The Domino Effect and the Glue

Like many event staffing agencies, our normally full calendars disappeared before our very eyes as the impact of Covid-19 took hold.

The first week in March saw our first big cancellation, a huge conference that was months in the planning and was due to take place the following week was rescheduled to October, this was the start of things to come. Each event domino we had lined up on the table for 2020 was starting to wobble. On Thursday 12th the dominos began falling and as the news overwhelmed us all with social distancing and the impact of Covid-19 I asked our office team to work from home to avoid any infection.

On Friday 13th March, our dominos were cascading around us at an incredible pace. A huge percentage of our business being sports hospitality, our next event due to take place that very same day at Fulham FC was cancelled at lunchtime with staff due to be on-site at 16:30. Shortly after the Six Nations at Principality Stadium Cardiff, games at Southampton, West Ham, Arsenal, Charlton Athletic and Nottingham Forest followed suit, other industry events ensued. Exactly one week later, on 20th March Euro 2020 was rescheduled to 2021, another huge contract win for Aesthetics had toppled. Up next was the UEFA European tour which we had only secured a few weeks earlier.

With events in banking, IT and education hanging in the balance we remained hopeful, but each day brought news of another cancellation. I watched the news with anticipation almost every minute that week becoming a fountain of knowledge for all things Covid. The next big fall was Wimbledon, an event that we have been involved with for 20 years along with Grand Prix however we were still holding tight that the storm would be over by mid-July leaving a glimmer of hope that this iconic Motorsports event would still go ahead. By the end of April we saw the last glimmer of hope fade as it was decided it would be held without spectators.

It is painful to watch your event calendar reduce from approx. 1400 event staff days per month to ZERO, yet we seek comfort in knowing that we are not alone.

Having worked in events for over 30 years and running a successful staffing agency for 24 years we endured the recession of 2008 when our biggest sector at that time was Automotive. We came out stronger and took a natural path into corporate hospitality with last year being our busiest year since that recession. 2020 will without a doubt be our worst year to date, so where does that leave us? Things will certainly never be the same again, they will however be different. Sports hospitality and its suppliers will take a massive hit as mass participation events will be the last to recover. 

I have a strong belief that we will weather this storm, but we will all need to re look at how we do business in the future and the services we have to offer. For many businesses that were already struggling sadly the decision as to whether they have a future or not may be taken out of their hands and for those that are left there will be huge impact on their financial stability and the well-being of their staff, both will have to be managed closely. Many of us will no doubt have to take the painful decision of who should stay and who should go but our heads must rule our emotions if we are to survive. We will all learn from this awful situation yet not all our learning will be negative, there will be many positives too.

We will be a more empathetic nation considering the needs of others and not just our own. We will rebuild together and support one another to bring our industry back to where it was, yes things will never be the same, but we will repair the damage. We are an industry that creates experiences for people to make them feel good and that’s exactly what we will continue to do, it may be a more gradual process rather than the tight timescales we are used to but we are an industry of people that is known for delivering against almost impossible demands. We are an industry of troubleshooters, go-getters and doers that overcome obstacles forever being thrown in our way. We are re-builders so when our dominoes fall, we will line them up bigger and better and glue them to the table to keep them upright. We are the glue that will make events happen again!