THE COVID STORY
Dear Covid, you can’t stop us
An open letter to the events industry from our founder, Sally Kevan:
2020 has been a rollercoaster of a ride for everyone, but the events industry has been hit hard. While it would be weeks until lockdown took hold, I was seeing cancellations of events from February 2020. I had been watching my beloved industry falter, spin and try and get back up for weeks, and then UK lockdown shook us all even when we were expecting it.
We were in the planning stages of an international conference due to run in May in Seattle, but on 16th March, six days before we were legally shut down, we made the call to postpone it and do an event completely virtually.
With a fantastic client like Chris James and the Steel Media Ltd team, we created something I can only describe as amazing. In three and a half weeks we brought together 150+ speakers, 20+ sponsors, 1000+ attendees, seven tracks, four fringe events, and, oh, a new online meeting system.
I was and still am beyond emotional and so very, very proud. We have kept fighting and questioning, we have cried, and we have drunk lots of wine. I have learnt new technologies at speed when I wasn't sure I could. I love the games industry for supporting this. I cannot wait to hug you all.
I took the years of global event experience I have and worked with the team to transfer that online, with speaker green rooms for testing the checking, virtual stage management and moderators, creative design for Zoom backgrounds and online meeting system branding. It was truly brilliant to be able to do this.
Each of Steel Media’s conferences in 2020 got bigger and bigger, and we delivered countless smaller day and half day webinars. We have discord servers to help build a community for the events which really doesn’t help. We have pushed Zoom to its limits, and even got a magic box to allow us to stream video seamlessly.
One thing I am a strong advocate for is that we still need to be delivering LIVE events. I understand the need for prerecords with time zones and fear of tech hiccups. However, you still cannot beat a live presentation. This is what will keep the events sector going. People still need people, we want to see a smile, we want that back-and-forth chat with a host and speaker. We need it to feel real. I have had speakers that have got up and talked at 4am from the West Coast and, yes, it’s strange but welcome to 2020.
Something else that I have noticed is that a lot of people think they can run these events themselves (I am sure you can) but please do not forget that these are still events. Delegates, guests, speakers all need to be looked after. Their journey needs to be considered and you need to go that extra mile to make sure people are comfortable in this new world. Never forget the people in this tech world.
Don’t get me wrong this has not been easy, but I have fought to keep my head above water. It has very much been a rollercoaster (or coronacoster). There have been some very dark days and some amazing highs.
Special thanks to my fab event ladies, Katherine Aitken and Katy Reilly and the rest of the team because without them I am just a mess. Here’s to many more to come, until I can go back to the wonderful world of live events and hugging all my industry friends.
Love you all and stay safe.
Sally