Exhibitions in time of Covid-19

#nothingcanstoplove

Unexpected disruption

The event and exhibition industry has and is, facing massive disruption due to Covid-19. Organisers, service providers and venues are suffering huge losses. The backbone of the exhibition industry is made up of many small businesses and the lack of business is putting all these companies and individuals into immediate risk.

Face-to-face - our trump card

Whilst there is no doubt that the post Covid exhibition landscape will definitely have some significant changes (social distancing / sanitisation of halls and booths etc), there is a worldwide sentiment that face-to-face interaction will always be the trump card when securing services and business contacts.

Be open to innovation and new skills

We are all learning to do things differently and although many of the companies that we deal with in the wedding industry, are already very vested in social media and blogs, we will find that over the next few weeks and months, innovation and acquiring new skills will be the name of the game.

More intimate weddings

Thankfully, the wedding industry is resilient and whilst we are likely to see the numbers of guests reduced, in speaking to a number of service providers recently – they don’t think that we will see a reduction in the number of weddings. But, with smaller weddings, this will bring about changes to your pricing, and if you work on a percentage of total spend, then you will need to relook at your model as your percentage on 50 pax and not 250 pax will be vastly different.

Make sure you stay ahead of the curve

It is certainly true at this time, that not many companies are looking to spend their precious advertising budgets. This is totally understandable, but make sure you don’t fall off the radar altogether. Brides and grooms have a lot more time on their hands at the moment to be scouring online to find ideas and services. Take this time to put a marketing and advertising plan together for the remainder of 2020 and into 2021/22. Decide on where you want to market yourself and do your research into all the available avenues. Make sure you are ahead of the curve when lockdown is over and we get back to “business as usual”.

We will survive and thrive again

We’re an industry that makes our living by celebrating other people’s major lifetime events. We are very blessed to work in such an emotional and romantic industry and with the enormous amount of talent in the South African bridal industry, I have no doubt that (whilst times are tough right now), we will survive and thrive again.

#nothingcanstoplove #loveinthetimeofcorona