To know the effects of COVID-19 and official reports of EEMA on Event industry, this article will be very helpful to all event workforce and associates.
Event industry is one of the growing industries across the globe. Since past 1 decade, it has grown tremendously covering all the celebrations from larger to smaller scales. but as applicable to every sector or industry of the world, COVID-19 has drastically impacted event industry as well. Let's understand how COVID-19 has impacted the industry and the people associated with it.
Event
industry & COVID-19
Everything which includes public gathering at some place for some purpose can be included in event business so basically in every corner of every city some of the events are going through either at large scale or small scale.
Like- all corporate
meetings, Annual General Meetings, social events, partner meets, product
launches, tech and non-tech conferences, seminars and association meets,
inaugurations – all these are broadly categorized as “Business Events”.
There
are various types of events going across the globe
and thousands of event companies are engaged daily in one or other events and
keeping tact their high records of client’s satisfaction.
But
it is also a fact that events are all about gathering of people and just think
if government bans this social gathering then what??? Or if people are afraid
to join the gathering because of some reason then what???
This entire situation
can drastically impact on the event business or else event companies need to
find out other source of income to pay off their personal expenses and their
staff payments.So if just thinking this can create a distress to us, imagine
what if it goes true :(
Event
industry contributes a greater part to an Indian economy. What is event management and who are event managers is not a new term in this era.
This
industry is abundantly growing across the globe. It is expected that the global event industry is going to be worth more
than $2,330 billion by year 2026.
Today
entire globe is suffering a high distress and pain because of COVID-19.
COVID-19 which is also known as corona
virus globally is a pandemic who is destroying many dreams, ruining many
businesses across globe & also taking off many lives. People are dying of
hunger. In entire globe, millions of people have
been affected due to this.
been affected due to this.
Now
what are the effects of COVID-19 on event industry? It is very important for
all event mangers, event companies, event vendors and event clients to
understand this pandemic situation in order to tackle their event dates.
The
impact of the cancellation of the events is significantly intense and keeping
the view of the current situation of this pandemic across the globe we do not predict
a revival of any typesof events before the end of July,2020 at least.
In fact,
the events that were scheduled for year-end have already been postponed to 2021
or temporarily cancelled if not so important. So the situation for this business doesn’t seems good for next
some of the coming months.
This corona has badly affected the working scenario
of all event corporate and private companies around the globe. Yes, a bitter truth! This has created a big question of how to run business during COVID-19.
Let us now examine briefly how some categories of events are affected by COVID-19.
Corporate & leisure events
Generally
exhibitions, trade fairs, corporate meetings, annual meetings, inaugurations,
seminars, workshops, training programs and other such are a great scope of
event to be organized.
This alone accounts for around 60,000 events in leading
11 countries per year which is huge in number and market values.These events
generally observe a huge gathering of audience and guests across all domains
and provide heavy business to the venues and convention centers.
These vendors
will be the most affected amongst the MICE (meetings-incentives-convention-exhibition) sector
due to the corona virus lockdown since a major portion of their earnings is
through sponsorships and exhibitor participation. Many MNCs and other
international companies have cancelled or postponed their product launch
events, training programs, conference etc due to this COVID-19.
Tremendous loss
in the investment & funding may be seen for event companies due to the
effects of corona on events. Some organization like EEMA has issued COVID-19 report on event industry.
Sports, Entertainment And Tourism
Sports
are one of the highly invested events of many countries around globe. Loss in
sports events are a great loss to many organization and to the nation like
India for Indian premier league (IPL), Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) world cup for Host countries, Olympics for their Host
countries etc. as they have investment hell lot of money on the whole event and
trophies.
This not only affects the host
countries but also leaves the impact on the native players and their economy. Events
that are organized to support tourism and regional business have called off
their current year’s editions, and the most recent example of which is the Expo
2020, Dubai that was originally scheduled in October 2020.
This
sector also witnessed the cancellation of the Tokyo Olympics and other events
like the Football leagues internationally and Indian premier league (IPL) nationally, who have also cancelled
their 2020 edition. This cancellation of events can be observed in various
parts of the globe and ruined dreams of many athletes and sports person.
Social & private events
Social events are meant for social gathering
and how these events can be imagined without public? Government norms will now
regulate religious conferences, weddings, parties, festive gatherings and more.
Organizing these events is unlikely to begin before June/July, and then too
there will be a mandatory requirement of multiple approvals which may involve a
lot of paperwork hence leading to a restricted version of the originally
planned event.
All the bookings which has been done for dated between April -
July has been now a question to clients and event companies.
The solution is
solely possible by mutual understanding between clients, vendors and event
companies. Else this may end up disputes between parties.
It is necessary to
understand and follow the official
guidelines by government regarding how to run event business during COVID-19. All the precautions, preventions, measures,
symptoms for any event have to be followed by event companies.
The Events and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) recently conducted a member survey with 170 companies that were affected by COVID-19.
The report highlights major impact on event companies in
context to the loss of business, the revenue impacted, employers affected and the funds
required in the long run to attain stability. This will directly affect on the
payment of salaried staff and will rise in event unemployment.
Recently EEMA had filed a petition appealing to the Government of India to intervene with measures to support the lives of the 60 million Indians the event industry employs – directly and indirectly across the whole nation. It may be not in count of nations employment about the number of people involved in event industry but this industry is vast and employs diverse of job titles and work profiles.
Recently EEMA had filed a petition appealing to the Government of India to intervene with measures to support the lives of the 60 million Indians the event industry employs – directly and indirectly across the whole nation. It may be not in count of nations employment about the number of people involved in event industry but this industry is vast and employs diverse of job titles and work profiles.
Some of the key findings of the report:
1) Around 52.91% of
companies resulted in 90% of their business being cancelled between March-July
2020
2) 63.1% companies i.e. around 107 companies suffered from a revenue loss of up to 1 CR
3) Around 7 companies anticipates a 50%-80% retrenchment of their current workforce and 35 between 25%-50%
4) The ideal working capital/loan expected to keep afloat for the next 6 months is around 2-5 CR for 39 companies and 1-2 CR for 118 companies
5) Around 97 companies will need to raise capital or debt from institutions or shareholders, VC funding etc.
The 170 member survey
represents over a 1,00,000 of companies that were affected by this pandemic and
EEMA urges the government to consider some steps like the immediate payout of
all income tax refunds, which have been due for a while, and the due payment
from the central and state governments to event companies for work done or
work-in-progress.2) 63.1% companies i.e. around 107 companies suffered from a revenue loss of up to 1 CR
3) Around 7 companies anticipates a 50%-80% retrenchment of their current workforce and 35 between 25%-50%
4) The ideal working capital/loan expected to keep afloat for the next 6 months is around 2-5 CR for 39 companies and 1-2 CR for 118 companies
5) Around 97 companies will need to raise capital or debt from institutions or shareholders, VC funding etc.
Sanjoy K Roy, president, EEMA, said, “The COVID-19 pandemic will impact the entire business community, and our team is focused on ensuring the health and safety of our employees.
Industries have already
faced an interlocking set of financial challenges for which we filed a petition
to the government of India. The sectors are getting into a financial crisis
which might soon result into increasing unemployment ratios.
We hope that the
Government takes the required decision which can help the country to survive
with the results of the pandemic.”
The above article discussed briefly about various effects of COVID-19 & official report of EEMA on event industry. It is necessary to take various precaution in order to prevent yourself from this contagious virus.
The above article discussed briefly about various effects of COVID-19 & official report of EEMA on event industry. It is necessary to take various precaution in order to prevent yourself from this contagious virus.
It is very essential to take care of yourself and others to prevent from this contagious virus,
So guys, tell me how you prevent yourself from this virus in the comment box :)