WAITING FOR THE LIGHTS TO CHANGE TO GREEN

THE LIGHTS TO CHANGE TO GREEN

By Gerry Reynolds

Like most of us, I first heard of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in January 2020 and I know exactly where I was. I was sitting in a hotel room in Barcelona, Spain with my wife watching the news while we were waiting to join a Cruise around the Mediterranean. I was not too concerned. It was such a long way away.

During the first few weeks following our return from our Cruise, we watched with horror as the pandemic erupted in three of the countries we had visited. France, Spain and Italy, before starting to spread here in the United Kingdom. Not long afterwards, we went into Quarantine, or “Lockdown” as the media prefer to call it.

Like everywhere else, suspending our city’s programme was a depressing no brainer. My first task was to cancel the summer events that I was personally managing; and then try to work out just how far into 2020 that we might be looking at before we would be able to try to resume staging our events again. I want to be optimistic, but I am currently writing off everything before November in my head, and if I am wrong, well, that will be a happy bonus!

Sadly, some folk still think that the peak of infections, whenever that is, will see the end of the Quarantine; but I keep telling folk not to forget that what goes up must come down. So, if it takes 3 months to reach the peak of this pandemic in our area, then my view is that it will take 3 months and then some if we are lucky to go back down. The truth is, as I write this, I have no idea how long it will be before the vaccine that we are all going to need to get anywhere close to normality, will become available on a global scale.

After cancelling the events that I had been organising, I also had to help folk cancel the many events that we, as the Council in Inverness, Scotland, were supporting behind the scenes. As you can imagine, Councils have many roles when it comes to events and it was such a shame to see so many months of work by so many folk, evaporating overnight.

We also had to encourage folk to stay safe within our city, so it was not too long before all our city’s attractions and public spaces were closed until further notice. When it comes to future events, everything has been suspended. No licences will be issued until we are told that it is safe to do so by the Government. It feels so strange that nothing is happening until further notice, but I do not think that we are even close to the halfway point as far as this pandemic is concerned. I think that once we get to the end of Quarantine, even if the Government tells us that they are happy to announce an all clear, folk will proceed cautiously. I think the majority of folk will be scared and will be waiting to see if the epidemic flares up again.

After a week of applying the brakes to everything that I was planning, I was transferred to our Region’s project to support the groups that we refer to over here as “Shielded”. They are the vulnerable folk who MUST stay at home and will desperately need support for many months. That list of folk needing help is getting bigger. So many elderly or vulnerable folk have lost the support networks that enabled them to cope on a day to day basis. Thankfully an army of volunteers have registered in Scotland to do their best to help, and it is already clear that we will need every one of them.

Once I closed the book on my day job, I was given the task of creating a food distribution network as soon as the government announced it would be sending out food packages, for however long the pandemic lasts. “Create a food what?” was my reaction!

After I changed my underpants, I approached this task by treating it as no big deal. I told myself it was no more than writing the schedule for constructing an event site. For me it was important to treat this task as being vaguely familiar. It was a bit daunting at first, but I reminded myself that everybody knows Event Managers can all move any mountain, one stone at a time. The same would apply to moving a mountain of food. One parcel per hungry household at a time. Keep calm. Work it out.

So, I researched how warehouses work and then I wrote an event plan which explained how to set one up in addition to explaining how our central hub would be feeding 9 smaller hubs distributing dry and frozen food which would then be delivered via an army of volunteers. OK, there is a wee bit more to it than that, but that is what we do as Event Managers. Make the complicated so simple that everybody thinks that they can do our job. Anyway, the network is now live and so far, so good. Teamwork is busy making the dream work as usual!

Currently, I am working from home trying to figure out what the hell happens post pandemic to our city’s events plan. My thoughts are that we, the countries and regions and cities and towns and villages and promoters and event managers and suppliers, are going to be fighting simultaneously for audiences that may be reluctant to attend travel or attend mass gatherings, however much they say that they will now.

Because we will all be restarting simultaneously, let’s be honest, it is going to be brutally competitive out there. Start thinking about it.

As for how many event management businesses or jobs will evaporate in the post pandemic recession that will inevitably follow, the truth is that nobody knows at the moment, and given how vast and loosely connected our industry is, I fear we never will.

It is also too early for many folk in our industry to see what is really important. We need to appreciate that simply surviving this pandemic without losing a loved one will be the greatest blessing of all. Jobs are replaceable. People you love are not.

When I first posted a version of this article on Facebook, the virus had not touched my family. A week later, we had lost my 91 year old Aunt who had been happily living in a care home and looking forward to celebrating her 100th birthday with us. Sadly, none of us will get the chance to attend her funeral. The virus would like the opportunity to exploit the thousands of funerals that are taking place.

Work wise, I believe that it is still too early for the vast majority of folk to accept what a game changer or perhaps more accurately (for some), game killer this is. However, we must remember that being Event Managers does place us in a unique position. Collectively we all have a habit of turning our visions into ideas and our ideas into actions, which can earn us a living.

Nobody expects it to be easy, but once the pain turns to numbness and the tears finally dry, folk are going to need us to put a smile on their faces in the middle of the most shattering economic recession the world has ever seen.

Stay safe folks. Nothing else matters.

About the Author:

Gerry Reynolds works in local government in Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. As well as supporting numerous concert and event promoters throughout the year, Gerry manages a number of major annual events including the Inverness Highland Games and “The Red Hot Highland Fling” Hogmanay Show. A veteran of the events industry with over 40 years’ experience, Gerry gained a Master’s Degree in International Event Management in 2011 after discovering that he needed to find out what he was supposed to be doing while attending the IFEA European Conference in Iceland in 2008. Despite being English, Gerry was inducted into the International Highland Games Hall of Fame in 2014. He has only worn a kilt once in his life.

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