Safety in the era of Covid is hard to guarantee, and event planners are feeling it. Nervousness around travel and events has all but shut down the industry, and venues and organizers alike are figuring out how to minimize the risk of in-person experiences while they learn the ins and outs of virtual options.

It only makes sense that Events Industry Council’s EIC Advance virtual event running Wednesday through Friday of this week includes a focus on advocacy. After all, the new event is described as being laser-focused on advancing the industry, which will be a key catalyst to global economic recovery.

The streaming feed of PlanetIMEX last week was both more and less than the massive industry gathering that traditionally descends on Las Vegas each fall. The immersive platform built on the 3D experience built in May to relieve the withdrawal symptoms of those missing IMEX Frankfurt. The October edition featured education, community and interactive undersea graphics.

The latest Events Industry Council (EIC) APEX COVID-19 Business Recovery Task Force Accepted Practices Guide created a place where those affected by the pandemic slowdown in the meetings and events industry can go for help. The new “book” on Workforce and Wellness covers everything from finding a new job and learning the skills to advance in their current positions to a Dr. Brene Brown segment on comping with grief, fear and anxiety during corona.

Among the sessions that will take place during the PlanetIMEX, October 12-16 online gathering is a keynote presentation by Brian Fanzo, digital futurist and creator of social-media channel iSocialFanz. His topic for the audience of meeting and event planners: Finding speakers who fully reinvent their keynotes for the virtual medium rather than trying to deliver their keynote mostly as they would in-person, which is bound to disappoint.

When hosting a physical event for executives, the emphasis is often on creating a relaxing atmosphere where C-level leaders feel comfortable enough to share their thoughts and experiences. Exclusive environments in private dining rooms with the finest wines featuring key participants make the networking opportunity valuable for all participants.

While meetings professionals and the hospitality partners they work with have been understandably focused on the health and safety of event attendees since the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic, both groups realize the continued importance of incorporating sustainability measures into those events, as well.

How can you provide a safe and secure environment for your attendees in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic? It begins with confidence. Many meeting planners are looking to someone else to tell them the right way to plan a successful and safe event. However, as a meeting organizer and expert at your craft, you’ll deliver a better and safer experience if you have the confidence to take the lead and instruct your venue, hotel and vendors with your own individual COVID-19 contingency planning requirements.

Meetology's Jonathan Bradshaw explores why, if you need to have a serious chat, you’d be better off avoiding texting as a way of communicating.

COVID-19 has made online events more popular than ever — from a health perspective, it’s the safest way to gather while COVID-19 transmission remains a risk. But there are still risks associated with an online event that warrant consideration. Be aware of those risks and consider the following when planning your next online event:

There is one question on the minds of event professionals looking at getting back to live events, what will hybrid look like? Here is a potential scenario.

As event professionals know, even the best-planned gathering can fall flat without the right marketing. To maximize the impact of and business results from your online or real-world event at a time when some people might be hesitant to travel, it’s vital to start with a comprehensive event marketing plan. This plan outlines the different components your event marketing will need (like a website and content strategy that addresses any concerns prospective attendees might have) and enables you to build a marketing timeline that will attract the maximum number of guests to your event.

Society as a whole–including meeting planners–failed to prepare effectively for the COVID-19 pandemic. You probably experienced extreme stressors ranging from sudden event cancellations to uncertainty about how to protect future meetings. As a neuroscientist whose expertise is in disaster avoidance, decision making, strategic planning and risk management, I have some strategic suggestions for how meeting planners can best adapt to and plan for the long-term impact of the pandemic.

Virtual meetings require careful design to keep attendees engaged and deliver value for the hosts. But how do you translate the energy and insights from a face-to-face meeting through a computer screen? Marteen Vannest, senior consultant at Meeting Design Institute, which produces a free masterclass and certified training on producing online meetings, suggests starting with the “why” of the meeting.

As we move into the summer months, our industry is still assessing the toll that COVID-19 has/is/will be taking on exhibitions and events. As reported by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) in late April, we are gaining a clearer picture from data fielded by an ongoing survey to business-to-business (B2B) exhibition executives. In addition to monitoring the economic impact, industry leaders have been proactive in finding solutions to the logistical challenges unique to trade shows when dealing with communicable diseases such as this novel coronavirus.

Addendums, amendments, mutual cancellation clauses, “frustration of purpose”—what do they all mean? And when should each be applied? In the latest Smart Meetings Accelerator “Top Planner Contract Questions Answered,” Lisa Sommer Devlin, an expert in contract law at Devlin Law Firm, answers those very questions (and more) for planners.

Venue and vendor services need to look ahead at sustainable solutions for moving forward to include the environmental impacts that they can include.

In my conversations with meeting planners, many of the concerns I hear around planning live meetings in this new normal are logistical: how will we practice social distancing? Will I need more space for the same size event? How can we handle food and beverages?

In a recent survey of more than 1,000 people who have attended at least one in-person conference and one virtual conference, the preferences for how virtual events are scheduled, priced, and executed became clear—and revealed a few surprises. For instance, 85 percent of respondents under age 24 prefer in-person conferences to virtual ones, despite their technological acumen. On the other hand, only 67 percent of respondents aged 35-44 preferred in-person events, with family responsibilities being a likely factor driving that lower percentage.

I recently asked my team what, if anything, they learned about themselves during the coronavirus (COVID-19) quarantine lockdown. Responses varied, but the point was to acknowledge the unimaginable situation we are in and how we might use such a time for change.

To hold the pandemic at bay, disposable items seem to be the easy solution to keep things clean and safe. But do not throw out the baby with the bath water! The MICE industry has come a long way in recent years to help slow man-made climate change—which, don’t forget, will hit us with its own health challenges down the road.