How to re-imagine your event for COVID-19
Online events aren’t an easy sell; it’s hard to ask people who are online all day at home for work to stay online at home for recreation.
We have screen fatigue and Zoom fatigue.
For a festival not to have any kind of physical gathering seems like it’s missing an essential glue; the ingredient that you can’t replicate virtually.
People want to do things outside the home, and outside. In fact, some events have a captured audience like they’ve never had before.
However, people need to feel safe.
Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia each have guidelines for how to hold COVID-safe events
On the other side, events need to generate revenue from new sources in the absence of ticket sales, food & beverage income and departed sponsors. Even event organisers that are not seeking to make a profit need to break even, find new sources of income, and monetise elements of their events.
Create NSW has a practical guide on how to create new income streams
How do we do this?
How do we continue to deliver our great festivals and events in a COVID safe world while still maintaining financial viability and brand reputation?
Maybe a better question is, can we do it?
The answer to this will vary for individual festivals and events, so we have put together some things for you to consider as you explore the future of your event…
STEPS TO REIMAGINING YOUR EVENT IN RESPONSE TO COVID
1. Acknowledge reality: what you would have done most likely can’t occur
2. Get VERY clear on your why: What do you want your event to achieve? What is your measure of success? (e.g. showcase the destination/attract visitors to the destination, support artists, support local businesses, bring the community together, showcase local produce, raise money for a cause…)
3. Consider if your ideal attendee is still right for your event considering COVID restrictions. If not it’s time to adapt, and then consider the needs of your new target markets when re-developing the programming for your event
4. Research how events like yours have reinvented themselves and talk to event organisers of similar events (globally!)
5. Start to see opportunities to create experiences
Consider your event’s themes and values
Consider what you’ve done in the past – what do your attendees rave most about?
Look beyond your event site to your community’s assets
Play with connecting obscure ideas to come up with ideas that are beyond the obvious
Consider current trends in events (see below)
6. Decide what you will include in your program.
You may change your proposition significantly to achieve your event’s aim
Consider configuring your program so the event can go ahead in some form even if public gatherings are shut down at short notice
There is a potential risk to doing things differently (you won’t get everything right), but in 2020 you have every excuse to innovate and try new things
Figure out how to break even, make cost savings, and create new revenue streams
Look for grants – this year, you may choose add elements to your event that fit available grant funds
You might consider adjusting your typical program to provide
long-form content for niche audiences
legacy benefits such as online content available year-round
alternative and additional emotional experiences for the audience such as a means for people to support and feel part of the community such as including a hamper of local products to be enjoyed a picnic during a performance - even to be enjoyed at home while watching the livestream (consider the layers of benefits you can provide to your attendees)
7. Discuss changes with your major funding partners and stakeholders. If you can show how your event can work, their support can be as strong as ever, so have a strong proposition
8. Set a milestone date such as 90 days out and decide then if it is viable to host your event
EVENT TRENDS
Despite the current crisis with COVID-19, it is important to look at the trends that are taking place globally in the sector.
Boutique, VIP, micro festivals – high quality and exclusivity over volume. Could your event achieve its main aim with a series of these?
Regenerative events – How is your event tackling not just sustainability but improving your community and its environment, including climate change? Can you help your attendees contribute to the community?
Immersive experiences – interactive, participatory activities that connect attendees to the community and local culture. Can you help people step out of their reality and into a new one? Or encourage human connection through face-to-face conversations or shared experiences? Perhaps just by having roving street theatre engaging attendees across the site?
Inclusive – How can your event be more diverse and accessible? Being inclusive is not a passing trend; nor is it really optional, as events are all about building community
INSPIRATION FOR REIMAGINING YOUR EVENT
There are hundreds of great examples of how festivals and events around the world are using COVID-19 as an opportunity to innovate, adapt and reimagine. Here are a few to get you started
(To hear about some innovative examples in detail, watch our on-demand Master Class on reinvigorating events in response to COVID-19)
Examples of brightening life for the community
Because it was not possible to have 5,000 people together in a field this year Maindee Festival is using creative activities to bring a smile to the community:
Giving residents and planting sunflower seeds in the lead up to the festival, so the town is covered in flowers from the library to the school and everywhere in between, along with a series of colourful giant flowers on parade outside the library. Residents are encouraged to take selfies and photos and share them on social media.
Four hours of online performance, poetry and music hosted on the Maindee Festival Facebook page
Maindee residents have been nominating friends to receive a personalised delivered dance-o-gram message from dance group Kitsch n Sync
For Belgrave, the thought of a winter solstice without their Lantern Parade was too much to bear so the event was reinvented. The community was encouraged to create new lanterns or dust off their old ones, and pop them in windows of homes, workplaces, classrooms, shops and clubs. Belgrave was transformed into a glowing public-art installation, showcasing community- and artist-made lanterns woven throughout shopfront windows and the main street.
Waldensian Festival added a variety of events including
Name that Native and Valdese Trivia hosted by the Town of Valdese social media accounts. During this week, followers were challenged by regular creative clues featuring historic figures and facts about the Valdese community
Where’s Waldo Scavenger Hunt with clues leading participants to discover not only Waldo (a local historical figure), but also attractions and photo opportunities in Valdese. Clues were available for download online
2D Open Art Competition hosted online
Historic outdoor drama performance with socially-distanced seating
The Glorious Return Shop Hop with shoppers invited to visit at least 15 out of 22 participating local businesses for a stamp to enter to win prizes
Example of supporting the industry
Music festival Under the Southern Stars is dedicated to helping support workers in the music industry (because if events lose suppliers permanently as businesses close and staff move on to other jobs, events will not be able to take place even if COVID is controlled).
The festival asked attendees to make tax-deductible donations to Support Act, Australia’s only charity delivering crisis relief services to artists, crew and music workers whose ability to work in music has been impacted.
The festival also set up a rigorous system to keep their live bands COVID-free.
Example of creating a legacy tourist attraction
Consider changing up your event completely to create a tourism attraction legacy for your town such as street art murals or a sculpture trail.
Vancouver Mural Festival had 60 murals painted. Elements of their mural festival included
the opportunity to watch artists paint murals
an app to help users locate 250 existing murals with an interactive map, and learn about the artists, filter murals by location and interest, and check out curated collections – an ideal way to explore neighbourhoods or for attendees to create their own mural walk
free, daily tours to give art lovers the chance to learn about the region’s murals and social history, and how it became a hub for the public art festival
Downtown Shopfront Mural Exhibition – a photography exhibit and a collection of temporary murals featuring original plywood installations painted in the lead up to the festival during a #MakeArtWhileApart campaign
hosting a contest with prizes to make mural hunting more exciting (prizes provided by local sponsors to showcase local businesses)
an online gallery showcasing 100 original pieces of art from local artists for sale
Pop-Up Patio series of performances in collaboration with a brewery featuring live music, drag, comedy, and burlesque from local curators, performers, and collectives
Curator Talk on how the festival selects its artists and its curation process
Examples of hosting a hybrid event of physical and online elements
Beloit International Film Festival is running a hybrid event with films available at venues with socially-distanced seating, and offering all of the films online, using a company to manage the virtual part of the festival. Having the films online and in-person allows attendees to choose which option is most comfortable for them, and allows the festival to continue with just the online portion if there is another shutdown.
Melbourne Fringe developed a physical distance rating for its events which are searchable in the online guide so attendees can make informed decisions about what they’re comfortable attending.
Film festivals can transition well to being virtual events because they are already working in a well-established online genre, which can monetize in the same way as pay-per-view videos in a streaming service.
Even how the Beloit festival ran pre-screenings of films for the selection committee could be used as inspiration for a COVID-safe festival element. It ran films to small groups of four who watched the films together at home and then connected online to discuss them with other groups.
SALA (South Australian Living Artists) Festival has 300 exhibitions online (1/3) and in spaces ranging from galleries, cafes and wineries to public parks, footpaths and windows (2/3). Some of the 4,000 artists represented have created virtual tours of their studios and filmed themselves talking about their art. The annual SALA Forum is now the SALA Podcast, featuring interviews with artists discussing their artwork, inspiration and creative lives.
The world’s northernmost jazz festival Varanger Festival in Norway normally sells 12,000 tickets but with social distancing rules they have moved the festival to a venue which only normally has a capacity of 250 but which has been reduced to 86. With 13 concerts in all, this gives the festival a total capacity of 1,118 tickets. Livestream tickets are priced at half to one quarter of tickets for the physical shows.
Carnaval del Sol in Vancouver has gone for a hybridized format featuring live outdoor events, culinary and cultural showcases at participating local restaurants, and online lectures and forums.
From livestreams to digital breakout rooms, focus on ways you can make the event experience as seamless as possible for your onsite and online audiences. Encourage your onsite attendees to participate in the same digital discussions as virtual attendees.
Examples of going 100% online
The main concern of Ireland’s Earagail Arts Festival was supporting artists, so they contacted the participating artists and asked them to re-imagine their work and how it could be presented to an audience which would now be primarily online. The artists took on the challenge with enthusiasm, and with videographers and other experts, a re-invented festival came together.
Edinburgh International Festival along with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Edinburgh International Book Festival have been reinvented for a three-week event as digital arts and distanced installations, that recreate the Festival City buzz safely.
The Edinburgh Festival Chorus is at the heart of the program. Every year since 1965, singers from Scotland have performed with world leading artists, orchestras and conductors in concerts. In true resilient festival spirit, they managed to create a unique virtual recorded performance of ‘Ecce Gratum’ and ‘O Fortuna’ from Orff’s Carmina Burana. It’s worth a watch – there are some quirky settings for the singers!
An online event might be able to include bigger stars who might not be able to be brought to the destination under normal circumstances due to cost.
The Sydney Edible Garden Trail (21-22 March!) had just a couple of days to reinvent their event when COVID shut down Australia. Garden tours were live broadcast by a celebrity gardener to a much more geographically diverse audience, who clamoured to purchase branded merchandise.
Vancouver’s Indian Summer Festival drove forward into digital presentations rather than hold out any hope for changes to rules around venue openings and so on.
Smart tech specialist Sauce helped reinvent the UK’s Freedom Festival, the city of Hull’s biggest arts festival as an interactive, year-round digital experience, with the program of events broadcast digitally via an app.
If you run your event online but want to showcase your destination for later travel, consider partnering with your local or regional tourism organisation on a direct mailing piece that provides a taste of the region to guests who aren’t able to travel there in person.
Inspire attendees to tune in with personality, such as this example of tempting copywriting
Examples of boutique events
Small scale performances, particularly in outdoor venues, offer less risk of infection (excluding singing and comedy as unamplified singing and laughter transmit saliva particles into the air) such as amplified singing, dance, plays, magic, musicians, talks, panel discussions, acrobatics, street theatre, chef and artist demonstrations, and workshops like song writing.
Glyndebourne country house in England hosts a picnic and opera in a similar vein that would be more COVID safe if the opera was performed outdoors.
Diner en Blanc is a global phenomenon that can be held in a social-distanced way, particularly in regional areas with smaller numbers of attendees. Attendees wear formal white attire and bring their own table and dinnerware to a secret location revealed at the last minute, such as a zoo, boat, or park. Attendees would drive or bus to the catered event with their tablemates and would only mingle with their own table.
Other ways to reimagine festivals and events
Live and socially-distanced event ideas include
drive-in food fair, films, concert or performance
markets
bespoke high-end events targeting high value visitors such as a beach dance party with a smaller number of attendees spread across the beach
festivals with cluster seating using pods or raised platforms for family/friend groups
festivals spread across multiple venues each with their own COVID-safe plan
Run a COVID-safe trade show or fair
Australian Events, based in Queensland, operate 15 major annual consumer and trade events such as caravan and camping shows. They have worked closely with Public Health Units across Queensland to deliver safe and compliant events for patrons, exhibitors, contractors and staff.
So far they have successfully delivered the first three major expos in Queensland, leading the way for the events industry, by implementing a range of tactics to ensure the way their events take place reduce the risk of infection.
Keep athletes participating
Ironman went virtual with a platform to build community and facilitate training and racing. The races are being broadcast live on Facebook. All this while raising funds for communities around the world! Other participatory events are using apps so participants can compete virtually.
Replace your parade
Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers is replacing its street parade which attracts 50,000 attendees with a parade of mini floats created on remote control cars in the city’s main shopping centre (which is the sponsor of the parade). This will support local businesses.
Staying live / Staying alive…
One UK festival director suggested compulsory virus testing for attendees with negative test results permitting attendees to enter. He argued that social distancing doesn't work at festivals as festivals need to be "full houses" in order to be economically viable, and more than a year of revenue loss from postponed and cancelled events can’t be sustained by event promoters.
While he would like the government to adopt the idea as policy, tests don't always pick up the virus in its early stages, and there’s also a window between attendees being tested and going to the festival when they could contract the virus.
Of course, there is always the COVID-safe festival suit!
Learn more
We’ll be expanding on this topic with more in-depth case studies in our on-demand Master Class on reinvigorating events in response to COVID-19, including
events spread across multiple venues
a heartwarming hybrid event to support a tourism community devastatingly impacted by bushfire and COVID
how a QLD music festival will go ahead, COVID safe, this September.
Further readings on this topic…
What would a ‘boutique’ version of your mass gathering event look like?