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SAEC news
Challenging times in the events industry
2020 was a year that we in the tourism and events industry will never forget. The Covid-19 virus is dominating world news and the ensuing lock down period is a gravely difficult time globally. Our industry was hit the hardest worldwide.
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By Ellen Oosthuizen, chairperson of SA Events Council
In the 25 years I’ve been in business, this was the last thing that I thought would happen to our industry. I was thinking of retiring but did not envisage ending my career like this.
The tourism and events industry stretches over a vast area – and we are campaigning for all to open their doors again - events, exhibitions, concerts, tourism, venues, weddings and hospitality. Everyone in the industry has had to actively implement all protocols to safeguard ourselves, our staff, our families and our working environment/s. Our focus has shifted from the everyday running of our businesses to ways of supporting safe, healthy and involved employees, suppliers and other stakeholders.
Apart from the safety guidelines, we encountered another major hurdle: technology. Venues, event organisers, audio visual companies – even travel agents – had to quickly upskill themselves on unfamiliar technology. Zoom, Teams, Google Meet and the like entered our homes and offices overnight. Sales executives had to keep us updated on their venues online, teambuilding got creative and offered online sessions, conferences/awards and other events suddenly had to be taken online and it was a very steep learning curve for all of us. Clients incurred extra costs in ensuring that the online sound was as professional as it would have been in-person, extra equipment needed to be brought in and the requirement that Wi-Fi needed to be sufficiently strong and stable became priority. Venues incurred extra expenses with having to bring in sanitisers and PPE items and staff had to remain compliant with the prescribed safety protocols. With the demise of buffet-style dining, catering had to be served in individually packed snack boxes. All these extra expenses are our new normal!
On top of that, let’s not forget that we must now present JOC plans for 50+ pax, something that we have never done at this scale before. Event organisers must have a safety plan on how to mitigate risk and how to handle someone testing positive before, during or after the event.
In March 2020, the SAEC (SA Events Council) was formed – represented by fourteen associations – to fight for the reopening of the events and tourism industry. The council has representation from:
• Southern African Association for the Conference Industry (SAACI)
• The Association of African Exhibition Organisers (AAXO)
• Exhibition and Events Association of Southern Africa (EXSA)
• Southern African Communications Industries Association (SACIA)
• Technical Production and Services Association (TPSA)
• The Event Safety Council (ESC)
• Council of Events Professionals Africa (CEPA)
• Event Greening Forum (EGF)
• Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE)
• Professional Conference Organisers Alliance Network (PCOAN)
• Professional Speakers Association of Southern Africa (PSASA)
• International Congress and Conventions Association (ICCA)
• The Township Business Events Council (SOBEC)
• The South African Live Performance Association (SALPA)
This collaboration of associations and bodies has been fighting tirelessly, since lockdown began, to open the industry by lobbying government and proposing responsible safety solutions to secure our future.
The SAEC spent endless hours putting together the 42-page Events Safety Re-opening Guideline, preparing plans and procedures, meeting with government on ministerial level, writing letters to ministers and the president, hosting two proof-of-concept conferences in July and September 2020, and supporting the Restart Expo in November 2020 at Nasrec, as well as the Recharge 2020 live event which was hosted by Big Concerts in Cape Town in December. All this effort has been to demonstrate that we are event safety ready to resume business. Yet all this seems to have been falling on deaf ears and it has been hard to remain steadfast.
The lockdown has brought the industry together like never before. My experience, as part of the SAEC, is that we, as associations, have learned to collaborate for a single cause – and that is to open up our industry. Previously, we never needed to sit around a table with one another. It wasn’t seen to be necessary, although we knew about each other. During this lockdown, I have learned so much from exchanges with my colleagues on the SAEC - we have become a family.
The lockdown has caused companies, venues, small business and airlines to close their doors. Tourism is struggling to recover. We have realised how much our industries overlap – and that we need to be supportive of one other because we depend on each other for business.
Financially we were hit very hard. We are all in the same storm – each one in our own boat. Aside from trying to survive and pay our bills (personally and in business), we had to keep ourselves positive to keep focused on what is important in life – our families. Apart from our daily challenges to survive, we remain wives, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters who need to feed our families and pay bills.
The Let’s Support Group, on Facebook, is one of many great initiatives showing how people in the industry support one another. Many of us have become entrepreneurs overnight and started side hustles to keep income flowing. We, in the events industry, are not a dying breed and we are not giving up! We are used to working hard, playing hard and we don’t take any challenge lightly. We are planning for survival.
We will continue to meet new challenges for quite some time in the events and tourism industries - we just need to remain positive that we will get through this, together, somehow!
I recently read this quote from Sir Richard Branson: “The best advice that I could give anyone is to spend your time working on whatever you are passionate about in life.’’ That is the only certainty in the minds of everyone in the events and tourism industries; we are all here because we have a passion for what we do, and do it, we will.
Stay safe.
