Carina Bauer has witnessed many of the ups and downs of the meeting and events industry in the nearly 20 years she has been with the IMEX Group, the respected exhibition for incentive travel, meetings and events.
But when the IMEX shows in Frankfurt and Las Vegas had to be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the meeting, travel and hospitality industries were brought to a virtual standstill, even Bauer was stunned.
“Heartbreaking is truly the only word that does justice to the emotions felt by me and the whole team when cancelling the live shows,” says Bauer, who has been CEO of the IMEX Group since 2009. “Our shows are our ‘babies’ and it’s incredibly difficult to cancel them when you put your heart and soul into creating them.
“One huge comfort was that our team told me, in the middle of this storm, that they had never been prouder to work for IMEX. That, without a doubt, felt like the best gift of all.”
Bauer and the IMEX team have never stopped working, though that work ethic should not come as a surprise to anyone who has had interactions with Bauer, her father Ray Bloom (chair and founder of the IMEX Group) or their team.
Their success has been evident with annual events in Frankfurt and Las Vegas. The Frankfurt event, which would have been the 18th this year, and the U.S. event, which would have celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2020, each attract about 15,000 industry professionals—the two largest global events for the meeting and incentive travel industry. The shows bring in representatives from more than 100 countries and some 3,500 exhibitors.
Another key component is the hosted buyer program. In 2019, the Frankfurt and Las Vegas shows combined for more than 146,000 individual and group appointments.
PlanetIMEX is Born
All that went away in 2020 as COVID-19 forced business travel to a halt, as well the lifeblood of the meeting and event industry: face-to-face meetings. But Bauer and her team, while obviously taking a tremendous financial hit, redirected their efforts with the debut of PlanetIMEX, a new virtual platform designed to allow visitors to get education, explore content and network. The platform was created in just five weeks.
“Following the cancellation of the live shows, the team took a leap out of their comfort zone, learning new skills along the way and working remotely due to lockdown restrictions,” Bauer says. “Our team is incredibly adaptable and resilient, despite the challenges brought on by the cancellation of the shows and the rapid move to the digital space. They threw themselves into creating our new digital experience, PlanetIMEX, not just professionally but personally, with many bringing their own hobbies and skills into the mix.”
The IMEX Group worked with Cvent to create three 3-D, interactive “islands” as destinations within the platform, each with its own theme—community, education or networking. It was intended to serve as a bit of a getaway during the pandemic while also delivering many of the key education and networking components found at the live shows.
IMEX also continued its education partnership with MPI, its largest strategic partner, which was involved in some of the education segments.
“One huge comfort was that our team told me, in the middle of this storm, that they had never been prouder to work for IMEX.”
There were more than 11,000 registrants for the two PlanetIMEX events, one in May (normally the time of IMEX in Frankfurt) and one in October (normally the time of IMEX America). IMEX delivered a total of 120 sessions in the two events.
“Our goals in launching PlanetIMEX were to give a gift to the industry, create and foster business connections and bring a little joy,” Bauer says. “We feel that we have certainly hit these goals. In the first two weeks of the launch of PlanetIMEX in May, we had 20,000 unique users interacting with the platform.”
Jessie States, director of the MPI Academy, was involved in the delivery of some education elements.
“A key takeaway from the PlanetIMEX experiences this year was the focus on community bridging,” she says. “IMEX is uniquely positioned to bring all of the industry’s associations and communities together and leverage the unique traits and aptitudes of each for greater good. By providing an inclusive home for all throughout the PlanetIMEX events and creating a community-led education day post-event, IMEX continues to show the power of togetherness and collaboration.”
Bauer says the ramp-up for PlanetIMEX “was a steep learning curve.”
“We learned much about technology and production in a short space of time,” she says. “We took the learnings from the May edition to evolve the most recent PlanetIMEX held in October with a keener focus on the user journey and quality production values. In terms of the future, we’re now looking at ways in which we could blend elements of PlanetIMEX around our live shows.”
Focused on the Future
Speaking of the future, for now, IMEX is forging ahead with plans for live shows in 2021, even as the world continues to grapple with COVID-19.
“There’s no denying the huge impact of COVID-19 on the business events industry and this will continue for the short term,” Bauer says. “However, I do believe that the sector will recover as business events and conferences begin to take place around the world and we prove that such events can be run in an organized, controlled and safe way. Confidence and safety are the watchwords here. We need to build our attendees’ and exhibitors’ confidence to start attending events again.”
The return of face to face is critical for the return of the industry, which had a worldwide direct spend of more than $1.03 trillion in 2017. But the business of face to face is more than economic.
“Ultimately, there’s an inherent need to meet face to face—it’s human nature, and we know it’s better for business,” Bauer says. “We’re all aware that participating in an event in person is a highly effective way of forming valuable business relationships, of motivating staff and of truly experiencing a product or organizational values.
“In fact, I believe that there’s now a real pent-up demand for live events and, as long as events are managed safely and securely, attendees will have the confidence and the desire to return.”
“As long as events are managed safely and securely, attendees will have the confidence and the desire to return.”
IMEX’s work to ensure the survival of the business events community is not in a vacuum. The organization has continued to support industry partners, including making financial contributions. Bauer says since the launch of IMEX, the organization has contributed more than $1 million per year into the industry by supporting associations, certifications, research and industry foundations.
For example, IMEX donated US$250,000 to MPI to provide support to meeting professionals facing distressed financial situations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the donation was offered as a grant to the MPI Foundation, which will direct funds to distressed members. Additional funding will support MPI’s 11 European chapters for initiatives to sustain education and country-specific programs that can reengage industry awareness and commence recovery.
“When I learned the news this donation, I was speechless,” says Kevin Kirby, executive director of the MPI Foundation. “Considering the backdrop of the global pandemic, consistent negative economic news and watching our industry suffer, you can only imagine our surprise. Candidly, the timing is critical to our ongoing efforts to help industry members retain their memberships, access education and maintain their professional networks. It’s an amazing gift.”
Bauer says it was important for IMEX to maintain funding for industry associations, knowing how important it is to continue to invest and have confidence in the sector, particularly in tough times.
“We’re a community as well as an industry and it has been heartening to see event professionals gather online to collaborate and support one another through this crisis,” she says. “Our industry is robust and I’m certain that it will return to full health in the mid to long term.”
“As long as events are managed safely and securely, attendees will have the confidence and the desire to return.”
MPI recognized Bloom and Bauer as Industry Champions at its World Education Congress (WEC), an honor bestowed on those who make contributions with their time, financial support and resources in efforts to support and share the future of the industry. The MPI Global Board Room in Dallas will be renamed the “IMEX Group Global Board Room” in recognition of the generous gift. Industry Champions earn lifetime membership in MPI, while a complimentary annual membership in their name is given to a young professional.
MPI also announced at WEC that the association and IMEX have entered into a new five-year agreement that ensures ongoing collaboration.
Another area of important to Bauer is an emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion within the industry.
“We know that it’s essential to further the debate around diversity and inclusion and create a deeper level of understanding,” Bauer says. “We do that in two ways—what we can do in the wider industry in terms of offering learnings and practical solutions such as She Means Business (an education platform aimed at raising awareness to the plight of women in the meeting industry) and what we can do within our organization. We have developed our own Diversity and Inclusion squad, who examine and advise on our practices within the business.”
States, who helped deliver She Means Business on PlanetIMEX, says that as the pandemic continues to force women out of the workforce in greater numbers than their peers and with racial injustice and systemic racism at the forefront of our social consciousness, “She Means Business provided a platform for conversations around racial diversity, gender equality and female empowerment and how our industry is uniquely positioned to continue to solve these global challenges.”
Bauer, for now, is focused on 2021 and helping the industry recovery. While she misses traveling considerably, she says she has learned to be a better leader.
“I’ve seen how amazingly our teams can adapt when faced with adversity and I’ve truly learned what clarity, transparency and availability can do to help team members navigate uncertainty,” she says.
Bauer adds that “resiliency really is almost everything. Those people and organizations that can pick themselves up when the going is tough, brush off the dust, walk down a new road without knowing their destination and do it with humor and goodwill are the ones that will prosper, whatever the situation.”
She also remains firmly passionate about the value of face to face.
“I believe that the demand and need for face to face business events will be extremely strong as the world comes out of the shadow of this pandemic,” Bauer says. “Live events are here to stay. However, we must continue to focus on the overall experience and ensure that being ‘live and in person’ is a pinnacle experience for attendees, who have now gotten used to attending events online.
“I also believe it’s important that the industry uses this crisis to prove not only the value of live events, but also to advocate and engage with the wider business world and policy makers so that they truly begin to understand the value of the industry. It’s important that we remember this even when we start to recover and the crisis seems like a distant memory.”
PLANETIMEX BY THE NUMBERS
PlanetIMEX May registrants: 5,881
Top regions for attendance: Europe (43 percent), North America (39 percent)
Registrants who were new to IMEX: 2,756
Number of EduMonday sessions: 32
Total seats occupied: 12,457 (one participant may have occupied many seats throughout the day)
Total number of countries represented: 120. The U.S., the UK and Germany accounted for more than 50 percent of all EduMonday
Top 5 sessions attended:
• The big pivot: towards a regenerative events industry
• The future of events: three scenarios and five survival strategies
• Hybrid events - event design after COVID-19
• Future event planning and crisis management requirements
• Adapt, evolve, accelerate: the road to recovery
PlanetIMEX October registrants: 5,206
Top world regions for attendance: North America (55 percent), Europe (30 percent)
Registrants who were new to IMEX: 1,550
Number of sessions, live, on demand and partner: 88
Attendance across all sessions: 5,580
Top 5 sessions attended:
• MPI: Contracts and negotiations in a post-COVID-19 world
• How to move forward after coming to a standstill - Robert Kenward, Chief Talent Officer, You Select and Search
• Panel discussion: COVID-19 - Where are we?
• Marketing yourself in the new world - Robert Kenward, Chief Talent Officer, You Select and Search
• MPI Meetings Outlook: Future predictions for the business of meetings
EMEC TO ALIGN WITH IMEX IN FRANKFURT
The European Meetings and Events Conference (EMEC), MPI’s signature European education and networking event, will align with IMEX Frankfurt in 2021.
Originally scheduled for February in Brighton, England, the 25th anniversary edition of EMEC will now co-locate with IMEX Frankfurt in late May and become a hybrid conference, featuring in-person and digital experiences.
EMEC will utilize a hub-and-spoke format, with Frankfurt serving as the hub while MPI’s 11 European chapters will provide regional in-person and digital engagement.
The move was predicated by challenges presented by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and leaders from both MPI and the IMEX Group recognized both the need for change and the opportunity to create a unique educational experience.
The two organizations also announced that EMEC 2022 will return to Brighton, home of the IMEX Group.
“It’s more important than ever for both IMEX and MPI to creatively generate value for our joint communities,” said Carina Bauer, CEO of the IMEX Group. “Bringing both events together in one city at one time means we can level up and make the most of our combined knowledge, ideas and resources, showing that our ‘stronger together’ strapline has never meant more.”
Paul Van Deventer, president and CEO of MPI, said that over the past few months, given the challenges experienced by the pandemic, MPI had been working diligently to assess plans for EMEC.
“As the saying goes, ‘When one door closes, another opens,’ and we feel that our renewed path for EMEC in both 2021 and 2022 provides incredible new opportunities,” he said.
