Just a short post this week – I’m currently working on some interviews I did last week at AIME and will have them posted next week.

It has been great to attend a few events this week including the ADMA Global Forum where the focus was on data (ADMA is the Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising), how data is collected and used along with the permissions required.  The opening session featured F1 driver Mark Webber who summed up how his team used data in this LinkedIn clip

Mixing with marketers got me thinking about the changing role of events in marketing. The halcyon days of Cointreau Balls and other marketing extravaganzas are well gone but people are also sick of virtual events – so what will be the place of marketing events in a post COVID environment? And if brands are putting their cash into social media promotions, how important now are “instragramable” events?  I feel a longer discussion is warranted.

Yes, like many others I watched the Shane Warne Memorial on Wednesday night and I must say how much I feel for Peter Jones who provided event management for the event (more on that next week), a contribution that was totally ignored by this article in The Age which makes no mention of event management at all Behind the scenes of the Warne memorial one would think the entire event was produced by Eddie.

And to top it off Peter is now laid up at home after he and a few of his staff caught COVID at the event. But in his usual style he remarked “what do you do – the show must go on”

However The Age journalist (Osman Faruqi) who had a go at the bullshit about 1 billion watching the event is spot on Did 1 billion people really tune in to watch Shane Warne’s memorial?

And, as was also hyped, did 50,000 people attend at the MCG? Nope, it was around half that.

Festivals are back

Easter is always a big time for festivals and preparations are well under way for The National Folk Festival in Canberra and Bluesfest Byron Bay who today posted photos of their “lush campground” ready for campers to arrive in just over a week.   However, as in previous years, I’m sure wellies will be well advised.

Did this week’s federal budget have any joy for the event industry? Well not directly, however with the budget out of the way we can now look forward to the election being called and hopefully the country being governed again instead of our politicians running around looking for (or maybe avoiding) photo ops.

Then, hopefully business will get back to booking events for our industry to run or provide services for. It is a weird thing that businesses seem to hold off on spending in the lead up to an election “to see what happens” but no matter who wins, once the election is over they get back to spending again.  

Back to the photo ops – a great article about all that here – would you believe it all started with Ronald Reagan?  Here’s why pollies love their stunts

A big shout out to Stav Hatzipantelis who recently lost 30 years worth of equipment and memories when the Pro Light & Sound warehouse went up in smoke recently. It has been so heartening to see how other suppliers have rallied to help his team deliver the events they had booked in.

And to finish off this week have a look at this video from Simon Thewlis on 40 years in events

Simon Thewlis is optimistic about the future of events