Leading Brands, Agencies, and Fortune 500 Companies Share Their
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Leading brands, agencies, and Fortune 500 companies share their insights about the impact of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic on the event and experiential marketing industry. InProduction thought you might enjoy this reprint… What To Expect When Events Come Back includes insights from: InProduction • 800.999.5278 • www.InProduction.net • @InPoEvents 2 CONTENTS THE 2020 CORONAVIRUS 01 PANDEMIC 5 02 INNOVATE OR DISAPPEAR 12 WHAT CAN WE EXPECT WHEN 03 EVENTS COME BACK 17 NAVIGATING THE 04 RECESSION 23 EXPERIENTIAL IN A 05 POST-PANDEMIC WORLD 28 06 ABOUT LIMELIGHT 30 InProduction • 800.999.5278 • www.InProduction.net • @InPoEvents 3 LIMELIGHTPLATFORM.COM 01 InProduction • 800.999.5278 • www.InProduction.net • @InPoEvents 4 01 THE 2020 CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC AND THE LIVE EVENT INDUSTRY The rapid and global spread of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic marked a turning point in history that future generations will study for decades to come. In the early days of the outbreak nobody could predict exactly what the lasting economic fallout of COVID-19 would be, but we do know that the live event industry was hit hard and hit fast. “Event Marketing has stopped completely, and the horizon does not look promising for the immediate future.” - Anthony TaCito, TaCito Direct The acceleration of this disease made for uncertain times for all of us, but particularly for event and experiential marketers. As experiential technology experts, here at Limelight we work closely with marketers and brands across the globe, so we have firsthand knowledge of how millions of consumer events, activations and sponsorships were affected by this pandemic. After following the initial progression of the disease and watching the swift cancellation of events everywhere, we interviewed hundreds of marketing leaders around the world and asked them how COVID-19 had impacted their business and what they expected the long- term implications to the industry would be. With insights from leading brands, agencies and Fortune 500 companies around the world, What To Expect When Events Come Back explores what the future of live events might look like in the months and years to come. InProduction • 800.999.5278 • www.InProduction.net • @InPoEvents 5 Less than 3 months 2% 49% of marketers think that the 6-12 Months 12 Months + 39% 49% event industry will take more than 12 months to recover. 3-6 Months 10% As the industry awaits a time when people can gather in large groups and we can hold live events once The fear of threat to life and to life more, event and experiential as we know it is overwhelming and marketers are using this time profound. With a potential vaccine to re-evaluate their marketing taking months or even years to strategies and plan for the future. come to fruition, people and businesses are left to live with no A World Disrupted control over a future that cannot be predicted. Disruption to everyday life on such “The threat of COVID-19 to lives a global scale has never before and livelihoods will fully resolve been experienced by anyone in only when enough people are living memory. As the coronavirus immune to the disease to blunt pandemic has progressed, people transmission, either from a have been forced to stay in vaccine or direct exposure.” 1 their homes for months on end, employees must work from home - McKinsey & Company while simultaneously trying to teach their children, families and friends are unable to socialize or even meet each other, services that were always open are closed indefinitely, and healthcare systems have been stretched to the absolute max. InProduction • 800.999.5278 • www.InProduction.net • @InPoEvents 6 In a world where live events can no longer happen, event and experiential marketers are left with many unresolved Unsure 14% questions about the future of their industry. How long will the event No industry be impacted? 19% Yes 67% Should we wait it out or pivot to virtual events? Will it be safe to hold live events in 2020? Are people going to turn their 67% of marketers backs on events out of fear? think that post- Can small events be as valuable as large events? pandemic, people will be less willing to How can I keep consumers safe at my events? attend live events. When will live events come back? When they do come back, will they be the same? In What To Expect When Events Come Back we attempt to answer these questions. InProduction • 800.999.5278 • www.InProduction.net • @InPoEvents 7 he world of event for us as event and experiential marketing as we know marketers. Widely reported as it is over. Those involved unprecedented, the impact that in the planning and COVID-19 has had on the event Tcreation of future events and industry is exactly that. experiences now have the opportunity to reimagine what “Any work that was the event marketing landscape of the future will look like. Humans event/trade show have always craved social related evaporated interaction with other humans and live events are not going to overnight.” disappear. Virtual events cannot offer the same face-to-face social - Jeffry Caudill, interaction and opportunities for networking as their physical Gingerquill counterparts, but attendees now have added concerns around the potential dangers of being in close proximity to thousands of others. Event marketing “It has affected our strategies will need to take these fears into consideration and look experiential business at innovative ways to help alleviate signif icantly as many them. of our industry’s large-scale events Covid19: The Enemy have been cancelled That We Couldn’t and/or paused Predict indef initely.” It’s unlikely that any marketing - Jeff Bardin, Giant strategies pre-2020 included a section on what to do if a global Spoon pandemic rendered live events illegal. Nobody could predict what this year would have in store InProduction • 800.999.5278 • www.InProduction.net • @InPoEvents 8 As new rules around social distancing came into effect around the world, tens of thousands of companies had to make the difficult call to cancel, suspend or postpone their 2020 spring and summer event programs, industry conferences, tech summits, and sporting events early in the year. From the cancellation of Facebook’s annual F8 conference and Global Marketing Summit, to the NBA suspending game play, and the cancellation of SXSW to the postponement of Coachella, large scale events of companies large and small were quickly impacted in the early days of the pandemic. South by Southwest BAFTA TV Awards Coachella 2020 Billboard Music Awards Burning Man TED 2020 Facebook’s Global Marketing The Kentucky Derby Summit and F8 Conference Cannes Film Festival Google’s I/O developer event and Eurovision Song Contest Google Cloud Next The Met Gala NBA, NHL and MLB 2020 seasons World Series of Poker NASCAR, Formula One North American International Auto and IndyCar Show 2020 NCAA Tournament Tour de France Masters Tournament Euro 2020 soccer tournament Live Nation AEG arena tours Daytime Emmys Ceremony The US Open The 2020 Olympics Wimbledon Calgary Stampede 2020 BNP Paribas Open Edinburgh Fringe Festival From the initial postponement of spring events to the eventual cancellation of events throughout the summer and into the fall, the early days of the coronavirus pandemic proved catastrophic for many in the event industry. Many event and experiential agencies lost their entire client base overnight and tens of millions of people including event and experiential marketers were laid off in cities all around the world. “In a few words - complete devastation. We have watched millions of dollars disappear from our pipeline and currently are doing no business.” - Sarah Finlayson-Banasiak, The Revel Group InProduction • 800.999.5278 • www.InProduction.net • @InPoEvents 9 Did not cancel or postpone 1% 99% of marketers cancelled or postponed at least one live Cancelled or Postponed 99% event in 2020 We asked event, experiential and “Our business is based on large- sponsorship marketers around scale events, including sports and the world how the coronavirus live entertainment events, many pandemic had impacted their of them televised, with audiences business. between 2,000 and 300,000. Nearly all of our clients have either “Every single event rescheduled or canceled their mass audience events through at we had planned for least mid-August, and as a result, 2020 has been cut our business is down about 65% and canceled. Within for the year.” a matter of days we - Frank Supovitz, Fast Traffic went f rom hundreds of days planned in market, to zero.” - Alex Burstein, XMC “It has been crippling. As the pandemic hit, we spent the last few weeks canceling activations and attempting to recoup permit and sponsorship dollars for our clients.” - Patrick Donahue, City Eventions InProduction • 800.999.5278 • www.InProduction.net • @InPoEvents 10 LIMELIGHTPLATFORM.COM 02 InProduction • 800.999.5278 • www.InProduction.net • @InPoEvents 11 02 INNOVATE OR DISAPPEAR “Our business is facing a seismic shift that will redefine experiential marketing and we’re currently coping with the fallout. We are working tirelessly to adapt our business and feel a deep sense of connection and empathy for our peers facing the same challenges.” - Rick Cosgrove, Agency EA Uncertainty around the future is arguably one of the most challenging professional aspects for event and experiential marketers in a crisis like COVID-19. It’s hard to plan for the future when you don’t know what the future of events will look like. We asked event and experiential marketers to tell us about the questions that kept them up at night as they navigated through the early days of the pandemic. “Our annual event for 4,000 people is in December, so at this point, every decision we make is a complete gamble.