Paul Cook's insights into the events industry provide a thought-provoking overview of how the pandemic has reshaped the landscape of hospitality and event planning. The conversation details the severe disruptions faced by professionals in the field, as many found themselves grappling with the sudden cessation of in-person gatherings. Paul discusses the immediate effects of COVID-19 on the events sector, highlighting the anxiety and uncertainty that permeated the industry as workers were forced to reassess their roles and adapt to a new reality. He articulates how the surge in virtual events has created both opportunities and challenges, particularly for those who struggled to transition to digital platforms.

Throughout the episode, Paul shares his expertise on hybrid events, explaining how they combine the benefits of in-person interactions with the accessibility of virtual participation. He emphasizes that while hybrid events can offer a more inclusive experience, they also require careful planning and distinct programming to cater to both in-person and virtual audiences effectively. The discussion is enriched by Paul's reflections on the value of education and training, as he encourages students and new professionals entering the industry to embrace digital literacy and innovative thinking. As the episode unfolds, listeners are reminded of the hospitality industry's inherent ability to adapt and evolve, marking a promising path forward as the world gradually returns to live events.

Takeaways:

• The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted the events industry, leading to significant job loss and anxiety.
• Virtual events have surged in popularity, forcing many professionals to adapt their skills quickly.
• Hybrid events are the future, offering both in-person and virtual experiences for attendees.
• Students are eager to enter the events industry, demonstrating resilience and adaptability despite challenges.
• Innovation has emerged as a vital response in the hospitality and events sectors during this crisis.
• Professionals in events are diversifying their skills to remain relevant in a changing landscape.

For more info on hybrid events, visit: https://hybrideventcentre.com/

If you're an events student or are thinking of working in events, visit: http://lessonsfromamountain.com/

For more information on our guest, visit: http://paulcook.co.uk/

Timothy Put The Kettel on is Co-hosted by:

Timothy R Andrews https://www.timothyrandrews.com/

Editing & Visuals by: Timothy R Andrews

Music: Brain Power by Mela, freemusicarchive.org & Pawel Sikorski

And guest appearance by Bert the Cat

Why do you look so blonde?

I don't know, it's just my hair's got long.

You look like you're in a boy band in the 90s.

Do you know what? I used to have, like the H haircut. Not intentionally.

I went to see them a couple of years ago. It was amazing.

No, I did as well. They were really good, weren't they?

Did you enjoy the Vengaboys before them, though?

Yes, I did.

Of course, I didn't know I knew all of the Vengaboys songs.

Yes.

No swearing. We have guests.

Hi, Paul.

Hiya.

Talking Hospitality. Welcome to our podcast. Talking Hospitality. I'm Sarah Kettel and this is Timothy R. Andrews.

Hello and thank you for joining us. Talking Hospitality on is a podcast looking at issues within hospitality solutions and inspirational stories from the sector.

The podcast is shared on all major platforms, iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud and Spotify, and it's marketed on social media.

We're delighted to welcome author, speaker and events expert Paul Cook. Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

Paul, welcome to the show. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Yeah. I've been in the event space for a number of years now.

I've had a variety of different roles in that time, which has allowed me to get a real understanding of the depth and the breadth of what goes on in events and also in hospitality.

I write for a number of companies and I also create content for organizations that are putting on virtual and hybrid events and I do some speaking from time to time.

We know that you work in the events arena and I'm not even going to say how's your year been? Because I know it's just been nuts like the rest of us.

Can you tell us some of the massive and profound effects that the COVID 19 outbreak has had on your industry this year?

Yeah, I think your words massive and profound are so, so right. The events industry, which was largely in person, events.

When people talk about events, they think of people going to physical meetings to go to a venue, to a space to meet and greet and network and eat and do all those things you do with other people at events. The virus came along and really gave the industry a bit of a smack in the nose, really.

That's the only way to describe it, and then put a stranglehold on it because we weren't able to go out, there were lockdowns going on and basically all of that meant that people in hospitality and events weren't able to do their jobs. Anywhere near the degree that they were used to.

What happened along the way is a number of people that were used to putting on events for suddenly thinking about, well, hold on, what do I do? Because I can't do anything. There is no demand for events, I'm out of a job.

And the profound effect of this has been just how many people are currently suffering with anxiety around where the next pay pack is likely to come from and also if they're still going to be relevant when in person, events do come back because virtual events have just taken off as indeed they had to. But not everybody's been able to move across to that. Not everybody's been able to basically upskill quickly or even want to.

So there's a huge sway of people. And this is across the globe. This isn't just uk, this is everywhere where there are these issues.

Because there was lockdown and it went on for a number of months.

I believe that there were a number of people that believed that as soon as those months were done, the summer was done, the virus would kind of have less impact. There may be lockdowns across the globe, would be released a little bit more. But that hasn't been the case.

People have still carried on having to get by on what they could because events are just not back. And I think some people have got into a scenario where they were dependent as a profession on other sectors of business working.

And maybe that was a bit of a fatal flaw for some because if you are dependent on any other provider, then you're always going to struggle if that provider isn't there and that provider for a lot of events people and a lot of venues where business sectors being able to hold events and move people around. So, yeah, massive effect.

For quite a few years now, you've been an advocate of hybrid events and you're now considered leading expert in the field. When everybody else was closing down, whenever I was speaking to you, you were getting busier and busier.

Just for the benefit of our listeners, could you please tell us what virtual events are and what hybrid events are?

Absolutely. There is huge confusion around terminology that's used. So I break it down into three buckets.

So the first is in person events and these are the events where we've been used to these for years.

Most people are used to go into a physical location, a venue, a hotel, whatever it happens to be, and go in there for education or networking or socializing and everybody's used to it.

They see each other, they hear each other, they can smell each other if they want they can break bread with each other, they can drink with each other, they can do all of those things. So those are in person events. Some people call them live.

It's in person is very much where you're seeing and you're hearing and you are in physical proximity with people. Now, virtual event has live people, but everybody is either in their office or their home.

And everyone's connected, whether that is delegates, whether that is speakers, a virtual host, the crew, sponsors, exhibitors, all of those people are all coming into the event online. It's really that simple and straightforward. Everything is happening online and there is no physical group around. So that's how everybody connects.

And then the third type of event is a hybrid event, and this is a combination event. And basically you have an ability of people, some people be able to meet in person at a physical location and enjoy an event.

So they can go to a venue and say, right, okay, we're here, we're all in person, but attached to that, you have virtual delegates that are just connecting via a web link. And those virtual delegates are able to enjoy that event as well.

And if you're clever, you're going to run a program that works for both virtual delegates and for in person delegates. It doesn't have to be the same program. And that's a big mistake a lot of people make. They think, oh, it's all going to be the same for everybody.

No, it doesn't have to be. You can dip in, you can dip out, it depends on what you want to do. But you do have to basically have two programs running.

But there will be some crossover where everybody is embraced for the, for the same event. If you take something like Formula one, you might decide, okay, I want to go and I want to physically be at Formula one.

So you're going to go along to that event and you're going to go and you're going to smell all the fumes of the cars going around and all of that kind of stuff.

And you're going to have all the food and the drink and everything else, and you'll be queuing up with other people to get your place and to do all of those things. So all the stuff that goes on around a sporting event, you might be there in person for that.

Now that very same event is also coming through to people attending virtually. So people watching on their tv, for example, they might be in their own home, they might have pizza in front of them.

So they can still have a similar experience, but it's different.

But they're able to get all the commentary, they can go in the pits, they can do all of the stuff that the person who's at the event isn't going to do because it is a different experience. But where they come together is basically when the race is on.

Because when the race is on, the people in the in person are going to be watching the cars go whizzing by and also all of the people watching the TV are going to be watching the race going by. So that's when they're all joined up. But they join and they separate. And that's basically what a hybrid event is.

That's really interesting because I know that one of the things that's come out of this whole crisis, which has been a positive, is innovation. And when it comes to innovation, both the events and hospitality industries are very, very good at adapting.

And innovation just comes naturally to a lot of us. And you work with students. Can you tell us about you've seen in students and what their desires are to still move into events as a career?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've been working with students now 14 years, something like that, and year in, year out.

I just love working with students because you get the vibrancy, you get the new opportunities and the new dreams of everybody coming through and it's just amazing to see and a real privilege right now, it's got to be said.

It's a bit tough because not everybody expects to go to university or college and then be separate from other people and maybe having to do their, their learning online. But they've been really adaptable and we're having some great discussions.

So I now do remote virtual lecturing, as do most of the other guys that we've got at our university. Some are doing a hybrid approach where they've got some classes and they're going in with safety protocols in place.

But in terms of appetite in coming into events, that still seems to be well up then now that might be because they were already going to do and the plans might have been a couple of years ago in terms of applying, but I can't see any kind of let up in opportunities.

And in fact, I'd go to stage four and say that there is more than it is now because of the added benefits that they can get by understanding how to work virtual and digital and all of those kind of things. Because when in person, events do come back and they will.

All of this stuff that we're doing now, all of the virtual isn't going to go away, it's going to be there. So it's another thing that they have to put into the, into their kind of toolkit of understanding.

And in fact where we will get to is a stage where students will come through and they won't even. There won't be any understanding that an event didn't have any kind of digital component to it.

That will just be something that they won't be able to comprehend, like not having an Internet before it came along. You know, I can remember those days before the Internet. But you say that to a student now they're going to look at you as though you kind of crazy.

But that's where I see things going and I think there are new roles emerging all the time.

Do you have a website?

I've got a website and it's basically aimed at students, college, school leavers and new entrants into events. And it's basically called Lessons from a Mountain dot com.

On the site there are a load of blog posts and it's all about what you can do to get in to the industry to begin with, how you perform at job interviews, all of those kind of things.

But also I've been broadening it out now so that there are posts there about the kind of issues that you're going to come across when you are working in the space and some of the things that you need to know. So how do you do a site visit? What should you be doing when you go and an exhibition?

People forget that events and hospitality really are the social glue between industries and they bring industries together. So I'd be interested to know what amazing positive things you've seen with people upskilling and pivoting as well with their careers.

Some people have just gone for it, some people have decided, okay, I need to understand more on the digital front. So I'm going to get myself to, into a better place. So I'm going to go off, I'm going to take a course, I'm going to sign up for a load of webinars.

I'm going to investigate some of these issues and be relevant. And I think for most people it's been that idea of understanding.

Right now you may not be relevant in the way that you were a few months ago, but that's no reason not to do these things. In the event space. There's been massive transformations.

If you look at say the Excel center in London and how that was transformed into a Nightingale hospital, that wasn't just a bunch of people coming in from outside and just going, right, okay, we're going to build this hospital that had to be done in conjunction with the venues and all of the venue operator and all of the health and safety and everything that goes around that to all work and collaborate together. So those have been scale achievements.

And I think I was reading only earlier today that it looks as though a number of conference centers are going to be used as places where people can go to get the vaccinations, where they can get the injections.

Some event professionals have just decided, okay, we're going to go out, we're going to get stuck into retail, we're going to help them maybe with some of the logistics that they're needing to get home deliveries to people. So they've got involved in a different way.

And there's something called enter coronavirus and it's a massive global organization where they're calling out for people that can do stuff, volunteers, advocates, all sorts of people that can help messaging. And again, that's been another path that some of the event people have gone down.

Some people have got stuck, I think it's fair to say some people have got stuck and not been able to see how you could transfer your skills across. Because I'm in this bubble and this is what I do and this is what I've always done and those are people that are really struggling.

It's been a whole mixed bag. Then you do have to go through and take a real hard look at what else you might be able to do.

Somebody's interested in hybrid events. Where could they go?

Well, I would encourage them, Tim, to come and visit our website, hybrid event center.

Thank you.

All right then, Catch you soon. Cheers. Bye.

Thank you for listening. Please share, subscribe and like. We look forward to you joining us in the next episode of Talking Hospitality.

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