Talking about how to host meetings and events in a post-COVID-19 world will require changes for planners and venues. Planning and hosting in-person meetings and conferences will take a combined effort in order to restart the industry again. Venues can focus on a few key areas in order to provide the requirements for safety meetings and events: health and safety protocols and social distancing arrangements.

Event & Meeting industry recovery: (Where to start?)

Recovery starts with the venues playing a key role in the events industry. By implementing distancing practices at their property and taking every precaution, it lowers the risk for the event planner, attendees, and adds an extra layer of security.

Venues that provide thermal scanning as an extra layer of safety for event attendees will become the new norm for a while. As we get thru the recommended CDC safety phases this will be the expected norm for venues to be equipped with thermal scanning, as this is a must-have layer of security for those attending an event. Having this capability will add an element of safety for attendees.

Thermal imaging cameras are devices that translate thermal energy (heat) into visible light in order to analyze a particular object or scene. The image produced is known as a thermogram and is analyzed through a process called thermography. ... All objects absorb, reflect, and sometimes transmit energy at different levels. Thermal scanning can not tell you if someone has a virus, but it can tell you if they have a fever which can prevent the spread of sickness.

How we can help you move forward with future meetings and events:

Having a sanitation policy in place is an important element for every company to have for future events. During these downtimes, MAC Production Group has taken the time to thoroughly clean all audio-visual gear that comes in direct and indirect contact with our clients. Health and safety are important to us. After each event, we will continue to clean all gear. This is MAC’s new policy that all our clients can count on.

While individual states pass thru the recommended phases 1, 2, and 3, companies must use Virtual meetings, live casting, simulcast or webinars to allow an organization to stay connected. Our team has designed a turnkey solution for high-quality, interactive, and secure web events. This will allow you to get your message out. Live events: small and local meetings will be the first way the live event industry rebuilds and makes a comeback. As an alternative to indoor events, meetings, conferences, and seminars can be held outdoors in tents.

Fresh air and sun are disinfectants.  long-forgotten known research and common sense. UV light has been used for decades as a natural disinfectant. It is used to clean drinking water as well as in some environments, like hospitals and medical facilities, to naturally eradicate organisms that could be potentially harmful. UV light element of sunlight has some known beneficial antibacterial effect. To read more, go to Healthline.com

 

Social distancing future meetings:

As the event industry must follow the recommended CDC social distancing guild-lines, this will likely affect future meetings in many ways. A good place to start is planning the proper room and seating configuration. There are free programs you can use to help with the configuration. A great seating configuration is to keep tables six feet apart and create 12-foot aisles. Another idea is putting tape marks on the carpet to indicate how far apart people standing in line should be from each other like you see at your local grocery store.

For educational sessions and theatre-style seating, set up columns of two chairs each with six-foot aisles in between and having increased distance between chair rows – which is essentially theatre setup with an increased number of aisles.

For registration lines, hotels could also follow what grocery stores are doing and tape lines on the floor to mark six-foot distances. Live and in-person events have not gone away it is just on pause right now. Let us not forget the importance of going to a conference, to associate and get to know people in your industry.