The recent Omicron wave has not been a welcome development in the ongoing pandemic, and it has many feeling as though we’re back to square one. Events are, once again, being affected — IBT Berlin has been cancelled for the third year in a row, and J.P. Morgan’s Annual HealthCare Conference will be held in a fully virtual format, to name a few.
Concerts and performances have also been cancelled or postponed, with Phish most recently announcing the cancellation of their New Year’s Eve shows at Madison Square Garden, which have been pushed back to April. CES, which has a vaccination mandate in place and was always going to be hybrid, is still planning to welcome in-person attendees, although big-name sponsors like Meta and Microsoft are cancelling their in-person presence.
However, amid renewed health concerns and industry-wide uncertainty, it’s important to remember that while Covid case numbers are highly publicized and may be approaching record levels in the US, case numbers may no longer be indicative of hospitalizations and deaths caused by the virus, and should therefore be taken with a grain of salt when evaluating the risk profile of any given activity or event.
We are gathering more data on Omicron every day, but so far, the spike in cases has not necessarily been leading to a corresponding spike in severe illness like they did pre-vaccine. That said, one of the big questions that organizers will have to revisit amid the rise of Omicron is how many mandates attendees will tolerate before deciding that traveling to an event is no longer worth it.
For example, a third vaccine dose has been shown to be the best protection against the variant, but with only about 19 percent of Americans having received a booster shot, implementing a three-dose vaccine requirement for events is currently unrealistic. In addition, delays with Covid testing are making test requirements less feasible. Hopefully, more at-home rapid tests will be made available in the US to help counteract this issue.
In the meantime, event organizers and producers have more digital tools and strategies at their disposal than they did two years ago, which is enabling them to continue to engage attendees and sponsors virtually. Omicron has once again proven how vital these tools are in allowing events to remain flexible and adapt their long-term strategies.
“The challenge will be for large tentpole events like CES to drive higher attendance rates (48% of event professionals Splash surveyed say that’s their biggest challenge) and realize positive ROI while delivering stellar (and consistent) experiences to all attendees, regardless of whether they’re walking the aisles or zooming in,” notes Eric Holmen, CEO of Splash.
He continues, “How successful they are at achieving those remains to be seen. What is certain is the amount of investment companies are making in new event technologies to keep abreast of changes and prepare for a different events landscape, which appears to be changing almost daily.”
When it comes to live entertainment, festival calendars are filling up for next year, and the industry is poised for a strong recovery in 2022. The current data on Omicron shows promising signs that this setback will be short-lived — in the meantime, the resilient events industry continues to adapt and events, in some form, will go on.