Meaningful connections I

It’s a growing trend. Brands want their customers to see that they have a conscience and are conscious of their choices and so Barnes argues that clients are being more humble and less “showy”.

Collett agrees with Barnes. He says that the future is not the past; a statement backed by an increasing number of WRG clients that are looking at how and where they invest budgets. Especially environmental budgets. Collett says that sustainability is firmly on the agenda of many corporations, with growing numbers of clients looking at travel.

“For example, there’s a growing trend in the pharmaceutical space to see what opportunities lie beyond a congress,” Collett explains further.

“If clients are sending delegations to an international congress, they want to know what else they can do with delegates whilst in the city – they are scrutinising and maximising their investment.”

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Increasing Capabilities

“We see ourselves as an agency that has come through the pandemic and is now working with clients on lots of face-to-face activities,” explains Claudia Harris, associate director, business development at GPJ.

GPJ has just delivered Cisco Live in Amsterdam and is working with Booking.com on partner events, such as Click in Miami and Amsterdam too. Harris continues: “We’re very happy to be busy again with live events.

“After COVID, we had to ensure that we came back strongly and make sure that our projects were properly resourced.

“We’ve bounced back nicely, and we have new blood coming into the agency with new ideas and perspectives. It’s the rejuvenation of GPJ in the best way possible.”

WRG – which recently worked on the Shell Eco Marathon – believes that the event agency space will soon become more competitive as medium-sized agencies start to “punch up”, delivering a more competitive and diverse agency landscape.

Collett also believes that one of the biggest things to impact event management agencies this year will be staff.

“Having seen a lot of movement in the market, I think people will be happy to bed down,” Collett says. “But also, I now think that freelancers are being used to increase capacity and capabilities in a project team and not to meet headcounts.”

Build Networks

News Live – the events arm of News UK, which publishes The Sun and The Times – is currently recruiting two event managers and is looking to increase its roster of freelance talent for several upcoming events.

“There is an abundance of work out there but finding an ‘all-rounder’ is a challenge,” comments Natasha Banjo, director of operations at News Live. She is supported by Leanne Robertson, head of events at News UK, who is responsible for delivering events such as The Sun’s Who Cares Wins at The Roundhouse with its big production values, the Style Beauty Awards, the CEO Summit with The Times, and activations such as the talkSport Tavern. “To be a successful event manager, you need to be passionate; you have to live and breathe events and if you don’t, you’ll find it hard to be a swan,” says Banjo, who explains that News Live works with agencies like Cheerful Twentyfirst and EventConcept.

“You also have to build out your networks and extensions of your team. Knowing your network and understanding what your peers are going through helps with change and the evolution of our industry.”

Agile

Robertson and Banjo are honest in their assessment of the marketplace. They know what it takes to be successful in the event management space. You need to be savvy and understand your market; especially understanding the changes since COVID-19.

“We have found that attendance is down, and we need to ‘recruit’ more people for our events,” Banjo says. “There is so much free content out there that customers and readers feel they can cancel so you have to oversubscribe your event and consider potentially high dropout rates or up your marketing and communications and increase the number of touchpoints with your audience.”

She continues: “Also, we are seeing changes in audience behaviour. We consume so much information and how we consume it has changed. People’s focus is getting shorter and so we’re seeing the effects of that and changing our event formats. For example, panel discussions cannot last longer than 30 minutes. Therefore, our challenge as event managers is to reinvent formats and to be more creative.”

Barnes concurs. She says that in today’s climate, you must be agile.

She says: “To be a successful event management agency, you need to be able to move with the requirements of the brands you are working with.

“Being agile is our big strength but also having a knowledgeable team to look at how you are utilising resources, so you are not compromising on quality is also key to end success,” Robertson concludes.

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