Post-Pandemic Eventing: What does the future of events look like?
As we look at what the rest of 2021, and onwards, looks like - given the dramatic changes in lifestyle we’ve all felt over the past year - we can’t help but wonder. What does the future of events look like?
Will people want to be packed into sweaty gigs, rubbing elbows in signing queues or arranging an overnight stay in London, as they’re not city-based? We’re not too sure.
One thing we ARE sure about is that over the past twelve months we have made more global, regional, and non-London-based pals than we could have ever imagined. We’ve held showcase events, streamed to multiple territories at once, and we’ve loved every minute of it.
Because of that, we’re not quite ready to let you all go just yet. We’re committed to keeping as many events as possible, available to as many people as possible, wherever you are. With that in mind, we’re supporting our clients with a hybrid approach to post-pandemic eventing.
Let’s celebrate IRL and online - there’s no reason why we can’t have both.
So with all of that being said, how are we going to make it happen?
We’re pleased as punch to announce that we’ll be working with Karen and Andrew of Silk Factory to ensure that everyone (everywhere!) has the best experience possible.
So that you can get to know the full Tandem Family, and our pals, here’s a little insight into Karen & Andrew’s work with Silk Factory...
Who is the Silk Factory; what are your aims, and where does the passion come from?
AS: We deliver video content solutions. With a heritage in entertainment marketing, we pride ourselves on being experts in storytelling; cutting and producing content that understands narrative, audience and environment. Our production specialisms span from green screen shoots to live streaming, brand films to animation, behind-the-scenes to augmented reality and social content creation.
KF: The Silk Factory way is to continually push ourselves and our partners, deliver exceptional work all with a team of talented specialists that get to work on projects they are passionate about.
AS: We like to bring cinematic experiences to brands …that’s what fuels our work.
What does the future of events look like, post-pandemic, and what are you most excited about?
KF: The past 18 months has shown us the power of digital to scale events. We believe that hybrid IRL/streamed events will harness that face-to-face we all love (and need right now!), whilst still benefiting from the addition of a larger at-home audience. This means events no longer must be geographically locked which allows us to take the historical in-person model, that engaged 50 people, to a hybrid model that has the potential of hitting 1000+. This global stage presents significant opportunities from a marketing and PR perspective. We’re seeing partners opt for more premium productions for their events, to capitalise on this opportunity.
AS: Platform tech is key to this – Zoom, Vimeo Live, Demio, TikTok, Instagram Live and more. We take real care over understanding who the audience is, where they are online and how they want to engage with a piece of content or event. We approach it almost like a broadcast, sometimes involving multiple locations and multiple languages. By no means do we think that in-person events will be deprioritised or replaced with live streaming – more that the two working together will mean people getting to experience events in new ways that we never thought possible a year ago.
KF: I am excited to see how platforms start to fine tune tech and functionality giving us new means to involve the at-home audience. From crowdplay tools to interactivity and voting, live interviewing and purchasing in stream.
When attending events, what makes something stand out for you? What are the key elements of live event production that we simply can't miss out?
AS: We give equal amounts of love to the pre, live and post event experience. How are we piquing people’s interest with cool, stand-out pre-promotion, how can we ensure that the live experience is seamless and how do we take that event and have it live beyond that moment – repurposing content and assets as marketing collateral to publish after the event.
KF: We approach live events with the question of how do we want the audience to feel. Influences could be everything from environment, branding, perceived value of the content (giving the audience something exclusive or access like they’ve never experienced it before) and finding ways to get people to feel that they are part of the event as oppose to just a passive viewer.
We can’t wait to see you online, or IRL!
If you’re a client (or you’d like to be) please drop us an email at lex@thetandemcollective.com and we can have a chat about making your events as accessible as possible.
