How I successfully pivoted my events company from a physical to a virtual platform during Covid-19

My successful corporate events business Ping Pong Fight Club lost the ability to trade in late March 2020 as the COVID19 pandemic creating huge uncertainty for our future.

Our struggles became financial and psychological as we tried to come to terms with the gravity of the situation. Not only had we failed to realise a future 6-figure revenue but had needed to shore up existing business debts and running costs in order to keep the company afloat.

Pre-COVID19 Ping Pong Fight Club produced intercompany social ping pong tournaments, team bonding and fun networking parties, in unusual locations – we attracted hundreds of start-ups and sector leading brands across the UK. We proudly disrupted the corporate events market.

Our events featured DJs, VR, beer pong championships, ping pong robots, cabaret, social tournaments, masterclasses, cinematic visuals and big prizes.

Our first event in Shoreditch in 2014 attracted 16 companies (including Facebook, Spotify and Expedia amongst others), gaining a feature in the NY Times. In 2019 UK, our tour expanded to eight cities with over 120 companies taking part and over 2,500 attendees. We were flattered with amazing media coverage, including a piece on BBC Breakfast: https://youtu.be/uhe5kC6I5f4

During my COVID isolation one day I set up a home ‘ping pong playground’ in my living room complete with nets, balls, dining room table and a ping pong robot! I set up a makeshift tripod (gothic candlestick!) with my phone attached to it, grabbed my paddles and balls, and hit record.

My paddles soon graduated to playing with kitchen utensils, garden shed tools, lampshades and even wooden spoons! I started posting all my ping pong challenge videos on social media and they gained good traction.

I then had my ‘pivot moment’ and created ‘Ping Pong Fight Club’s Lockdown Challenge Show’ – a fully interactive online event experience enabling friends, family and work colleagues to connect, compete and have fun from the comfort of their homes.

I created the content for a new webpage, wrote the script and effectively relaunched my career as a game show host! I quickly found a ping pong kit sponsor and feedback from our corporate community was really positive – willing to experience the show with a view of booking online team bonding sessions.

The weekly 45 minute show launched on June 6. Broadcasting live, it was as chaotic as it was exhilarating, and the feedback was amazing.

I set four hilarious 60 second ping pong challenges in advance, a trivia round, another random off-the-bat ping pong challenge and kept the whole thing rolling with a ping pong theme tune, Eurovision style leaderboard and some tongue-in-cheek game show banter.

One month later we are averaging one corporate/private party booking enquiry each day supported by our base of existing clients and a newfound audience - https://www.thebigsmokeevents.com/ping-pong-lockdown-challenge

I’ve no doubt we will be back in the physical world running events, however, bearing in mind the rapid rate of technological advancement and the changing landscape of corporate and consumer trends, we are purely focussed on our virtual offering for the meantime. I am confident the physical and the virtual worlds will happily coexist and complement each other in good time.

My goals are tightly woven into what I believe are basic human instincts to feel connection, love and enrichment through joy and laughter.

Ade Leigh (CEO -Ping Pong Fight Club)