Highlights
Task:
ABSTRACT: Over the past year, COVID-19 has hit the events industry with unprecedented force, resulting in event cancellations, reduced employment and salary cuts, with most event organisations moving either partially or fully to virtual events. Most challenging is the uncertainty in regard to the way(s) that events will be reshaped and rejuvenated. Our aim in this study is to discover how practitioners interpret the pandemic in relation to events and how events are reimagined and transformed in a pandemic world. Theories relating to transformative experiences and resilience are used to explore the phenomenon. This study contributes a framework based on qualitative insights by event professionals, suggesting the industry should focus on key priorities for event transformation, namely connectivity, meaningful experience design, adaptive capacity and education and, finally, practitioner well-being. Research limitations are discussed, and future research is proposed.
Introduction
COVID-19 struck the events industry with unprecedented force, resulting in the cancellation of events, reduced levels of employment, and salary cuts. The shutdown of businesses as well as event cancellations globally has had a negative impact on the capacity of event companies to function effectively or plan for a sustainable future. While some businesses were able to pivot and diversify their services (Norris et al., 2021), others shut down completely and show no signs of recovery. However, large conference centres offered their space for different industry stakeholders to come together and exchange ideas on food solutions (Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, 2020) while other small business owners offered free webinars to exchange ideas and share knowledge on the road to business recovery (Stayches, 2021).
Human capacity and technology
In navigating the road to business recovery, consumers quickly adopted technology tools. Arcodia et al. (2020) call for research on the skills required for event curricula programmes in order to train future event managers. With the pandemic impact, event transformation that implemented a range of technology became a necessity. Professional conference organisers were forced to learn new technologies to deliver their business events in order to avoid cancellation (Council for Australian Tourism and Hospitality Education [CAUTHE], 2021; Sustainable Event Alliance, 2021), while mass festivals suffered automatic cancellation. This enforced adaptation meant that employees and employers needed immediate training, thereby adding to the already increased workloads of event managers (Clark et al., 2017). These authors claim that event managers need to engage in ongoing learning in order to keep abreast of technological advancements. However, with the already increased workloads, the well-being of individuals and businesses is affected; hence, the issue of resilience is now at the forefront of theoretical studies on tourism business recovery (Prayag, 2020; Sigala, 2020). From an industry perspective, in a bibliometric study of 35 articles undertaken by Sharma et al. (2021), the authors contributed a resilience framework that proposes four key factors for recovery: government response, technology innovation, local belongingness, and consumer and employee confidence. Although resilience did not emerge as a new concept resulting from the pandemic, the need for resilience programmes was identified prior to the pandemic, with Prayag (2020) calling for frameworks that addressed issues such as sustainable destination management.
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