Since the COVID-19 broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, the phrase “the new normal” has become part and parcel of society’s lingo the world over. This refers to the new way of life and doing business which has been necessitated by the need to observe COVID-19 preventative measures such as observing social distancing, masking up and regular hand-washing and sanitisation.
The term also refers to the positive post-pandemic habits and best practices that the world is going to carry into the post-pandemic era once the virus has been eradicated by a vaccine or the world has learned to co-habit with it in the same way it has with AIDS since the 1980s.
- Registration
The new normal means the adoption of measures such as contactless registration. The new normal means ensuring that attendees, participants and visitors to business events have their body temperature checked at the entrance to the venue to pick possible cases through high temperature. It also means recording the details of all attendees including their contact numbers to facilitate contact tracing by health authorities in the event of an asymptomatic participant testing positive for COVID-19 after an event.
When registering participants in a business event the new normal also means adopting contactless registration systems such as asking registrants to scan a quick response (QR) code disseminated using methods like social media platforms. When the Nyaradzo Group was inviting participants for the 2020 edition of its annual Friends of the Environment (FOTE) Virtual Walkathon, it used its Facebook page to ask would-be participants to register online for the event by scanning a QR code on the social media page.
- Social distancing
This is the requirement for people to maintain a minimum distance of at least two metres or six feet between them and the next person or persons to prevent the spread of the virus through saliva droplets. Social distancing means that business event organisers now need more space than they did in the past for their events. It also means that they will have to hire bigger venues depending on their national maximum gathering numbers. In Zimbabwe, a maximum number of people permissible at gatherings was reviewed upwards from 50 to 100 in December. In South Africa, on the other hand, maximum indoor gatherings are 250 people and 500 people for outdoor events.
It is the responsibility of the organiser to ensure that social distancing is maintained. For example, at a conference, this means that seats in the event’s venues should be spaced in line with the social distancing requirements.
- Masking up
The world over governments insist that people should always wear face masks when in a public place. This prevents carriers of the virus from spreading it to other people and save others from contracting the virus through the nose and mouth. This requirement means that organisers have the responsibility of ensuring that delegates, visitors, exhibitors and suppliers are compliant. Enterprising organisers could ask suppliers whose brands target the attendees to supply branded masks for a fee to the attendees in exchange for a fee to the organisers.
Players in the retail sector have been leading stars when it comes to ensuring that their customers mask up before entering shops. Business events players can borrow a leaf from their example by insisting that no conference delegate or exhibition is allowed into the venue without a face mask on.
- Handwashing, disinfection and sanitisation
Another business events safety protocol which has become normal is the regular sanitisation of hands using sanitisation liquids with an alcohol content of at least 60 percent. This is meant to kill the coronavirus that may have attached itself to hands from surfaces such as doorknobs. Another way of washing off possible virus is washing one’s hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds as frequently as possible.
Research in laboratory conditions established that the coronavirus can survive for up to 72 hours on plastic and stainless steel, up to four hours on copper, and up to 24 hours on cardboard surfaces. This requires regular disinfection of such surfaces. When event organisers put events together face to face events, they, therefore, need to consider the costs of disinfecting surfaces which delegates and visitors regularly tough.
Disinfecting venues once before and after the event usually suffices but high contact surfaces like door handles and conference furniture require higher disinfection frequency. In order to be thorough, disinfection needs to include the spraying of motor vehicle door handles and tyres on entry at a venue. Disinfection also means having footbaths at entrances to events venue to take care of shoe soles.
- Award ceremonies safety protocol
Those who have attended or watched events such as the 2020 editions of the ZimTrade Exporter of the Year Awards or the Marketers Association of Zimbabwe (MAZ) Superbrand Awards will have noticed that award recipients no longer have to shake the hand of the official handing out the award to reduce contact. They used the elbow bump instead. During the Superbrand award ceremony, the masters of ceremonies announced that those receiving awards had to pass through a sanitisation point as part of the safety protocols.
All this means that going forward, organisers of business events will need to ensure that these seemingly small safety issues are taken care of as they plan their events.
- Food
A business event such as a conference would be incomplete without food yet food and food handling pauses a serious risk of spreading COVID-19. The new normal means moving away from the common buffet event feeding format of the past. Some food suppliers now provide food in a packed format. While this removes the networking which goes on at the feeding point during business events, it reduces the chances of spreading the deadly virus.
- Virtual events
While virtual business events already existed prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Zimbabwean event organisers had not taken a keen interest in them. The advent of the pandemic accelerated the adoption of technology in the business events sector. This saw many events being held virtually. These included the MAZ unveiling of the 200 Superbrand awards nominated brands in July and the MAZ Marketers Convention in October and the SMEs International Expo among others.
If a solution to the pandemic was found tomorrow one thing that players in the business events sector would rush back to is face-to-face events. This however does not mean that virtual events will be totally abandoned. Events such as the 2020 MAZ Marketers Convention ran in a hybrid format which combined face-to-face with a virtual component. This enabled the association to meet the 50-people maximum permissible at gatherings at the time without turning other delegates away.
This means that hybrid conferences and exhibitions enable more people to participate in events than the traditional face-to-face format. The format also enables event organisers to rake in more revenue as attendees are not limited by the need to be physically present anymore. For this reason, hybrid events are going to be a new normal which is set to outlive the pandemic. They are going to be a new normal for both the pandemic and post-pandemic eras.
- Virtual and hybrid eventing facilities
The coronavirus-induced increased uptake of virtual and hybrid events has put pressure on some venue providers to put up some infrastructure in their conference rooms to facilitate the new normal of remote eventing. In the South African business events industry venues such as the Sun City Convention Centre and the Radisson Hotel Group have moved to provide virtual and hybrid facilities for business events. The latter’s Hybrid Meetings combine the best of in-person and virtual meetings through offering sound and video conferencing systems, dual screens and high-speed internet among others so that event organisers would not have to hire these facilities from third-party providers.
The Sun City Convention Centre provides audiovisual equipment such as high definition cameras, studio lighting and on-screen effects like branding. Its facilities enable more than 500 remote attendees to access conferences, meetings and presentations from their laptops, mobile phones or tablets. Even with COVID-19 out of the picture in the future such facilities are set to remain part of the post-pandemic normal as they enhance hybrid event experiences for both the organisers and participants.
While the COVID-19 pandemic brought in its wake death, ill-health, economic losses and inconvenience, its bright side has been the acceleration of the adoption of eventing technology which, going forward, is set to transform the industry.