Just under half (47%) of companies find it difficult to recruit event management talent, according to a recent survey, with planners reporting that it’s ‘bloody difficult’ and that ‘it’s a struggle to even fill entry-level roles’.
This was just one of the key talking points from a gathering of corporate event planners at The Charlotte Street Hotel in London last month, hosted by C&IT in association with Cvent.
While attendees acknowledged that current staff shortages are impacting many industries, Cvent’s Vice President, European Sales, Jamie Vaughan pointed out that the events industry was also suffering from a generation gap.
Vaughan suggested that MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events) was becoming less attractive to graduates as a career option and the industry needed to reinvent how it advertised roles.
One corporate planner felt that, a reliance on agencies and their suppliers during the pandemic to help deliver virtual events has resulted in a continued trend to outsource MICE programmes.
The consequence of this, according to the planner is: “There are some amazing people looking for in-house jobs but they’re not getting the opportunities they deserve because using an agency is seen as more practical. “
This viewpoint kick-started a discussion about whether or not agencies are being used to plug a skills gap, although a majority of planners around the table believed that recruitment was being hampered by alternative factors such as low salaries.
In-house staff shortages are also having an impact on the quality of service, agreed the planners, with less time spent on administrative processes such as venue searches and budget management.
Cvent’s Vaughan believes that this is creating a ‘perfect storm’ as available venues are harder to find, plus everything from production to catering and hospitality has grown more expensive.
“The market has consolidated but if you’re in AV or the venues sector, you will have seen redundancies followed by increased demand. Now there is so much demand that many places are completely booked out until the autumn,” Vaughan said.
Balancing act
Another key talking point from the planner round-table discussion was about how best to manage in-person and virtual events, and whether or not to offer one format over another or to combine them in a hybrid offering.
Planners voiced a range of views, with one saying she’d experienced a 56% drop-out rate ahead of an afternoon in-person event. It had led her to conclude that, while most people are happy to return to meeting in-person, they may not be so willing to make the effort for meetings of a shorter duration. Another planner suggested it may have been an unwillingness to travel or a re-appraisal of time and productivity.
“We’re in a fortunate position since many of our attendees are older and want to get together in-person,” the planner noted. “It does seem to come down to demographics and needs. Some people want to meet-up. For others, it has to be really worth their time and effort to attend.”
On the subject of hybrid event formats, the planners bemoaned that the overall experience was more time-consuming and expensive to manage, since they were effectively dealing with two events and two different audiences, while also expected to be broadcasters and technicians.
“Delivering a successful hybrid conference requires a very special set of skills,” one planner said. “We produced an event and the screens went down. The next time, we ensured we were more prepared, with broadcast and technical back-ups in-place.”
“Budgets are tight, so we need to consider where we want to spend the money and what will deliver the most value,” another planner said.
Cvent’s Vaughan suggested that hybrid is still the future, but with caveats.
He said: “A live hybrid feed means the audience can have almost the same experience as those attending in-person. They can ask questions, join-in debates, take part in polls. The virtual audience may be harder to engage with if you have thousands online but if reach is important to your objectives, then the value of the format can-not be denied.”
The promise of hybrid has also led planners to rethink their event design.
Content offered online could make way for greater networking opportunities for in-person delegates, which may encourage more people to attend, safe in the knowledge that they can access additional content on-demand.
The power of data
While the debate around hybrid will no-doubt continue for a long time to come, one concluding aspect that all the planners could agree upon was that, virtual offers them more data and insight into the attendee experience than ever before.
One planner suggested that data is also helping to boost the value of MICE programmes, giving planners more ways to demonstrate the effectiveness of events to senior leaders.
Planners can show how events complement marketing and sales activity by demonstrating, via data, unique insights, intelligence and results.
By understanding the attendee journey and being able to better justify the ROI of activity to board-level executives, all planners agreed that richer data was a valuable by-product of the move towards hybrid and should remain a key ingredient of future MICE programmes.
Many thanks to the participating corporate in-house planners:
- Emma Grant, manager, events & outreach at Moody’s Analytics
- Gracia Kabongo, events manager at Wates Group
- Mercedes Ernst, event manager at The Lawyer
- Jasna Goodwin, event meeting manager at Amway Europe
- Joy Lim, team leader, Firm Communications and Events at the Financial Conduct Authority
- Anna Taylor, global meetings and events project manager at AstraZeneca
- Sarah Zarywacz, events executive at ECI
For tips on mastering the new event landscape, watch this Event Ecosystem webinar on-demand today.
