Exploring the future of live events & corporate entertainment

As you’re aware, some countries are starting to loosen their COVID-19 restrictions with the goal of rebooting their economies and moving towards a new normal. Although this will be a long process, and closely monitored to ensure the safety and well-being of all, our team at Robin can’t help but consider what this new future will hold for the live events industry and the world of corporate entertainment.

Background:

Only eight short weeks ago, our company was servicing corporate clients and their needs for live entertainment and events. We were on a mission to build the world’s first Corporate Entertainment Platform that would be analogous to Corporate Travel providers like American Express Global Business Travel & Egencia, and startups like Trip Actions and Rocketrip. However, instead of booking hotels and flights, we were helping companies and their employees get the best value for their entertainment budgets across live events, culinary activities and unique experiences.

This was exciting because the global events industry was valued at more than $1.1 Trillion, and for all the amazing leaps forward in the corporate travel space, the world of corporate entertainment was still very inefficient. Companies were using disparate platforms and services to book events and live entertainment without a good understanding of how to get the best value for their budgets.

And although we found some early modest success, like many of the aforementioned companies, our progress ground to a near-halt as customers started to cancel, restrict and postpone travel and events in early March of this year.

Looking Ahead:

Now, eight weeks later and with the context of the COVID-19 pandemic top of mind, it’s clear that the landscape for corporate entertainment and live events will never look the same again. Like the impact of the infamous Sports Almanac in Back to the Future 2, the natural progression of things has been disrupted — and we’re faced with a promise of a new normal for the years to come.

We have put together some considerations for the industry and our best-guesses for where corporate entertainment dollars will flow in the years to come.

Health and Safety:

Until a vaccine for COVID-19 is made readily available, in-person events of all shapes and sizes will need to reconsider how they guarantee the health and safety of attendees. This will undoubtedly impact how venues are cleaned, how space is used, how catering is provided, how guests are checked-in, when events are scheduled, how Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is provided, and ultimately how attendance is tracked to be able to trace any potential outbreaks after the fact.

These new challenges will require new technologies to be used by both hosts and attendees as they figure out the path forward in an uncertain time. This presents an opportunity for corporate partnerships that fall outside the standard ‘event sponsorship’ deals.

Intimacy:

Let’s face it, the mega-conference or mega-festival might soon be extinct. Salesforce, who welcomed nearly 170,000 guests every year to their annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco may be hard pressed to reemerge post-COVID given consumer sentiment and willingness of companies to send employees on the road. Either governments or businesses themselves will want to avoid bringing together such large groups of people.

Sub-events or regional gatherings throughout the year may now emerge as a better experience than one annual conference. This creates an opportunity to allow for deeper experiences for the smaller group of attendees.

Even on the consumer side, large-scale festivals like Coachella, Glastonbury & FujiRock may also need to reconsider their attendance goals (and subsequently their unit economics) to thrive in the new normal.

Privacy:

As live events do return, we will likely see a significant increase in the demand for private experiences inside events. For example, sporting events will see increased demand for premium experiences, private suites and luxury boxes from corporate clients who use live events as an avenue for entertaining and networking.

In the medium term this extra layer of privacy will help guests feel at ease when chatting over drinks and food. Venue owners like AEG, LiveNation, MLSE or MSG will need to reimagine the best use of the space within their respective arenas and stadiums to cater for their corporate clientele and sponsorship partners.

Similarly, in the culinary world we will see increased demand for private dining experiences and private room bookings that can shelter guests away from the open dining area. Not only do small groups of 10–16 guests have the benefits of building trust faster for attendees, they are far easier to justify financially and are safer and easier to control than larger venue buyouts or events.

Experiential:

It only takes a few conversations with friends and colleagues to realize that during self-isolation we’ve awoken our desire to learn new skills and try new activities. For many of our corporate clients this trend was already in place before COVID-19, which will likely act as a catalyst. From workshops to wine tasting — corporate activities will continue to shift to more experiential activities and events where the fewer attendees who do participate can leave with something memorable in the process.

Experiential activities also offer you the opportunity to personalize an event for key clients or employees, which is the goal of event marketing in the first place. It’s far better to hire someone like Yotam Ottolenghi to prepare a virtual meal for a vegetarian client than simply sending them an invite to your cocktail party.

Digital Events:

This might be the sleeping giant that very few people in the events industry are talking about. The global virtual events industry was already projected to be valued at $86B by 2021 before COVID-19, and our recent collective quarantine has surely accelerated this trend. There is a strong possibility that we will soon experience a world where in-person events could be supplemented by a 2nd screen experience — or replaced altogether by a safer, more efficient and far more accessible virtual counterpart that isn’t restricted by venue capacities or your company’s travel policy.

The many limitations of video conferencing software are well known, but I would like to remind you that in many ways we are still quite early on the curve. Recently venture investors have placed their bets on various companies in this space. I would suggest keeping a close eye on Hopin, Run the World and newcomer Rally to fundamentally disrupt the space for corporate events & live entertainment.

The way forward:

Although it will be a difficult adjustment, there is much to look forward to as people reemerge (safely) from their homes and start to gather and conduct business together. I personally look forward to a time where I can again watch my beloved Toronto Raptors at Scotiabank Arena — but patience is essential as we get to a new normal.

And I remain an optimist for the live events business. After all, the Spanish Flu was followed by the roaring twenties — an incredible time for live entertainment. People will always have an innate urge to connect, to have shared experiences and ultimately to discover new and exciting ways of doing business. Even if it takes a while for the event industry to reemerge post-COVID, that’s ok.

There are also things we can do to help. For instance, in the United States, there is a movement to once again make meals and entertainment 50% tax deductible for corporations — reversing 2017 tax reforms that eliminated this deduction. This alone could have a MASSIVE impact on the speed of recovery for hospitality businesses, events businesses and anyone catering to the corporate entertainment audience.

And although It’s true that the world of corporate travel & entertainment is forever changed, I’d like to encourage you to not despair. This new normal that awaits us is as much of an opportunity for innovation and new ideas as it is a swan song for the status quo.