“Events are definitely back, some even bigger and bolder…[But] events need to become a lot more focused and content driven, as do the venues. People will only attend if it is worth their while, both for business and their carbon footprint. Many event organisers have started adding a wellness aspect to their agenda and the venues need to be able to accommodate that… Having glass jars where you can see the nice cucumber floating in or serving healthy food on green plates are not cutting it anymore. We need innovation here.” – Heleri Rande
If there is one area that I consider the hardest hit by the 2020 pandemic, that is events. To go from a strong cadence in 2019 and then suddenly being plunged into a screeching halt to then being one of the last revenue streams to pick up post-pandemic in many regions – my hats go off to you all who have dedicated so much time, energy and efforts in finding new and creative ways to target a segment that is not buying the way it used to pre-pandemic. However, it is in these times of great ‘hardship’ that we can hold space for true creativity to propel our businesses forward.
In today’s episode, I’d like to talk about how events have evolved since the pandemic, what is new and what are our business and corporate guests demanding. To help me shed the light on this subject, I reached out to an incredibly inspiring, smart and creative hospitality professional, Heleri Rande – a writer, speaker, MC and strategist – to gain her insights on what is happening in the events arena, where wellness fits in and what we can do to gain even further moment in a segment that is coming back with a bang.
Here is the very interesting full interview with Heleri.
