You can’t really get away from the credit crisis here in the UK at the moment, with our banks going under left right and centre (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7658096.stm), as well as job losses and general doom and gloom. Of course the trouble with the events industry is that we aren’t making bread or toothpaste – we aren’t in ‘necessity industries’, so as usual, the first thing to get cut is the event budget, travel and training.  Whether you are organising a high end business conference or a music festival you’ll be thinking hard about how to make sure that your event can survive.

Julius from eventmanagerblog.com has an interesting take on this, suggesting that events as we know then are over and that free, user generated events are the way forward. Whilst I agree with some of what he says, I don’t agree that this means the end of the ‘event manager’ role as we know it, and nor do I believe that events in the future will be organised by the users:

The conventional infrastructure around events is shaking.

Why do I think this – because I know that the majority of people can’t be bothered…  In my role as an event manager I deal with corporates, charities and other businesses who organise events for their customers, partners and guests. If these events didn’t exist then people wouldn’t go, and they certainly wouldn’t organise them off their own back. People might get together for a drink after work, but getting people together in any major way takes planning and someone to be the catalyst. This person IS the event manager – OK they might be wearing jeans and drinking with people in the bar of a hotel, but they are still the person that has put it together – and this is where the problem arises.

Julius is right that you can put the meeting together with a social networking site, a bit of Facebook and a pinch of Twitter but who is responsible for the event?  Who makes sure its coming together and who makes sure that everything is safely done and that no-one is going to get injured?  I fully understand the principle of user-generated events, but at the first sign of something going wrong, everyone walks away. Who does the risk assessment, organises the venue, checks the food is prepared properly and makes sure that everyone knows where they are going? From a marketing perspective, Julius is on the button – the day of the £3000 conference might be drawing to a close, but the role of the event manager has never been stronger.

For example, we talk about businesses looking to cut the costs of their events, and what will happen in this economy (this is an interesting take on things on the Pathable website) but that is exactly where a skilled event manager comes in. We are the people who can save clients’ money, protect them from getting sued and make sure that the venues and contractors deliver everything they should. In the days of tighter belts, getting the logistics right is very important, and getting the right person with the right skill set is even more important.

So what I think this means for the industry? I think there will be events, suppliers and agencies that go to the wall because they can’t adapt and move with the times – but for those businesses who understand the ins and outs of events, and have a particular strength in event logistics this could be a time to grow…

Let me know what you think either here or on the event management forum.