Carry on (almost) regardless: Thoughts from an event industry PR during Coronavirus

It’s a worrying time to be working in the events industry. I’ve worked in our industry for over 20 years and many of the suppliers, agencies and venues that I know are facing cancellations and fighting to avoid redundancies and staying afloat. I have witnessed the story emerge, grow and now take over our industry press - as editors (quite rightly) focus on sharing COVID-19 news.

This situation has made me stop and think: what is my role, as an industry PR in all of this? Is it even worth me carrying on with the creation of industry news, opinion and stories, when so much of the press focus (and industry focus) is on the daily developments affecting our industry?  Does anyone care about ‘normal news’ any more? Could it even be seen as bad taste to carry on with our PR campaigns? I decided to canvas a few of my journalist contacts to find out:

“The reality is a lot of so-called conventional news has dried up as events businesses focus their efforts on the crisis at hand,” comments Martin Fullard, editor of Conference News. “However, while everyone has suffered multiple cancellations, the events industry is still out there, and we are keen to know what they are up to.”

“We remain interested in normal news,” said Paul Colston, managing editor of Mash Media’s International Portfolio, “although, inevitably, business as usual is hard to see in most places right now.”

Caroline Clift, editor of Stand Out agrees: "The last few weeks have been a worrying time for the events industry and rightly so. It is our duty as an industry publication to report the facts to our readers and to encourage sensible reporting. Every day, there is new advice on guidance on COVID-19 and we will report the facts, as and when it is appropriate. However, it is not the only news that we wish to hear. The events industry is carrying on. Events are taking place and events professionals still have news to share. Now is not the time to go silent, so organisers, suppliers, production houses and venues should be promoting themselves, reporting positive news and sharing best practice. Industry publications are always keen to hear readers’ thoughts and opinions, genuine insight which other professionals can learn from.

Fiona Keating, editor of Northstar’s M&IT is following the same approach: “We are still publishing non-coronavirus news – although we are obviously concentrating on this.”

 “Yes, we're still interested in normal news,” agrees Mark Williams, associate editor of Haymarket’s C&IT. “But Coronavirus related news is definitely taking priority at the moment.

But if ‘good news’ is scarce or would sound contrived, then my advice is to take a different tact; thought leadership and insight pieces are still of interest to the press and their readers.

“I am always very interested in thought leadership pieces, so do please send us your ideas and suggestions” said Keating.

“We are still interested in thought leadership pieces. We're trying not to do 100% coronavirus related articles but with new developments happening every day there's a lot to cover.” says Williams.

Colston has a warning: Please don’t jump on the coronavirus bandwagon and link it to something that you sell. “Insights and thought leadership is all good, but not shameless promoting of event tech on the back of the coronavirus, for example.”

“No one wants to read a biased and self-promotional article,” agrees Clift. “But people are interested to hear of best practice and how someone else dealt with a scenario, for example.”

Each of our magazines plans ‘forward features’ and these lists are often published in advance for the  year to give advertisers time to plan relevant advertising and for PRs to suggest ideas and content.

“I can say with certainty that I will be readjusting our forward features list. As with any global news event on a scale such as this, the coverage will move in stages,” comments Fullard. “Therefore I am unable to confirm what changes I will be making. It is important to continue to showcase the best of the industry, but there won’t be room for everything. It will depend on the bigger picture, and decisions may end up being made on a month-by-month basis in the short term. We will keep you updated.”

“Every September, we publish our forward features list for the following year. It provides businesses with an overview of some of the topics that we will cover,” says Clift. “I suspect that some of these features will have a slightly different focus in the coming months and we may have to change the way we look at a topic, or relax editorial guidelines as to the timeframe of featured case studies. At this time, everyone needs to adopt a flexible approach and work together to create insightful and interesting content that people can learn from during this time. In fact, I think events professionals may even have more time to read, learn and up-skill over the next few months.”

International titles are flexible in their approach to reporting on different areas of the globe: “The virus is a bit like a black cloud moving across the globe, so that when Wuhan was suffering the UK was fine, now Europe is in the eye of the storm but more positive stories are emerging in China, Singapore and South Korea. Therefore, there are different themes and tones on the virus story for us as international publications.”

“Our magazine features list tries to be as reactive as possible, however we also have to ensure that the content in the magazine is ever-green and not too time sensitive,” says Williams. “We review our features every quarter and are subject to change.”

“We are carrying on as usual with the features list,” states Keating, “although this is subject to change.”

The majority of our industry titles are free to event organisers and they rely on the income generated from advertising and sponsorship, it worries me that suppliers and venues will pull adverting – after all – will anyone be reading the industry press at the moment?

“As I have said before, now is not the time to go quiet. Our website has seen a 400 per cent increase in traffic since coronavirus hit. Events professionals are visiting our website, using it as a source of valuable information,” states Clift. “Furthermore, with events postponing until the end of the year, organisers may find that they cannot book their usual supplier and may have to source a new or different contractor. So, no, now is definitely not the time to cut back on marketing, advertising or PR. Event suppliers should be showing people just what services they can offer and how they can be of assistance.” 

Fullard has experienced a similar increase in website traffic and agrees: “There is no need to stop advertising, but you would expect me to say that. The point is, the events will come back, and the organisers are still out there planning for future events. They still need to know what is out there so they can hit the ground running when the light changes back to green. This is no time for rivalry, so we are not attempting to compete with other titles for web traffic. We have kept our content concise and not overloaded it with stories of individual cancellations (with the notable exception of IMEX Frankfurt). Everything has come broadly from us and we have resisted opinion comment from third parties, save for the trade associations who are tasked with representing their memberships. I think the world needs to choose it’s ‘experts’ very carefully at the moment, and too many voices can often confuse readers.”

(ends)