https://www.mpi.org/blog/article/meeting-and-event-executives-weigh-in-on-post-covid-events
Article Summary
In this article, Kristi Casey Sanders, who is the former director of community for MPI, talks about how the improved conditions of organizing live events after the pandemic have been controlled to some extent. She begins by discussing the positive comeback of live events, but soon, she turns to the problems and issues caused by the live events, most specifically with regard to public health. In this regard, she states that the biggest challenge in live events would be maintaining social distancing. As on one side, event professionals are taking great care of ensuring Covid-19 safety protocols, the uncertain human nature on the other side is creating problems for them. Therefore, she mentioned that the regional director of Gibson Hotel Management reported the unexpected leave of two guests from the event because they experienced some violations of the COVID-19 safety measures.
Similarly, a director was ejected from a film festival in Spain because he did not wear a mask after being reminded even five times. Therefore, she further referred to the words of Sven Boelhouwer to highlight the importance of new creative ways of enforcing safety measures by event professionals. However, it is also very likely that before the pandemic completely ends, someone will always become a victim of the virus in case of live events. Therefore, as the writer noted, in Boelhouwer’s event, even though the venues were highly sanitized and protocols were strictly observed, a staff member tested positive a few days after the event. Therefore, to reduce the number of unexpected cases, limiting the number of people participating in events and meetings is a very wise move because it will make contact tracing easier to some extent. However, as she later focused on, to ensure the participant’s safety, all the professionals, from suppliers to planners and organizers, need to be on the same page to collaborate and communicate effectively while sharing the same agenda with regard to COVID-19.
Personal Review Of The Article
The article provides very valuable insights into how the events and meetings will be held in the post-Covid era. One thing, as described in the article, is that live events will surely come back this year when the risk of a virus attack has been reduced a lot compared to the previous year. But this does not mean that live events are now completely safe. The reason for this, as reported by the author, is the very uncertain human nature. As she has later provided many references about what she meant by this, I agree with her that to mitigate the risks of the virus during the pandemic, more rigorous actions should be taken. In this regard, keeping the number of attendees limited is an effective step as it can help track the contacts and take timely actions accordingly.
Similarly, I strongly agree with the author that controlling any possible outbreak of a virus during live events is not the job of a particular authority. Instead, all the personnel, including event planners, organizers, and suppliers, need to share the same agenda to make efficient efforts. For example, if any staff member fails to observe the COVID-19 protocols, it will damage the whole event. Therefore, before live events fully come back, there is a need to implement the proper strategies that can effectively address the possible consequences and how to avoid them. I think it will take some time to grab the confidence of the public, and the number of new cases will begin to increase in many parts of the world in 2021 as well. Therefore, as long as these conditions prevail, any event with a large audience is very unexpected, at least for a few months. This is exactly what the author mentioned at the end of her article: that long and large events will not take place until the C-level executives decide to do so.
References
Sanders, K. C. (2020). Meeting and Event Executives Weigh in on Post-COVID Events | MPI. MPIWeb. https://www.mpi.org/blog/article/meeting-and-event-executives-weigh-in-on-post-covid-events
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