Producing In-person Events Post-COVID: Nine Resources for Event Marketers

As the number of Americans vaccinated for COVID-19 increases and the country begins to reopen businesses, more marketers are beginning to consider producing live, in-person events again. But in terms of logistics, budgets, technology and safety, events post-COVID will differ in key ways from those held before the pandemic. Below are resources to help marketers implement effective, safe and productive in-person events going forward.

1) CDC Readiness and Planning Tool. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regularly updates its “Guidance for Organizing Large Events and Gatherings” page on its website, and supplementing that information is a planning tool for event marketers. The guide features checklists for those responsible for facility specifications, supplies and signage, training, F&B and more. It also suggests steps to take should an attendee become ill with COVID-19.

2) Event Planning Guide for COVID & Social Distancing. This download from events and experiential marketing agency Impact XM covers some of the same territory as the CDC’s planning tool, but it also discusses touchless-tech add-ons, among other aspects.

3) Considerations for Business Gatherings in a Post-COVID-19 World. In addition to addressing marketing and logistics, this guide from brand experience agency Freeman touches on how session formats might need to be tweaked to accommodate shorter attention spans, why foot traffic might no longer be a relevant metric for trade shows, and other industry-specific aspects.

4) COVID-19 Indoor Safety Guide. Two M.I.T. professors and an energy consultant created an interactive website that suggests standards for room occupancy limits for minimal likelihood of transmitting COVID-19. Variables that you can enter include size of room, type of ventilation and what the occupants will be doing while in the room. Though the results don’t definitively ensure that room occupants won’t spread or catch COVID, it’s a useful tool for determining attendance limits.

5) Interactive Global Event Tracker. This interactive map from events agency GES shows which major locales, both in North America and around the world, have hosted live events and exhibitions within the past 90 days. A quick glance stateside shows that several cities in the South, such as Atlanta, Dallas and Miami, have already hosted events with more than 2,000 attendees. The map also provides links to those cities’ COVID guidelines.

Read the full story from EM’s sister publication, Chief Marketer, here.

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