GETTING BACK TO EVENTS WITH LIVE AUDIENCES

Hello, this is Les Goldberg, and welcome to The Road Ahead. The Road Ahead podcast is dedicated to the future of the live events business, bringing together industry experts. Hello, production world, this is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead. Today I have two amazing guests. I have Rod Mickels. He is the co-founder and CEO of InVision, and I also have Todd Street from Todd Street. Interesting. Cool name guys. Welcome to the show. Thanks. Good to be here. And guys today we're going to talk about the return of live events. What sequence of events in your mind has to happen for us to get back to a ballroom. And what what elements if are your customers thinking about as we kind of look at the road ahead and obviously we're working in a virtual world and every day we're talking about more virtual events, and that seems to be the thing we're doing right now. But at some point in the future, whether that day is 30 days, 60 days, 200 days, next year we're going to go back to ballrooms and what today's program is dedicated to. What do you think the customers are thinking about? What scenarios have to happen before they feel comfortable? We have a new president coming in, and I think in like less than two weeks, and I think meeting planners and corporate executives, they kind of have to be thinking about these obstacles. So I'm going to throw this question to Todd. Todd, maybe you could explain. What do you think are the obstacles have to be overcome for us to get to a ballroom? Well, thanks, les, and it's great to be here today. I think there are three prominent issues. One is safety. One is liability, which I know a lot of. Festivals and companies are dealing with, and also regulations, whether it's state regulations, airline regulations, venue regulations, things of that sort are going to play a part. Got it. Okay. Same question to you, Rod. You know, so so Todd's answer was about the safety and the regulations and the liability. What are your thoughts about for your customers? If they're saying, I want to go back to a ballroom. What are they? What are the obstacles? Yeah. Well, our clients are talking about when we do go back and we'll talk later about that. But, you know, a they have to look at the audience acquisition. So if when they go back they've got to get people there too. Is the attendee privacy if we're doing testing or if we're doing onsite testing or protesting. There's a whole privacy part around that to and then policy enforcement, whatever policies that we have on place when we do come back have to be adhered to. You know, the reduction of people in the ballroom, how they get in and out of the venues, all will be then that enforcement and then our clients are talking about the implementation of the financial part of it. You know, this has to make sense from the sponsorship level and all that until they can talk to sponsorships, people to come into this and help pay for these programs if they're not coming. They have to look at that as a decision process. So those are some of the obstacles we see of before we start getting back into physical event program. Got it. So Todd, I'm throwing this question to you. How does the vaccine play a part in us getting back to work into the ballroom? And right now we have Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca. I know Johnson and Johnson has won. And and they're having some challenges in the US of distributing this. But but does that does that impede us or help us or do you think people will have to all be vaccinated to go back to a ballroom? And there's all kinds of anti-vaxxer theories? Well, I think it certainly plays a critical role for sure. I understand in working with our clients that their biggest concern, well, there's, you know, a huge appetite to connect with their people, to get in front of their people after what will be at least a year as time is the access to the vaccines. And you know what the distribution will be like and what is their liability in it? Are they actually able to require vaccine vaccination to attend? And then there's the whole personal belief system, which Rod mentioned before as well. So there could be certain demands that, you know, that the attendees may feel as if should not be put on them. So it's a cultural, you know, dilemma as well as just, should we have a live event? It speaks volumes about the company, about their thought process for their employees and what they expect of them and what they're willing to put them through for the benefit, the cost benefit, or to be together. That is really interesting because, you know, some people are saying whether it's international travel or it's going to some type of concerts or events that you're going to have at some point to show that you've been vaccinated. Right. At some point, I'm just going to get a hat and wear it. It's going to say vaccinated. And this way there won't be any questions anyone around me will know. But Rod, the same question, what are your thoughts on the vaccine? And. Well, yeah, let's use some numbers. I mean, as of today, there's I think 5.9 people immunized vaccinated to this. And if they if they say we need to be a herd, you know, heard immunity of 70%. Just straight math tells us that if they could get up to a million a day, which they're not there now, but I'll say they can do a million a day to get to that 70%. You're talking to end of Q3 of 2021 before we're at that herd immunity. So we get into the timing later. But that's a big thing to do. One positive thing, though, is, is people, when they first asked last September, would you be would you take the vaccine? The 60% said yes. Now that number has grown to 75%. So I think our attendees are more likely to be vaccinated. But I totally believe that that is a step towards us getting back together. As you talked about. You know, I have the red hat, which means that I am been vaccinated. And then that gets into privacy things too. We have to share this with our attendees and with with the people that take care of the program. And so that's where I think it's going to happen. And our research shows that a sponsor is not going to sponsor a program until about 80% of the audience back. So that's now we're pushing that into 2022. Before we get that kind of attendee that goes to the conferences. So I feel that, yes, the vaccination is key for the return of live events. And as we move forward. So how do you feel about the travel component? So our attendees so we just kind of touched on the vaccine. But then there's these people that have to get on airplanes for the most part to go. And there's international travel and then there's domestic travel. Okay. So I think international travel will take a little longer than domestic travel. But how do you think the attendees feel about traveling right now? And and whether it plays a part based on their age or, or whatever the factors are? Well, I think universally there's a COVID PTSD, if you will. And again, it gets back to the personal belief system and the privacy of what people have endured and what they haven't, and how they view this as a virus and what the health ramifications truly are. Regardless of the numbers. And we see the deaths rising to new heights day by day. Some people still don't see this as an issue. So regardless of that, there are you know, it's I think it's it's a very interesting question and that you're asking people to get on a plane and to sit next to each other and assuming air travel, you know, becomes back to normal or becomes more robust, if you will, and then on the company side, they're considering social distancing in a ballroom. And so the two just don't equate, if you will. And I think that we've entered the world of, you know, I've always referred to this as the futures now. And technology was driving this remote policy. And I think ultimately those who are completely concerned with travel just won't go and they will have an option. I know we'll speak about it, as you know, to attend in a remote capacity. So so what you're saying is that if I'm an attendee and maybe it's a sales meeting for a farmer client, that that you're going to have a live meeting and you're going to say there's an optional element that if you don't feel comfortable or you're not in a position to go, you can experience and still be, you know, just participating, just participate remotely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Rod, what is your thought on travel? Yeah, I just add on to that. I totally agree with you that that's the decision making process. But what's going to happen is that attendee is going to have to do a value assessment and say, what do I get out of going and chancing to get there live as it relates to just staying in my, my, my kitchen, my, my, my office. And when that starts to that, that scale starts to tip that, you know what? I'm going to take the chance that I'm going to go on the flight because I'm going to get more out of being face to face than I would out of virtual. That's when we'll see this to change. And what I'm hearing from our clients are saying, my salespeople are getting pent up, that the pain is getting higher and higher, and the head of sales is saying, I've got to get these these people together. There's something about being together and that that camaraderie that happens and the recognition that happens. And so that's, you know, we're seeing that the the scales have to tip more towards that person saying, I have to be there live. If it's not, they're going to stay in their living rooms, their kitchens and their offices and stay virtual as long as we are. So, Todd, when we go back to a ballroom at some date, we won't have to apply until the end of this conversation what the date will be. But my my question is, will we have more social distancing in the ballroom? So let's say the ballroom capacity is for a thousand. It holds a thousand. When we put 250 500, what do you think capacity will look like? I think capacity, you know, all. All options are being considered. Do we put two people at a six foot or an eight foot banquet table? Do we distance the chairs six feet? I think it's going to become more of an issue of venue buyouts to provide that safety and confidence in the attendee, and to reduce liability, because if they have torn travel people coming in and out of the hotel, then it doesn't really matter how far apart you're seating people in an in an audience. And I also believe that the size and how they space audiences are going to be regulated by the venues themselves. And in many states, as we see currently, there are state by state regulations as far as gathering sizes. And I think that will evolve and open up. Florida may not have very many limitations, and California is basically on lockdown. So I think it will change, you know, as time goes on. And I think it's going to be a decision. Like I mentioned before, if they're getting on a plane and they're flying and they're sitting, you know, three feet apart from somebody, then they've already made the commitment. And perhaps that's with confidence because they've been vaccinated, so they're no longer frightened. And Rod mentioned, you know, the appetite for people to want to, you know, to network and to be together and be amongst their colleagues. And at that point, you know, you have to consider all the aspects of these events. Are they, you know, is there distancing at the bar or will it just simply be, you know, a certain capacity for the ballroom and masks required? We just, you know, time I think will tell with this rod. Would you like to add to that? Yeah. I totally agree with Todd that we have one of our clients that has a program end of 2021. That's fine. Not the by not the property. They said we can control our people. We can't control other people. So they're buying out the property, as Todd talked about earlier. And also we've got a program slated for October of this year. And this client has said they're doing 50% occupancy and they're going to increase their breakouts by 2 to 3 x. So we're the breakout session held 200 people. They're now going to have 100 people. And so that's their loose numbers right now of occupancy. But I agree it's all going to be a formula that we're going to work with in either statewide or industry wide. Well, I'll tell you the exciting part for me, as the provider of the lights and the salon and the screens is if they space people apart, they're still going to need screens and and sound and all that stuff. And if they have more rooms, because we're going to put only half the number of people, that's more equipment. This is actually there's hope. There's hope for us yet. We might rent projectors again in this lifetime. But it's good. Okay. We're moving on. So so Todd, before in a general show might have a general session. It might have breakouts, it might have an exhibit. Although all three of those pieces of a puzzle. And obviously there's many variations of those. Do you see like the general session, the exhibits and the breakouts all coming back, or do you see like a general session of breakouts and maybe no exhibit? What are those three main pieces? Do you see any of them not coming back in any order? I see I believe that there's no reason for them not to. Okay, so you think the general session they do spacing and the breakout spacing, but even the exhibit environment, I can't say definitively that it's about spacing. I believe that because we've been thrown into this virtual world and we've had, you know, virtual exhibits and we've had virtual general sessions and, you know, virtual breakouts, they're all possible. And like we said, all safety protocols considered aside, there's actually no reason I think that these events, on the whole will become a hybrid model. And I believe to your point earlier, if you're in this business of providing screens and sound and lights and technology, I think that's going to be very much a part of all of these events. I do think that what you will start to find is that there will be two production teams, if you will, for sure. One who's there live running, you know, running the live events. And then there's going to be a broadcast production team as well. And whether that broadcast is taking place in built live in a venue itself or if it's at an actual studio, I believe that you'll have two teams operating these events. And if you take an exhibit, for example, anyone can go to an exhibit and walk down and schedule their appointments and engage with the exhibitors. And you can also make appointments to meet with the virtual expert as well. And we've all been exposed to these virtual environments that exist, and there are opportunities to do both. So I think this hybrid model will accommodate both. And I don't see any reason why one has to be forgone over the other. It's you know, rod was mentioning it earlier on as well. It's about the what's in it for me. And if there's a personal drive, it's the cost benefit kind of decision that the attendees need to make. A company may feel that they need to get the people together, and they're not not getting people together because they're attending virtually. So on your large screens that are in the general session, I believe you're going to have a virtual audiences participants on that screen as well. I believe these virtual you'll have spy cams in these breakouts, you know, feeding it out. I think you'll have laptops at every training session, at every round table, at every district meeting at it, any fireside chat. I think there'll be an opportunity for the virtual audience to participate as they feel comfortable, and they will very much be a part of every live program that returns. Rod, do you share his feelings? Yeah, yeah, I totally do. And he's taken three of my four points. I'll just add that I think we'll first see the hub and spoke come back. One of our clients has a program with 1000 people, and they're going to do ten, 100% regional meetings. So good for you that you know there will be more screens needed. But the the, the general sessions and all that will come back, I think next after that, so that there's going to be more of that and then and then the exhibitors. But I feel the, the, the how we do content and how we do these experiences will change. I think we're going to be more towards the virtual audience, more of a live program, more of a TV program than a live event that, oh, by the way, there's a virtual component to it. So I think speeches will get shorter. How it's done, the cycle of the emotion will change to be more conducive to a virtual audience. That, oh, by the way, we have a studio audience watching this. So I think that's something we should be prepared for. Going down is how is this content changing? How is the program changing to have to live in two worlds, the live and the virtual? You know, it's interesting. My next question was going to be how will the meeting look different? And you you guys have you're ahead of me on this because you've described the future of how it's going to look. And it's and it's good to know that, you know, as a creative minds, you guys are coming up with what the future looks like. And that's kind of be the journey we're going on. So what steps can we do on the production side to make sure the attendees feel safe? And what I mean by this is this is before the show. Maybe they're thinking about attending in person. What are we doing kind of as a communication outreach to say, these are the pieces that we want to do to create the environment of safety. And then when you get on site, obviously they have to experience that. I'm going to throw this to Rod first. Rod, what are your thoughts on that. Yeah we that's a common common questions. We we put up a program. We have a protocol that we developed with a group called In-house Physician. It's called Clean Events. Net if you want to look it up and it talks about the pre-event prevention, on site detection, onsite prevention and protocols and then onsite medical response. And I still have got to be protocols for all of us that we have to start to follow some things along the way so that clients feel non-threatening liability wise. Todd mentioned that earlier and that there's a process in place. There's a procedure if you're not, if you don't have the red band that says you're vaccinated, then this is the procedure. You follow that. We have walkways in and out of ballrooms that are different, that all has to be standardized. And Todd mentioned earlier, it's going to be by by state, by state. And so it'll be that that way. Todd, do you want to add anything to attend to your safety? I'd just like to ask a question because I find that really quite interesting. So you believe that there will be designations because that gets very much involved into the privacy? Yeah. That's that you're discussing, which I thought was accurate as well. You know, you talk about, you know, can you attend and our companies this is when I talk about liability. Are they able to determine and make that statement is you know, are there laws in place to say that an attendee can come only if you've been vaccinated? Because then you venture into the personal belief system and religious issues and all sorts of yeah, you know, we struggle with, you know, we've had clients discuss waivers with us as well. And at the end of the day, how strongly do waivers actually hold up in court? And so is that really a safety protocol that they can put in place. This this goes comes down to just business in general. Can people return to the workplace if they've been vaccinated or not? It's interesting. I've been to a number of studio production environments, and I've been there where you know that they have onsite COVID testing, they have the waivers, you've had to go on your phone and you've had to to do something. And I don't know, I think it's early in the legal process to see if any of that will hold up. Do you all see Rod? Would you see on site COVID testing? Do you think that's something that we're going to experience? I do, I do I think if you haven't got it already. I mean, if you want to go to Hawaii, you have to be tested before you get on the plane. So that whole the whole state. So yes, I think so. I think now they have dispensers where you can go to Amazon has them now by ten for $1,000, you know, give them to all your friends. I think it'll be it's much going to be much easier and faster to do. And so yes, I think it will be there. Cool. I'm curious I'm curious on your opinion on this because, for example, the rapid test versus a PCR is a moment in time, right? So you can test I mean we've seen it on airlines as well. People have, you know, not had temperature but they've been violently ill, deathly ill in fact. So exposing an entire plane. So what is is that actually a safety protocol. The same, you know, versus filtration in a hotel or, you know, the fact that will hotels have to disclose that their employees have all been vaccinated or tested because they put those stickers on the doors to show you that it's been cleaned and nobody else has been in the room you can go to most hotels now have to. Furniture has been removed. They're sparse just for a safety protocols. So is the experience going to be the same as well? Right, right. You know I don't know if if they'll be conclusions. I do know there's many organizations that have come up with a whole stringent set of guidelines to hold event safely and, you know, that have put together books of of all these different guidelines and protocols. And I think each one can be questioned. But at the end of the day. Only time will tell. Right. And I cannot wait to get back to a ballroom that is like, if you ask me what my birthday wishes for this year is a ballroom, just get me to a ballroom. But obviously there's some hurdles. So I'm asking. This is my last question. I'm going to throw this to Todd first. Todd, I need you to opine. I need you to go into your crystal ball, and I need you to determine when you think we'll have meetings of 250. So I'm not going for big meetings. I'm saying I'm starting with smaller meetings, 250 people gathering together in some type of regular basis. What year, month, day? I'll take our. Even if you can go that far. When are we going back to work? Well, I believe that you're going to see this more prevalent in 2022. I know of many of our clients who have already booked space for third and fourth quarter of 2021. Again, I believe it's regulation based state by state. It goes back to the liability issues and the safety protocols in place and communicating what those safety protocols are. To the attendees to make them feel comfortable as to when they're going to go. Want to attend live events? So what date did you come up with? I just wanted to make sure I could write this date and time down, so I could call you on that day and tell you if you were right or wrong, or how close you were. Call me in October 1st, okay? Okay. I thank you for putting. You. Just put it out there. It's a date. It doesn't mean it's right. It's just you just throw it on the wall and see if it sticks. Rod, now I'm looking for your date. What are your thoughts? Yeah. Well, when you said 250, that changes my answer. I think we're definitely going to be in virtual from Q1 and Q2 this year. I think Q3 and Q4, probably Q4, you'll see start to see smaller hybrid events, little babies, 100 people, maybe 200. And then I think Q1 and two, you're going to start to see some experimenting. Depends on what happens with the vaccine. And I think we're going to be back full, you know, bigger Q3, Q4 of 2022. Gotcha. So so if I were to put a date, Todd gave me October 1st, what date can I use that you gave me other than you gave me windows of time? What how big? How big program? How big a program? 250 people. I'll give you a Q4, Q4, Q4. So that's October, November to October. I'll take Todd's and answer and replicate it. Okay, guys, I just want you to know I'm going to be calling you both on October 1st. No matter what the situation is, I will be calling you because I will either celebrate and be sending you like a bottle of champagne that we can open up, or I'll be. I'll get rid of the sham. It'll just be pain. And it'll be like, I'll send you a bottle of, like, aspirin or or agile and say, we didn't. We didn't make it. I'm going to call you out last. I'm going to call you out on the 250, because I'm curious to know what the difference is between 250 or 1000. So if I can see a room that we did previously that had 1000 people, maybe a thousand reps for a company, and maybe we're only going to put 250 people in that 1000 person room. So I think when you have a lower density and you have a bigger space, I think it's about making that attendee feel comfortable. And it's part of the story. And I think, you know, maybe of your 1000 reps, maybe you're only going to have 250 of them, and then we're going to do that virtual piece, like you said in broadcast to the 750 of them. Or conversely, I think we could do what Rod's doing is we could have 250 in the southeast region, 250 in the northeast region, 250 in the central region or the West region, or, you know, I think we could do the meetings in both ways. It's just about it really comes down to the comfort of the attendee. No one wants to risk their life to go to a trade show event convention to be part of something. But but we're really counteracting the idea that the reps and the, the, the people that want to network, they're all getting stir crazy because they're all in their basements, their garages, their houses, and they're not having the experiences. And and, you know, I would think in large transactions, a lot of those happen with people in person. And and so I don't think big deals get done on a, on a zoom call. I think it's really difficult not to say it can't happen. It's just it's just been my experience. Why people go to these trade shows is because they're making deals. And that starts from every, you know, whether it's the Consumer Electronics Show to, you know, whether you're selling airplanes or you're selling video games, E3 or any of the large trade show experiences and also the the auto shows, I mean, the auto shows, probably it's not even about the people that attend those auto shows. It's about the the photographers and the media that covers the launch of those cars and broadcast it on YouTube or on Facebook or, or one of the platforms. It's marketing. And and so we got to get back to marketing and I and that's integral to what we do. And you know, I like the virtual stuff, but I sure like the in-person stuff. It's more fun. And you know, I look forward to that moving forward. Guys, I have to thank you both. You're super smart people and you have so much intellectual knowledge into the world of what we do in live events and to understand what your, you know, our attendees and our companies are facing. And I give you both kudos and I, I hope October 1st is sticks because we can go back to work. And I look forward to seeing you both in ballrooms, convention centers. I might see you in broadcast studio sooner. We have lots of studios all over the country anyway. But again, I want to thank Todd Street, Rod Michaels, you guys are awesome and I look forward to getting back to live events. This is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead, guys. Good job. Thank you for having us. Thanks. Thanks.