How does the European event industry experience the situation?

How is the European event industry?

Like in Spain, in Portugal and in the Netherlands the event industry went from 100 to 0 in a very short period of time. A “disaster”, as summarized by Sjoerd Weikamp of EventBranche (the Netherlands) or an “artificial coma” for Kerstin Meissner of Memo-Media (Germany) “after an extremely good start of the year”. In Belgium Jean-Paul Talbot from EventBox (Belgium) explains that the event industry totally stopped as from 10 March with the official ban of events gathering more than 1,000 people and then all events planned between March and June are cancelled or postponed to coming Autumn. A little more optimistic is Gorazd Cad from Kongres (Slovenia) who believes in the Summer.

How do planners feel?

The general sentiment is summed up by Gorazd Cad: “we all hope that we can survive this hibernation period and find a way out of the darkness, hopefully, with the government help”. This help is vital for Jean-Paul Talbot in Belgium, because “for most of the event agencies, 6 months of inactivity and no additional or specific help from the authorities would take them out of business”. In Portugal, Rui Ochoa from Event Point underlines the same point saying “there is a huge concern, and general disappointment with the measures announced so far by the Government, arguing that they do not need credit, but money injected directly into companies (supporting salaries, for example)”. The uncertainty, as in Spain, is evident, “everyone’s in shock,” says Kerstin Meissner (Germany), but “everyone sticks together”. And in the Netherlands, a poll carried out by EventBranche (500 respondents) gave a brief insight: people have the feeling things will be picking up from September.

How is the government acting to help the industry?

In the Netherlands, as Sjoerd Weikamp tells us, the event industry was pointed out by the government as one of the industries that were hurt the most, so a big package of measures was announced, “but after the announcement things slowed down…”. In Finland Heli Koivuniemi from Evento explains to us that “the event industry is waiting for some money from Business Finland” and also believes that if we compare their situation with Denmark or Sweden, it is worse there in Finland because “Denmark has decided to give a surviving package to the entrepreneurs and in Sweden they try to avoid total lockdown because they think that this catastrophe will effect widely to the mental health”.

The Belgian government, as Jean-Paul Talbot tells us, “despite the call of the associations which immediately decided to join their efforts, hasn’t taken specific measures so far but is preparing a proposition for the travel and event industries together”. In Portugal, according to Rui Ochoa, credit lines were opened with banks, some of them specific for the tourism sector (which many event- related companies are part of). There,” the payment of some taxes, such as VAT, has been postponed, although there is no exemption from that payment; the lay-off law was simplified, allowing workers to be sent home, receiving part of their salary (with part of this amount being paid by Social Security), but without losing their link to the company”. It is very similar to ERTE in Spain.

In Slovenia, from a petition to the government urging to help out meeting planners (as we also launched in Spain) Gorazd Cad trusts: “it seems that the government will listen to our SOS and take our proposed 9 measures into consideration, just like the Austrian government did”. In Germany, Kerstin Meissner says that they feel well supported by the German government: “the individual federal states provide various funds, which are not only directed at companies, but also at solo self-employed and freelancers, these are financial subsidies that do not have to be paid back but are taxable; in addition, on 1 April the short-time work field will be changed so that the companies will not have to pay social security contributions either”.

And the future…?

Step by step. In Belgium, EventBox is now working together with the major associations, a university and public institutions to measure the real economic impact of the crisis. And Jean-Paul Talbot, its publisher, also predicts that in the short term “as everything’s postponed to next Autumn it will then be difficult to find enough suppliers, venues, etc. to absorb such a spike of activity”. In the long term… he admits that it is hard to say but he points out that “we will have to take new safety measures as epidemics won’t be covered any more by the insurance companies”. The opinion of Sjoerd Weikamp from the Netherlands refers that brand and corporates, who “all will be careful with organising events with big groups of people”.

However, Weikamp adds that “we are now missing live contact more than ever, so when things pick up again, it will be booming for our industry”. And this is also supported by Gorazd Cad (Slovenia) who defends that our industry will get back on its feet soon because “we, humans, are social beings and we can’t last long without events, that is embedded in our DNA”. Within the new context, for Kerstin Meissner (Germany) virtual events will have a fixed control value and he personally think that the value landscape will change, “more attention will be paid to content”.  “A lot will change” for Rui Ochoa (Portugal) who trusts (like everyone else) that the need to be with each other, along with some clairvoyance on clients, will keep this sector vibrant, and able to regenerate.