their Hurricane crew.

All in all, keep the communication open with your client each step of the way to stay flexible for a successful and safe event during Florida’s hurricane season. 

Since COVID hit, the world has never been the same… the rules are different now. This still applies to how we interact during our daily work life. Not to mention how much social media has taken over and kept most people’s heads down and out of touch.

What have we learned post COVID about our workplace? For those lucky enough to continue working remotely from home, it’s the relief of not having to fight traffic back and forth from the office. That’s no small win.. this is a huge stress saver. For most, it’s still dressing professional from the waist up while we can be comfy from the waist down in sweatpants or shorts.

But what happen to human interaction and how it effects work efficiencies and personal relationships? There are a lot of pros to working remote vs office interaction. Meetings are more effect time wise. You can get more work done remotely than in the office due to interruptions. Some positions have a flexible schedule, so if you have a doctor’s appointment during the day, you don’t need to schedule time off, you just make up the time/work later in the day or week. The biggest pro is the work life balance that we have all been missing out on for a healthy, mind and body.

On the other hand, there are several cons to remote work. The biggest con is the lack of personal connection and comradery. No office lunches or special touches. No water cooler conversations, that actually help with solving project issues. There are also two types of remote workers – those that work much more since the work computer is now at home and those who don’t do enough since they are not visually seen during the day. With that being said, employers by now can very much see in the work results if a remote person is not getting their work done and taking advantage of the situation. And lastly, we tend to be so isolated that we’d rather be alone than in a large group. This is one of the reasons many have turned to social media to stay connected.

So if we don’t get out to go to work, how do you meet new friends? How do you meet a future spouse? Is the only time remote workers leave the house is for grocery shopping or doctor appointments? Even those can be done from home – shopping apps and telehealth. Both which have made our lives more efficient.

The new choice? Fitness…. Going to the gym or going for a walk/run… you need to go out and leave the four walls of your home. Attending church brings a whole body of people together to celebrate. Holiday or community events mean much more. It’s up to you how to make the best choice to fit your lifestyle to live your best life!

Once the COVID 19 Pandemic hit, the event industry came to a fast halt.  Event companies scrambled to learn the virtual world and virtual platforms worked tirelessly to keep up.  Most aspects of the live event transfer to a virtual realm was successful, except exhibitors.  This virtual space left exhibitors with no foot traffic or swag to give away and very little to no direct sales contact with potential buyers.

Now that events are back to going live, exhibitors, as well as attendees are thrilled to be in the “exhibit hall”!  Some clients have chosen to no longer do a hybrid event and some clients are, to accommodate those who cannot travel.  So what’s happening with exhibitor on virtual sites?

Most exhibitors are not purchasing packages that have a high presence on a virtual site.  Attendees have lost the thrill of gamification, which may require going to a certain amount of exhibitor ‘booths” on a virtual site.  At this point, the presence on virtual sites for exhibitors is a clickable logo that links out to the exhibitor’s website.  The clients are using the exhibitors who are of the virtual platform to all list out the Exhibits booth numbers.

So as the tide has turned regarding the Pandemic, event professionals are once again pivoting to stay at the front lines of changes and variety for their client’s and their exhibitors.  Each event has its own unique needs!

During 2020, all of us have left our Live Event Foundation for the Virtual Event Train in an effort to move forward during the COVID pandemic.  As we were forbidden to meet face to face to interact at events, virtual events rose to a new level.

Virtual events are not brand new, however, during 2020 virtual events thrusted to the front of the event world.  As event professionals are resilient, we embraced the new standard of events in the virtual event world.  Doing and attending events became a challenge for some, depending on their tech savvy.  The older generation had a harder time to adapt to the new virtual platforms: how to register, how to log on, what to click once in the platform, can you hear me? am I on mute?

The younger to middle generation adapted well and began to challenge the virtual platform world.  They no longer accepted a boring, flat looking virtual platform.  The platforms with more color, gamification, exciting transitions and graphics, as well as a high polished production polish was sought after and almost required by mid 2021 to stay competitive.

As we hit the middle of 2021, venues are allowed to open up in various amounts with COVID compliance in place.  How many will return to live events and why?  We miss the personal interaction of live events.  Sponsors miss the exposure of live events that was not captured very well by anyone in the virtual space.  Networking in person was much missed as well, as a Zoom breakout room just did not do it for us.

However, virtual events exposed your event to a larger audience around the world.  Some events had attendance peak during the virtual events by thousands of attendees.  People from all over the world that may not have originally attended the event now could.  Especially with travel restrictions and fear still in place, virtual/hybrid event models are the future of events.

Some of the interesting facts were exposed to clients during COVID.  Corporate bean counters found out how much they were saving by Not sending employees to live events.  They were saving thousands of dollars.  How long will it take for employers to justify sending employees to events, or even the same number of employees to the event as before?  Clients lost out on contacts made during networking or elevator conversations.  Trade shows and sponsors took a hit during virtual events, thus they are looking forward to walking into a convention center again and see their logos plastered all over the place.

How do you decide if you’ll stay on the virtual train or go back to a live event foundation?  Your company will need to evaluate and decide the best way to present your message, your content, and generate leads.  Or you can straddle the middle and do a hybrid event to capture both of your audiences. Hybrid will ensure a choice for your attendees that they can make in advance or at the last minute.  Either way, virtual, live or hybrid corporations have a choice on how to deliver great content and experience to their attendees.

Training Videos- we’ve all watched them at one point or another during our career. Whether it was a how to video or on boarding process, did you want to bring the popcorn or a pillow to watch these training videos?

The challenge for employers: Companies have a lot of standard information about their corporate history, policies, system and procedures that they need to relay to each employ. To ensure that each employee is hearing the same information, training videos have become popular, instead of 3-5 day seminars with live people teaching. Even though the videos do standardize the consitancy of the information, it leaves out the personal touch and flexibility of Q & A. Employee are more willing to ask a question to a live person than to track someone down, at the risk of feeling stupid or not know who is the right person to ask. In the long run, most employees dismiss their own questions, until such time they are in a situation that requires them to actively pursue the answer.

What has your training video quality experience been like? Were the videos short and snappy or long with a quiz at the end? The most torturous training videos are the ones that have been used for the past 20 years; or they feel that way when viewing them. Now, not that employees need to be entertained at all times with pyro going off and car chases in the training videos; however, the granular, grayish tint of the video does give a hint to what format you’ll be watching. To go along with the “vintage” videos, they are often narrated with the most monotone narrator that can have the most enthusiastic employee’s eyes drooping in 3 minutes.

There are some basics for creating a good training video that will be a success tool for your employees for long time. When you’re filming someone speaking, make sure the set is brightly lit that is comfortable to the eye. There’s no need for a crazy back ground, but complimentary primary colors that are rich in texture, will help stimulate the viewer’s eyes. Have the speaker use hand gestures, facial expressions and body movements to break up the static look. If you can film on site to show real life hands on usage, that will be more stimulating to the brain of the viewer.

While the video is being narrated, cross back and forth between a wide static shot and “power point” text. If applicable, stimulate the viewer with a cut away video with the subject matter for an example. At certain points in the video, add background music to help keep the movement of training. But most of all…. don’t make the videos too long! Break up the teaching material into blocks. This will also help the employee organize their time better, as to when they can fit in a few videos as a time to their work load responsibilities. Videos that go on for 30, 45-60 minutes, are hard to fit into a busy day. Also, make sure the training videos are formatted so that the view can start back where they left off, instead of having to rewatch the entire video.

You’re training videos may not be enticing enough for your employees to share popcorn in the office while watching them, but you certainly don’t want them to be looking for pillows! Happy training ~