The corporate events industry is surviving the economic downturn with more resilience than many other sectors in the marketing mix. So said Eventia Board Director and Treasurer Rob Allen at the Eventia summer conference held on 6-7 July.
Summing-up a day and a half’s conference sessions, Allen, who is Chief Executive of experiential agency TRO, warned delegates to expect more bad news from the market place over the coming 12-18 months, but to work on their own ‘super-proposition’ - that could embrace virtual events, social media and demonstrating added value to procurement purchasers - to help weather the turbulent times ahead.
He reminded the audience of 215 events industry professionals that corporate clients were having as tough a time as agencies and suppliers, and stressed that other areas of marketing were suffering to an even greater degree.
“The events industry is not getting the kicking that advertising is” he said. “Projects are being thrown back: rather than going to Dubai, events are taking place in Dublin. But this gives us an opportunity to have discussions at a much more senior level within our client companies.”
Allen added that it wasn’t the case that only the large agencies would win pitches for conferences, product launches and internal communications events in the current climate. He said that discussions with corporate buyers from a wide range of industry sectors had revealed that many were keeping 25% of their business opportunities open to agile, nimble and innovative agencies, regardless of their size.
The Summer Eventia conference was held in Brighton and attracted a line-up of speakers that included independent behavioural economist Roger Martin-Fagg; brand protector Rob Shimmin and futurist speaker Rohit Talwar – as well as business leaders from the events industry itself. The fully interactive event was facilitated by Neil Jones, Director, Crystal Interactive.
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