If you’re are planning an annual or inaugural outdoor event in spring 2021 then you are in likely in a predicament as to whether to push on with your event planning or make the decision to postpone or cancel.
Either option is far from ideal, clarity on the easing of COVID restrictions from the government is still unclear. This leaves event organisers with the option to either take a gamble and continue planning for their spring dates with the risk that restrictions will not have eased substantially enough by this point, or make a cancellation, which carries financial and reputational damages in itself.
The good news is the vaccine programme is in full flow, with an average daily vaccination rate of 319,000 people during the week of the 24th January 2021, so it’s likely that we will face some sort of normality in the events sector in the latter months of 2021. What we don’t know is how quickly restrictions will be eased and when mass events can be expected to be delivered again. The government announced that a roadmap to normality will be outlined in a press conference on the 22nd February, but detail specific to events is likely to come at a later date.
Until then, there are things that you can do to give your event the best possible chance of success (if restrictions have eased enough by your event date).
1) Understand the stance that authorities and venues have on COVID-19 and work with them to meet all their requirements
From event planning that All About Sports Events has conducted in early 2021 it’s clear that authorities are reluctantly having to take a stance on mass participation events that means all events are on halt until further notice with no clear timeline on when this official stance will change.
This can be frustrating for event organisers, but it’s important for event managers to make it clear to authorities that although events are officially on halt at the moment, multi-agency event planning should not be. In fact, this collaborative approach to event planning is more important than ever and the following four months into summer is key to ensuring the events industry can bounce back when the opportunity arises.
2) Evidence your commitment to delivering a COVID safe event
It’s important for event organisers to evidence to stakeholders that they are committed to delivering a COVID safe event. This should be through the early engagement of authorities and stakeholders, the provision of quality safety documentation and commitment from the organiser to put together a competent and qualified team of event safety managers.
Event organisers are used to managing risks and now they have more responsibility to deliver safe events than ever before. We suggest reaching out to your contacts to get specialised advice, explore the resources available to you in the public domain and share experiences with the event community.
3) Understand your events financial commitments from now until event delivery
It’s important for you to understand your events financial journey. We find it useful to map this onto a timeline allowing us to develop a tier system, which in turn outlines how much money has been spent on the event up to that point. Within this, it's important to split out overhead costs (staff, office, vehicle leases) that you will already be paying for, costs for items/services that you will utilise on an event regardless of its date and the costs that are incurred for that specific event delivery date.
Understanding the non-refundable costs that will be incurred specific to that event delivery date is key to understanding your events financial timeline. Once these have been identified, then you can pinpoint the dates at which financial risk increases, allowing you to assess the COVID situation at that time and make decisions based on fact.
4) Prepare for the tier system to return!
When the UK comes out of lockdown, event organisers must prepare for the tier system to return. This comes with all sorts of implications for outdoor events.
Firstly, if your event is in a tier which allows events to go ahead, then it’s more than likely that some of your attendees or competitors will live in a tier that doesn’t allow them to travel to your event. With this in mind, it’s important to clearly communicate to your customers what their options are if this is the case. Are they eligible for a refund, attendance to another date or nothing at all?
The tier system is also likely to impact operational planning of an event, with higher than normal dropout rates expected, this could impact upon safe capacities, secondary spend at the event and overall profitability of the event.
5) Understand the impact any decisions will have on your customer
Before making any major decisions in regards to your event delivery, it’s important to understand the impact these decisions will have on your customer.
For example, if an event organiser opts to deliver an event in early spring 2021, then entrants that are at a higher risk of developing serious COVID symptoms are likely to feel less comfortable attending a mass event. This is in turn likely to have an impact on event attendance, deferrals and drop outs.
Equally, if an event organisers opts to cancel or move an event date until later in the year, regardless if event entry is refunded or transferred, people entered at likely to already have some financial commitment to the original event date in the form of accommodation or travel. Although this risk can be clearly stated upon the point of entry, a bad experience and lack of flexibility can lead to negative feeling towards your brand effecting its long term reputation.
All About Sports Events has over the last few months been working from our base in Harrogate, North Yorkshire with a number of event organisers to create and communicate COVID safe plans for events in spring 2021. If you would like to explore working with All About Sports Events on your projects, please visit our services page here.
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