TRYING TO STAY FLEXIBLE DURING A PANDEMIC

By Jenessa Hansen-Evans

There is no doubt that Covid-19 has changed the world and the events that happen in our communities. With people itching for everything to get back to normal, we as event managers need to rethink what the experience of our events might become. When drastic change comes into our lives, humanity mourns for the ways of the past. As the world and community begins to heal from the pandemic, we will be an outlet for that process. As event managers, we need to maintain empathy and compassion as we move forward in our industry, ensuring our patrons feel safe and secure as they attend our events.

I am in a unique position because my career is split into three, sometimes overlapping, realms. One of these is my work as a yoga instructor, where I have for 6 years encouraged others to try to be flexible not only physically, but mentally. Another aspect of my world is working as an arts administrator for our local government here in Boise, Idaho. And the last third of my work is running an event consulting and event management business that I started in 2018. These latter two worlds crossover frequently, and I am able to share my event management experience with my department. During this pandemic, all three of my work lives have harmonized in unexpected ways.

I have been teaching yoga for 6 years. It is odd to not be in the studio seeing the familiar faces, moving together and breathing together. Throughout the pandemic, I have held online classes where I can see the blurry familiar faces and I’ve been able to form a sweet at-home practice that I can share with my students.

This year in my government job, we planned a year-long event: So We Did. A campaign celebrating Women’s Suffrage at 100. Our events included “Herstoric” walking tours, Spill the Tea lectures, open exhibits, film screenings, etc. Once the pandemic hit our community, the department quickly pivoted to create ways to continue to provide this event programming at a distance. We began to look for low hanging fruit, easy wins that we could accomplish quickly. We are working on taking printed booklets we’d created for these events (“The Little Book of Boise Suffrage”) with coloring pages and educational information about the suffrage movement in Boise, Idaho and making them into a printable booklet online for tired homeschooling parents and high energy children to participate in. Other portions of our event programming will be postponed to a later date or can move forward virtually. One aspect of this campaign that continues to move along somewhat normally is our public art piece being installed sometime in 2020 to showcase the story of “So We Did”. Though some of our programs must be cancelled, I find myself asking how they can be replaced. Can different, more manageable programs accomplish the same goal? Can we reinvent these programs to fit the current needs of our community? How does content need to shift in response to what’s happening in the world? These are just a few of the questions I mull over as I move through my day-to-day.

In my world of consulting and event management, consulting has jumped to the forefront where I am sharing and guiding. A mantra I am repeating is when the opportunity presents itself, air on the side of being flexible. Being able to delay an invoice or change a scope of work could mean helping a client be successful or it could mean an event will be cancelled. I have relationships with my clients and I desire to see their success –if my client is successful, I am successful.

I did not get into the world of events for predictability. By nature, event managers are quick, creative problem solvers. We love the adrenaline rush of having to strategically solve a problem in a matter of minutes. Right now, we have an opportunity as event managers to slow down and strategically plan our next move. This can be extremely hard for our fast-paced personalities, but exercising being pushed out of our comfort zone will only make us better at what we do.

Some of my events can be put into a virtual platform, however, I know that people attend events, in part, for the sense of community. They attend events to see the culture of a town, to gain a better understanding of what makes up a town or city. How do we translate this feeling into the online platform? Can we partner with local restaurants and entertainers to create a unique at-home experience? Or maybe host an online auction as a fundraiser for a local charity? This struggle of creating an online community will take time to build especially as our communities phase in and out of stay at home orders, but these are questions we must contemplate.

As we all begin to imagine parts of our community re-opening, we also must imagine how these communities will react. Polarizing reactions of anxious extroverts needing exciting personal interactions, cautious introverts requiring calm 6-foot surroundings, and those in between are likely. We may see few to zero free events. Ticketed events could be on the rise with desire to be in smaller, curated gatherings. With more ticketed events, will this activity be for the elite only, leaving large groups of our community out of event interaction? Taking note from rooftop culture in New York, where you can see break dancers practicing and outdoor offices forming, can we create spaces for us all to safely come together? The list of potential logistical nightmares is endless.

All of my thoughts are pure speculations. Moving through this new atmosphere, I am hyper-focused on how I can recreate events to reach my community. I do not know the answer at this moment, but I do know that if we all put our heads together, the answer will organically reveal itself. I am excited to work my creative muscles and I take comfort in knowing I have colleagues I can rely on during this pandemic—event managers who can share experiences and ideas. In the meantime, I will continue to work towards being flexible both physically and mentally.

About the Author:

Jenessa Hansen-Evans has been working in the event industry for 5 years. Her career started managing 15 annual events and a Saturday market for a small-town government agency in Idaho. In 2018 she started in her own Event Management and Consulting business, Great Gert Events. Continuing to bring communities together through festivals and events.

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