I recall my personal experiences while working and involvement in the Meetings and Events Industry in San Francisco since 2007. That was the time a Presidential Election was about to happened up to 2008 when the Great Recession downturn and turnaround occurred.
Economic's mostly cause by the housing sector created the problems. Challenges occurred in the areas of unemployment with a not such much effect to the Events Industry. Come January 2020 start of a health crisis developing affecting fears and concerns in the United States. February 2020, sound the red flag to the Events Industry.
One the last major conference in San Francisco was the RSA Conference. Measures were being taken though the fear was starting to succumb. Sponsors and Chinese exhibitors started to pull out. The Mayor of San Francisco declared an Emergency while at the same time reassuring the attendees San Francisco was safe with no known cases of the great pandemic for the historians to write, COVID-19, Coronavirus.
March 2020, the dreaded stop of all events by virtue of health concerns, social distancing and shelter in place programs, As of this writing, the known most infected states as of today on the trajectory most hits, New York, California, and Washington. These states basically has life outside the home has paused and also the time where the events, hospitality and service industries deemed non-essential has stop. The unemployment applications are by millions and adding each day. Added to this knowing a lot of the gig workers in the convention business, a lot of them has not tried or do not know how to apply for unemployment and paid sick leave benefits.
Once the testings go up to the maximum extent and the disease peaks towards getting control of this pandemic, the nation will heal while suffering from recession and unemployment. The event industry today is totally in darkness but we know we will rise up. These 3 states are the 3 of the biggest player states in the industry having the major convention cities like New York and San Francisco.
This is now the time for everyone involved in the industry to pull together and brainstorm towards the future, towards helping each other, advocating from the federal, state and local government to help us and support each one. The challenge now is what can we do as better event planners and managers to create an impact as soon as possible when the time permits to start our work again.
An article on the Northern Meetings Group on March 18, 2020, quotes "
Event Planners
Organizers can help their customer's decision-making by easing timetables for exhibitor, sponsor and attendee reimbursement plans. For better or worse, this might mean allowing full refunds on a case by case basis. If a client has alternate events planned for later in the calendar year, it'd be a good idea to work with exhibitors sponsors and attendees, checking to see who would be willing to switch travel plans to remain loyal and participate in the future event, even if at a reduced cost.
This is one strategy we can salvage the cancelled events on a later date and start the recovery we need.
