Plan B: How Businesses & Events Can Continue to Create & Collaborate
CoronaVirus (COVID-19) Brings the Importance of Virtual Communication Forward
“What was our Plan B?”
How many event planners and businesses are asking themselves this question this week?
Ideally, most companies are starting to plan their Plan B alongside their Plan A for live events and for emergency situations. Recent events and workweeks being cancelled around COVID-19 (or CoronaVirus) have taught us that sometimes, you even need a Plan C.
While emergency-planning isn’t always at the top of the list of importance when preparing for an event, the unpredictability of weather, viruses, and other event influences can make Plan B preparations necessary, quickly.
As a longtime event producer and technology integrator, Cory’s Audio Visual knows a thing or two about changing plans in an instant. After 66 years of business located in Tornado Alley, our company has advice for beginners, as well as seasoned professionals, on some alternatives to pivot rather than cancel (when possible) as something unexpected strikes.
Because illness and the spread of viruses is on the forefront of everyone’s minds, we have two ways you may be able to still achieve your business goals while keeping your audience and your team safe.
That being said, we are event and technology experts, not epidemiologists. We use the Center for Disease Control’s and local authorities’ recommendations as our company measure for making decisions.
Here are just a couple of ideas for bringing audiences together… but not too close.
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Virtual meetings and web conferencing
While hosting a full-blown virtual event takes some lead time, many companies are pulling it off quickly. How? They are working with a team of professional audio visual experts and IT specialists to equip their teams with the necessary tools to stay productive, enable collaboration, and provide an experience. That’s the key word.
On the topic of events, conferences have long been the gold standard for exchanging ideas and strengthening professional relationships, both in business and the academic world. Faced with the health health scares surrounding COVID-19, many companies are finding ways to blend programs focused on audience experience by utilizing Zoom or other teleconferencing applications, online ticketing, Twitch interactivity or other chat features, and LinkedIn for networking to gain most of the benefits of an onsite event, but from the safety of their own home or office.
Another challenge facing businesses right now is preparing for staff members to move from the comfort of their office to video conferencing from the comfort of their kitchen table. Many companies, like Cory’s Audio Visual, have buying power to help their clients buy technology for less. In fact, Cory’s Audio Visual have video conferencing packaging to make setting up and maintaining the technology consistent and easy.
2. Streaming
With countless fundraisers, marathons, golf tournaments, conferences, and more cancelled across the United States, event organizers and organizations are faced with the decision to reschedule their events or cancel them all together. As a result, there are many economic challenges surrounding losing the chance to connect with their target audiences.
But because we all cannot gather together, your message doesn’t have to be lost. Online streaming of special moments can help bring an audience together around a unified message, often with the same amount of emotion and investment as in person… if done correctly.
Working with streaming professionals, like the team at Cory’s Audio Visual, can help you truly draw in an online audience with high quality content.
Online streaming allows you to tell the important impact stories, share the winning moments, learn from the best and brightest in your industry in a safe, quarantined environment.
While our country, and quite frankly the world, are currently facing unprecedented challenges, finding a quality, certified technology partner can help navigate some of the difficult decisions being made.
If you need a partner to help you navigate your Plan B or even Plan C, our team can help. CONTACT US