right good afternoon everybody my name is Claire Fenella I'm the executive director at F come welcome welcome to this F coms Q&A with Michael Hurst very glad you could all join us I believe we should be having upwards of 50 people on this zoom call so thank you again for joining us first first off before we begin I just wanted to explain how we were going to manage this process we'll have everyone on mute to begin with we'll start the conversation going I'll do some an introduction or two we'll start the conversation going and then I would suggest that if you have any questions to ask could you put them in the comment box preferably with your name if you've included your name in your profile I will then call upon you at a specific moment to ask your question you need to then remember to unmute yourself to ask the question because at the outset we've muted you all to stop background noise so if you have a question if you could put it in the comment box unmute yourself when you're called upon we will call you by name you can ask your question of Michael or Hayley and and then re mute yourself once once you've had your question answered that just keeps all the noise and buzz to a minimum so I think we'll just see how it goes so just to get us started I'd like to introduce Hayley Greaves who is the operations director at ashfield healthcare meeting in events and and she will tell you a little bit about herself and then she will introduce Michael Hurst and we'll take it from there Thank You Hayley hi hello everybody and good afternoon so as Claire said I'm Operations Director for Ashfield meetings and events a full-service defense agency we specialized in the healthcare industry and also have a sister brand spark thinking which focuses on providing a live event Expo as for businesses outside of the healthcare sector I'm also a member of the f-con board working alongside Claire and really excited to be here with Michael and Claire today and we're fortunate enough to be joined by Michael Hurst who is chairman of the business visits and events partnerships amongst lots of other things so Michael would you be able to give us a bit of information about yourself and also about the PV EP he can write well I'm chairman of the bvp business visits at events partnership I have been since 1999 that's 21 years I'm coming of age just about now and the partnership was formed in 1999 to actually do something that wasn't being done in those days which was recognizing business tourism and at the time the government was rewriting its strategy the president of the meetings Industry Association was helping the government he suggested that they write the strategy to include business tourism and events and one of the major recommendations was there should be a group to represent the sector so the business tourism partnership as its name was then came into being all of this under the auspices of visit Britain with a clear brief to promote encourage and grow the sector and we've been going for 21 years we've always had a membership of about 20 trade associations trade and professional associations there are believe it or not over 40 organizations that represent different discrete sectors of the business events and leisure events sectors so there's a lot of voices out there and what we try and do is get consensus bring them together under one umbrella and rather like the CBI or the retail consortium try to speak strongly with one voice and I think this endemic has given us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make our voice heard even great and then the events industry board was created in 2015 as part of a government specific strategy towards business events this is actually the conduit by which the industry talks to government ministers on an advisory basis and its remit is specifically to grow the event sector by internationalizing it in other words adding more international events to the UK agenda and bringing in more visitors and attendees and exhibitors to trade fairs to grow the existing events we have to create new ones that talk to the government's industrial strategy and to retain those that we might be in danger of losing so a very different remit from the bvp but the to work in harness and some of the membership is is the same and and we have additional people on the event industry board and they're both functioning like crazy at the present time to represent the needs and the interests of the sector thanks Michael I imagine that keeps you extremely busy and so from an Ashfield perspective and we sit in the meetings and events sector as I'm sure you're all aware around 90% of what we do is international and when the covered 19 situation first started we first started hearing noise around January time and but it was relatively quiet noise with little impact to our business at first and then when it took hold in Italy we really started to see clients putting trouble restrictions in place but way ahead of government guidance which of course created some cancellations and postponements and switches to virtual this then has a domino effect so we very quickly by the end of March saw all events drop out certainly for March April and May period and then we've seen a slow trickle of cancellations and his moments in july sorry about the background noise we do very little in August but more recently we've seen the last couple of weeks and we're starting to see cancellations for September and October which for one of us sorry which is for us one of the biggest peaks in our year and I'm really interested Michael to hear how curved nineteen's impacted the industry particularly in terms of how clients have responded and the other sectors we've got two pieces of research I mean the industry is is locked down at the moment and impacted quite severely nothing's happening at all and the problem is as we all know that businesses who have to plan ahead have to incur costs with no income coming in so that's a real big issue and we're very conscious of the fact that support from government needs to be stepped up to take account of of that circumstance and we've done two pieces of research there was a confidence survey which indicated that most of the event planners felt that their inquiries and bookings would peak in September that July through September would be a good period to take business but of course that business doesn't happen immediately and therefore the third quarter and more importantly the fourth quarter might be the times when business would start to re-emerge and in fact visit Britain did some work to show that 72% of all business that has so far been postponed will take place in the fourth quarter so that's pretty good news but of course it will only take place if the government permits it to take place in that regard we work very hard to convince government that it is possible to operate events under the new norm and with social distancing in place and obviously the extra hygiene factors that will be necessary but one of the concerns of many is that with social distancing you lose a considerable amount of capacity in fact many people think it could be upwards of forty percent of capacity actually it's gratifying to learn that over 82 percent of the businesses that we've surveyed through a meetings Industry Association survey feel that they can actually operate with social distancing in place but as I said it would will curtail and capacity by 40 percent but really worrying is that over 50 percent feel that quite a lot of that business will become unviable it won't be profitable so we can do it we won't make any money at it so I think a lot of businesses are thinking you know do I actually look for this business at this stage or do I wait for a more liberalized environment where social distancing requirements are further relaxed and that's true of the meetings and conference sector the exhibition sector feel a little bit more Bowden to do it because they reckon they can manage crowds more effectively around an exhibition centre rather like the DIY stores as we see at the moment admissions being staged and timed and people guided round one way with deeper exhibition stands so that there's opportunity to social distance on the stand as well and we're seeing that happen in the Far East some of the exhibitions that are reopened in Shanghai and Beijing are actually performing to those new standards okay and this does this not feed into the movement to try and change the way events are described so that not they're not called mass mass gatherings young because that in well is sort of an uncontrolled group of young people that there is no way I mean this is you know what started this whole exercise with the World Health Organization throwing at us this terminology mass gatherings its what they actually call any congregation of people and and there was some really unhelpful instructions to the to the world's countries at the beginning so we are fighting hard and I think we're winning to say there is a big difference between a mass gathering where you don't know how many you're gonna get and who they are and you know for example the Notting Hill Carnival you've got no idea you know who's in the audience who's spectating and if you were putting on something in a park the same thing would apply as against an organised event where first of all you know everybody who's coming they're all pre-registered it's going to be an absolute requirement to know who these people are and it could well come down to actually having to know when the government has done its testing and have they had it you know or are they immune from it and so we'll have all that information the government's actually as you know developing technology for this purpose and we'll be able to track as well I mean if hopefully not there's an outbreak in the premises we'll be able to track and trace the people and some stage there could well be a test which could be given on the premises so that it's going to be true of restaurants as well I don't think you'll see people walking into restaurants in the future they will have to pre-booked and may well have to go through the same thing and the one thing that we do know of event organisers and exhibition companies is that data management is one of the strong points it's one of the key issues knowing who your customers are knowing what they're doing what they want to buy who they want to see it's the whole crux of running an event and consequently that date is going to be very useful the new norm and also it as you said managing people's flows around the event so the whole thing is organized as an event rather than a mass gathering and with convincing government that when they look at this because we can organize and control and risk assess we should be higher up in the queue than we would otherwise be yeah and so this is one really for your crystal ball Michael and a proportion of our clients are switching out live events to virtual or hybrid and sadly we've already seen casualties in terms of companies closing down what do you think the whole landscape looks like for the future in terms of our industry well how long a string six months one year the future future will be a vaccine and back to a level of normality that we used to have twenty one couldn't it obviously some inbuilt changes because people have behaved in different ways and experienced different experiences so yeah I mean some of the things that have happened and it don't forget this is only seven weeks so somebody said you know sometimes we have a two or three week break at Christmas and a wise the country got into total convulsions when this is only double Christmas to Europe France France is on holiday the whole of August said you know there's four or five weeks out at that particular time but that said I mean this is really I think awakened that certain things in people's imaginations or lifestyles or behaviors and and we've been saying in the industry for some time that hybrids would become something that you could actually make a lot more money out of than just a single live event and I would have thought coming out of this if the government sets a number of people in the first phase who couldn't gather together a and and say that was fifty or in the case for example in New Zealand it's five hundred and then you can really make an event out of 50 people in a room but beaming that everywhere else for people to access it I think one of the biggest problems that's happened in the sector and I likened it to the restaurant sector that suddenly started issuing vouchers and discounts and two four ones is that once you've done that getting back to a monetized solution is extremely difficult and we've given away all this wonderful communication product through the zooms and the Google Hangouts and whatever else and when you start talking about paying for it is another matter that said if there's a live session going on a live session in in a proper event context is so much more I think positive in terms of people wanting to see and access it especially if they can't do it any other way and therefore I think it will be possible as it was possible to monetize quite a lot of that as similarly large corporations and we saw that in the early days with Cisco live you know prefer the format it's great for them you know they can access so many of their their interested parties to promote what they're doing it's a bit of a double whammy there because some people you know you have to invest in the technology and and the platforms in there and the expertise upfront to make your product worthy and at the same time there's the lag of when you can start monetizing it because you've got to pull people in and that there's that period in the middle where you're putting out money to invest you're not getting in money because people haven't quite bought into it yet so that's another squeeze one of the things we're doing in the event industry board is looking at the package for recovery that's not ending lockdown that's more longer-term in terms of marketing in terms of subvention incentives to people to go to events and also the coal question of tax reliefs and tax incentives as well we've always campaigned on reducing v80 or on reducing APD and one of the suggestions that came up actually from one of your members at the last senior industry leaders panel was looking at some form of tax relief on R&D development of technical formats and Michael sorry we have a question if I could put to you if I could invite Karen Patton to unmute and put your question to Michael and Haley hi good afternoon can everybody hear me yes again thank you for the opportunity and I am keen to understand how confident you believe that customers and and indeed been use would be to welcome back events on on any scale prior to there being a vaccine good point well I think I think from the point of view of venues open arms to get going and we've just had a protocol delivered by an fee which is the International Association for trade fairs and exhibitions which sets out how it would deal with it don't forget the government here is going to issue guidelines to our business to tell us how they're gonna and expect us to run the business and we've already seen that will you have an I have seven guidelines which have been given to the businesses that are most likely to start up running from next week onwards some of those are already running but they haven't had the guidelines these are the business department's guidelines which you saw publicized over the weekend in the broadcast media and those protocols are very much about risk assessment very much about implementation they do specify central distancing and how it should work and especially cleanliness etc and we think we can operate with that in place as I said both the MIAA and oofy the exhibition people think it will work customers it's another matter I think here we have been telling government that they've got to reverse their messaging this stay-at-home messaging has got to change and they've got to give confidence that what is being done is being done in accordance with the guidelines and we will have to follow suit to demonstrate that we are acting responsibly and yes I think it will take some time for the consumer to become more comfortable that said I think there's a lot of people out there who are of the view that there's a lot of risk in living anyway getting in a car is very risky as it was getting on an aeroplane and so there will come a time when the hospitalizations and the infection rates are lower and that people will actually start to absorb it into their everyday life of taking risk and it's gonna be slow and it's gonna be staggered and I think the government is absolutely right that we don't want to risk a second wave because that will completely demolish people's feelings of comfort about the whole thing and yeah I mean you could argue of course that maybe being at the back of the queue and I don't think we are at the back I think we're slightly higher up but maybe being down the way is going to be helpful because people are going to get used to a lot of other things and get more confident before they have to venture into ass yeah yeah the long-term psychological impact is going to be fascinating you know when we can look back and see how the impact on people and the way they live will be a really interesting case study anyway Haley yeah I think so i mean III echoed I think we're already seeing our preferred suppliers are the big venues the big hotel groups putting process in place and sharing that with us in terms of protocol for back to work certainly from an industry perspective I'm sure Karen you feel the same we're eager to get back to it definitely there's a huge amount we need to do though to prepare for this new normal whatever that that may be we've already put in place a team to develop an action plan looking at every angles right you know right through HR elements like people not feeling confident to go back out on-site and run an event or you know through to the the actual logistics of making it happen with the guidelines that have been put in place and and all of that sort of stuff and another question for me - Michael actually is what do you think the stumbling blocks are of - preparing for the future when we're looking at all of this I think you've just said one of them which is obviously the confidence you've our own people to do the jobs they were employed to do it's slightly different and in fact working from home will continue to be a preeminent requirement even after the lockdown finishes even companies that have large offices are being told and either do shift working or if people need to work at home you know then they they should continue to work at home because Redoute I mean one of the problems we have because we we flourish on people contact on socializing on networking is that with the government's still saying that if you can do what you need to do from home then do it from home and they're even discouraging meetings in offices by saying that you should have technical solutions so if you're sitting in an office and you need to get your team together and do it online on your computer at your desk rather than going into a meeting room so you know I says I said in the initial stages I think there's going to be a bit of a challenge now if you're in the outdoor events business you've got a better chance because if you take the Irish government's proposals that came out two days ago on the 18th of August all being well and the Irish government's back in business with events and now that's not a long time away and there's still sunshine in the in the air so consequently we could see some reasonable gatherings over in Ireland you know we're trying to actually move on everything that happens if somebody's got a precedent we want to enlighten on it and one of the things we're having to consider is temporary structures but clearly venues that are gonna have fifty percent less capacity inside them need to find ways of increasing the capacity to create the ways round in terms of flows of people and even things like toilet capacity it's got to be increased in order to accommodate events so looking at temporary structures I mean one shouldn't be despondent about temporary structures the evolution at Battersea Park is a temporary structure and yet it puts on some fantastic events with within it so maybe we we need in fact it's an idea which suggested by someone other than me that we we go for big marquees in public spaces in in parks etc but there's a lot of imagination going on that's your business creativity if you guys can't solve it I don't know who can actually it's the I think and you know one of the things is what business are you in and you're not only in events if you're a communications you're communicating and you're offering experiences can be done in many different ways and and you know if the company that's employing you is trying to get a message out we're trying to get their brand into people's pockets there are ways of doing that through using experience and using communication which talks to the skills that most of you people have consequently I think you will need to think more broadly in this situation diversification wouldn't go amiss one of the other issues that you know I've seen see as being apparent is that everybody is at a different stage with this so everybody is is reaching the different you know levels of freedom at a different point so you might find that you know we do more and more internally and on a regional basis and anything that requires travel of any kind even a train journey becomes something that we look to further further down the road and that's your hybrid bit and you do small local local activities is that the international business isn't going to come back until 2021 now I mean you can see what's going on in the airline business yeah there's no doubt going to be restrictions by national governments are both inbound and outbound yes so it is going to be local and domestic we're pushing for most of the promotional monies that we've been spending as a nation on bringing international visitors in to be redirected to the domestic market don't forget there are a lot of events which are hosted by UK companies which comprise the majority of attendees being from Britain held outside of the UK let's bring them all back it's a wonderful opportunity to stage all those events in the UK we've got some fantastic venues destinations and of course we've got the skills to be able to do it here and so yes I agree the beginning of all this is going to be very local and I mean we believe that the tourism industry is going to be very local and people and rural actually and a lot of people will be going to the countryside because they'll feel safer in that more open environment so I expect that if you haven't booked your holiday cottage for this summer's holiday you should try and do it don't give a deposit because you might not get it back or go and sit on a cliff the ocean Haley you were going to mention weren't you and some some good examples that some of the sectors are do kind of get round some of these problems you said the hotel hotel industry had come up with some quite innovative ideas yeah absolutely so we you know as I mentioned before we've already seen and some of the plans that some of the hotel groups are putting in place you know through not using key cards on hotel doors anymore and having an app so you can check yourself in without touching and sealing rooms so once the rooms being cleared down they'll seal the rooms so when I guest enters the room they know that nobody's being in that room before them and all the things such as removing the care pack so your pens toothbrushes and notepads and things like that removing them from the room so there's there less to touch less contamination so those are the sorts of things that we're seeing I don't know Michael if you've got any more insight around that yeah well I mean most of the major hotel chains Marriott Hyatt and Hilton have all introduced cleaning protocols which they give them fancy names - yeah and they do include all the deep cleaning that you've talked about and I have read about room sealing room sealing the actual and there are countries that have reopened in Central Europe Czech Republic and Slovakia which are only allowing actually one person into a room rather than two people and has an extra precaution initially and you know once again this trace and track is important knowing who's going into the rooms and at some stage you will know whether the person has been affected or is immune from the infection but I yeah the hotel's I mean I think Hilton and intercontinental on the call that I was on earlier reported they've already got hundreds of hotels reopened around the world right and occupancies are between 15 and 30% at the moment but are growing and I think as I said earlier we have to take example of what's going on in Asia to see some of the examples of getting back to business and we do know that exhibitions and conferences have reopened up in Shanghai and Beijing so you know there is a an appetite and once you get out of lockdown and get a little further into clear water of going better than doing things I mean you and I see it on the newscast and we do see people back in the streets and cars back on the roads and as I said it's all part of this take taking a calculated risk yeah I think one of the things that we were going to talk about is what you know as an industry what have we learned from this or what can we learn from this particularly around working together and unified message I know that my peers you know friends in the industry who work for competitors we're certainly talking more and sharing more information than we probably would have before and I do feel like you know you mentioned before Michael that it's it's given as an opportune to be more collaborative do you think that there will be an industry change in terms of that well there's always been a call on reducing the number of voices in the industry and I actually have never shared in that because a it will reduce the number of people who can be members of my partnership and I just want people to talk to each other collaborate do things jointly with each other and I think this crisis has for the first time really brought people together in common cause sharing good practice and talking about joint initiatives and we've just issued a 200 page report yesterday was published to the UK events report I mean we're a massive industry 70 billion pounds of expenditure on the part of people who use our industry 700,000 jobs 165 billion pounds of trade and services transacted at our events we're an industry that's going to form a massive part of the government's new thinking on industrial strategy as we come out of this don't forget it's not only this but we're leaving the European Union at the end of the year and whatever you think about that ISM you know changes that will take place as well as a result of that so the report looks at all the aspects of the industrial strategy and we tick all the boxes so we need to be treated as such an important part of this economy and I think we will be coming out I think putting Britain back on the stage the global stage and showing what we do and how well we do it and from an Events perspective and we're urging government you know in the in the next phase to actually start hosting some of the big events I mean [ __ ] 26 which was going to Glasgow it's been postponed we need to see a lot of more of those g7 g8 g20 s United Nations let's have them all here so that we can be the center of gravity when it comes to events global events I have a question here if I could call on Susan Spivey forgive me if I've pronounced that incorrectly but Susan would you like to unmute and ask your question you got it perfectly right thank you um very interesting discussion and glad to hear Michael you mentioned the report well we could call it an historic dinosaur in terms of the landscape that it was meant to serve but I think we can use it as a big tool but one of the things I was interested to hear mention about monetizing hybrid events could be slow and my view is isn't that where we should be learning to do so and actually being more creative about it and actually making sure that people do want to spend money to come to these events virtually and increase our global visibility well I agree with Susan I hope you're well and congratulate Susan's done an enormous amount of work trying to get this industry professionalized and I congratulate her for it and we're still getting there and maybe this industry as a result of what we've just been through will look more more to have its professionalism recognized in terms of hybrid events yeah I mean to a certain extent we have the best creative talents here in the UK we have some fantastic technology of course most of the platforms that are being used at the moment actually come out of the United States and but maybe we should start to use our technology and creativity to elaborate those platforms and make the even more irresistible I know everybody enjoys these webinars and podcasts but maybe we could add something different to them using the creative flair of our agencies and produce a product looks a world beater I think we're very well-placed to do that I just think it's a timing issue you know it's a collaborative sector but it's making sure that you can access the people the skills the technology and the will and the finances all at the same time I think to create that product and and then put it out in the market and measure success measure response measure take-up measure how people sort of the less tangible how they feel about all that and then act on that to grow that part of the business you know it's all out there to have it's just I mean another area which we haven't talked about which is the festival ization of events and I think that will actually come much more prominently first because of this thrust to go outdoors because of the less risk outdoors and outdoors is not only summer festivals outdoors is in the high street and in shopping malls and and we can play a big part in encouraging traffic back into these environments by the fact that we can organize events that aren't dependent upon masses of people sitting in front of a stage but our entertainments that happen as people happen to put to move through whatever environments they're moving through and don't forget it's not only seasonal and we've got the possibility of getting another bank holiday in October it's one of the things we're campaigning on we want to extend the season through to October Halloween could be a really big event with Guy Fawkes follow and then there's the Christmas markets and the winter wonderlands which will have an even bigger impact this year if people have been starved of places to go and things to enjoy and we've got to be in the front of this we've got to create I mean if you think of the card the greetings card industry I mean at one time it was just birthdays and anniversaries and now there's a card from us every day of the year and you know whether it's divorces or separations or remarriages it's on the ships I think how do we populate every day of the year with a creative experience I'm not even going to call it an event and we've just gone through a marketing period where is the market of one in other words talk to an individual and provide that individual with the needs to me an event can be an experience for one person and and to communicate that you know so I think this is a bit of diversification here you guys are going to think about that event that takes place for me as an individual and where can it happen it could happen in my home driveway I'm just thinking clapping for the National Health Service at eight o'clock every Thursday that's the biggest event this country's got at the moment right and there's not and there are event organisers I've seen on broadcast television who have organized streets with music and dance and theater that's an event yeah absolutely and I'm conscious that we only have five minutes of the car left so before I ask any more questions is there anybody on the on the line that would like to ask more questions of Michael there's nothing in the chat as yet I'll let you know come up so I think and you know we've talked a little bit about the negatives a little bit about the positives I suppose just around it up the long-term impact to the industry so you know in four years time we'll look back at this what do you think we will say that the long-term impact to the industry has been on the spot now you know I think we're in four years let's assume there has been a vaccine in them in in between so I think we will have gone through a really torrid time and unfortunately a lot of businesses will have dropped out they will have ceased to exist but as soon as soon as people feel freer to move and meet this business will grow again it's one of those businesses where startups are so not i wouldn't say any startup is easy but people will come into the into the picture because they know there's business to be done and as we know our business is made up of lots of SMEs who need all the support in the world I'm busy speaking to a lot on the phone listening to some of the most horrendous stories that they now find themselves in and but I think you know we talked about you shapes V shapes Nike shapes of recovery yeah I think the industry is going to go through a bit a bit of a u-shape and but it will come out stronger I think there's especially we they've come you know that creativity has got to play well with all of you and put your thinking caps on because that's what you do for your customers all the time don't think sort of vertically think horizontally and use that creative flair to diversify in communication properly in creativity in experiential it doesn't have to happen in one room and so I think it could be a much more exciting fulfilling future I I agree I think as you said unfortunately there will be people and businesses drop out along the way but I do believe totally new ideas and new businesses that we hadn't even thought of will replace them you could because that is the way you know it'll be young people coming through think you know why don't we do this because it'll seem commonplace to them or natural to them and they will just make it happen and drive it forward and I think in a way that's the exciting bit and scary it is is for people who you know maybe we've done more classic what we would talk about straightforward events you know for us and that's the bigger steeper scarier learning curve but for other people it's this playground you know they can you can reinvent stuff and just do what you like and you can try these things on a small scale and then scale them up and see how they see how they work but ya got to get through the next yeah well we're right behind you you know we're pushing for as early an opening as possible even if it's small scale and even if it's outdoors and you know we're trying desperately to make sure that that third quarter does have some level of activity within it yeah I think the mix of conference and it will be a picnic in the park what about that yeah I mean the biggest picnic in the world somebody should organize that social distancing ain't going to be a problem for that and hopefully getting people in and getting them out if you've got a nice wide open park space and you can manage that because of the exciting things I mean that's the imagination you know and it's a play ball though you'll find wonderful Kate well I don't know people love sitting watching the last night in the problems wearing their their raincoats capes and their umbrellas all part of the fun isn't it you know we will be stuck at home so who the hell cares what the weather's life is on where you know socializing in a way you know I'm sure that ban stands in a part will be you know you will be able to put some form of production on and if you can't do it outside and using a zoom type format to do it on a big screen in a park would still work the fact is that people are out there enjoying an experience there's no doubt you can do it have all those people with their little trays around their neck serving lovely snacks and taking money take it to them that's what you got to do an interview absolutely yeah okay Haley I think we're out of time yeah so if if I could take this opportunity to thank you enormously Michael for taking part I know you're busy you are like the scarlet pimpernel you are here there and everywhere at the moment so thank you very much for giving up the time I really appreciate it and Haley thank you so much well you know you're doing a great job keep at it and don't get too despondent thank you very much there's a silver lining out there somewhere good we should look for it and then polish it carefully thank you everybody for joining us and we hope to see you again some other time thank you thank you