So what now? After the recession will the events industry ever be the same? I hope not.
I hate to say that I have been around doing events since the recession of 1866. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration. I was certainly around during the recession of the early 90’s (20th Century!!). Back then events were very much seen as a jolly and most events revolved around very indulgent hospitality packages at the same old society sporting events. So when the bubble burst in 1992 the first thing to go was the “event budget”. These days, well, things could not be more different. Many clients, whilst they have reduced their “events spend” have maintained an events program that is a little more tuned and refined than it was 18 years ago. If you are one of those clients you will realise the benefits of having a diverse events program, whether as part of your internal communications strategy, marketing strategy or perhaps as part of your staff incentive scheme. You understand that events are a vital tool to enhance the business. Events provide the purchaser with a communications platform to convey a message to their chosen audience. What ever the message is, whomever the attendees are the event gives businesses a platform from which to communicate. In many cases the events that Penguins organises have physical platforms and very clear messages that form the core to the events identity. “One team, one vision”, “Going for Gold” and “The Futures Bright, the Futures…..” I think you get the picture!
But what of those events that do not have such clear platforms and even less clear messages? Are they any less important? A good example of these events is the staff motivational event for which we have loads of
team building activities to tempt you with. Unfortunately these are events that many businesses have seen as expendable in times of economic melt down. But they are also some of the most important. I know that I do not need to harp on about the benefits of these events on improving low staff moral, team strength and the merging of decimated departments, but these events do make a big difference and whilst they are easy to cut out, they are also very easy to bring back into the equation.
The sorts of events that I am talking about are the small team events that can be arranged very quickly, on a small budget and can be run from the office, or from an external venue. Whilst the investment needed to
stage them is not great the benefits of them are enormous, and adversely by not doing them, whilst they may not cause long term damage they will leave an enormous gap in the management armory that could very
easily be plugged. We are continually looking at new products and venues to provide to our clients, and whilst clients cut motivational events out of the events program more than any other event, we have devised more new ideas and products throughout this last year more than any other year.
It is impossible to measure the true benefits of these events but as recent
job satisfaction surveys have highlighted with added workloads, increased stress and frozen pay, there is little to make us smile at work. So in my very humble opinion (20years of organizing events), for the small cost of getting your team out of the office, and getting them to participate in an afternoon of frivolity and laughter huge benefits can be achieved. Now is the time to bring back those events that can only be measured in terms of meeting objectives and not in terms of the financial return that they bring.