Restart And Recovery in B.C: Ideas For Adapting And Running Events In The New Normal

The 45-minute May 6th announcement by B.C Premier John Horgan announced the 4 stage strategy the province has put in place to restart and recover the economy. 

“We need to get it right and progress together slowly and safely”

Watching the announcement got me thinking about what events might look like over the next year. I work as an event photographer at small scale events up to larger scale conferences, and with the restart and recovery news that events must be less than 50 people until a vaccine has been discovered or community immunity has been achieved, how events are run and attended will be changing. I’ve put together some ideas of how events might adapt amidst the upcoming changes as we head towards “the new normal” whilst heeding the four-phases of recovery laid out by the province to keep everybody safe, well and working as a community to ensuring the curve continues to go down and decline. 

“Most important to our success - we need to come together as a community and as a province. Businesses cannot succeed unless we decide to support them. The only way they will survive is that if people have confidence when they walk through their doors that they will be well and that business will be well at the same time.” - John Horgan

The whole restart + recovery plan is built to be rolled out and led with B.C’s top values in mind

Panel discussions + workshops

The Old Normal: 

• Theatre style seat layout with chairs close to each other all facing the speaker or presenter at the front

• Tables in a classroom style (in lines behind each other) or people sharing one long table

• Panelists sharing microphones

For The New Normal How About:

• Creating chair clusters with 5 or less people. This will create mini-communities and good opportunities for connection amongst the cluster 

• Gathering in a circle or semi-circle depending on style of event (I see this working for events of 20 or less people). It can create a great sense of togetherness and allows for ample space between attendees. A semi-circle gives room for a speaker to be in front of all their audience equally, whilst allowing for speaker and audience to feel really connected 

• Microphones for each speaker or covers for microphones that can be exchanged each time

Small conferences

The Old Normal: 

• Keynote speakers + break out workshop rooms + activation stations + food 

For The New Normal How About:

• Activations - all activations to be low touch (a few impact-conscious event activation ideas that tick this box here)

• Activations - Tape out the area the activation will be in - or better yet and more aesthetically pleasing/less intimidating - get some on-brand space dividers 

• Activations - monitored and sanitised after each use

• Food - Have servers at the event or pre-prepare dishes instead of having attendees help themselves 

• Food - Have attendees submit their food choice before the event so it’s ready and waiting for them when the time comes 

• Break out workshop rooms - Limit the maximum amount of people in each breakout room. Run more repetitions of the workshops if necessary. If there’s a lot of demand for one workshop consider live streaming it and having another physical breakout room where people can tune in virtually 

• Keynote speakers - Adopt the circle / semi-circle room layout vs theatre room style (see above) 

Networking at events

The Old Normal: 

• Open networking, a room full of people with the opportunity to talk to anyone

For The New Normal How About:

• Curated networking. This will require more work from the organisers but could be a fun way to network. When attendees sign up to an event they indicate via a selection box the types of conversation/ topics of conversation they’d like to have. Organisers match up attendees through this. For a ‘wildcard’ option alongside say 3 x curated networking matches each attendee name would be matched at random to one additional person

Helping attendees feel safe during this period of restart and recovery

For The New Normal How About:

• Provide a hand sanitiser station upon event entry and have stations positioned around the event. Provide each attendee with a small bottle of personal sanitiser (opportunity to work with a local business to brand these both!)

• Provide attendees with a personal mask (you could even work with a local maker to create branded masks?)

• Look into appropriate touch tools if relevant to your event. This is something that keeps hands from touching common public surfaces, reducing the transmission of germs. Check out Fairware, a Vancouver based sustainable merchandise business who have created a brilliant Personal Protective Equipment lookbook.

• Set expectations in pre-event emails about what precautions the event will be taking around attendee safety and again at the start of the event

An example of a “touchtool” by Fairware. This allows the user to avoid touching common public services

This reusable mug allows the owner to write their name on it to prevent use by others

Locations

With Summer approaching we have opportunities to hold events outdoors. How can outside locations work to your advantage?

• What are the values of your company and how might you choose an outdoor location that is inline with one or more of them? 

• Is there a local outdoor space that you can support? Crowdsource for ideas and reach out to speakers and your community for suggestions of spaces they see fit and who they’d like to see supported. A local winery or brewery with an outdoor space? A coworking space with an outdoor balcony? 

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What do you think about these suggestions? Do you have suggestions for how events can adapt and run safely as we go into restart and recovery? Do you know any businesses that supply products that will support the new style of events?

Please share them so we can all adapt and thrive together below.

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Are you considering running an IRL event in the future? You might find this article on impact-conscious event activations helpful.

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