MPI staff members offered journal entries along the way as they planned a World Education Congress (WEC) 2020 that’s very different from past events not only in planning, but also in execution since the in-person event in Grapevine, Texas, will be complemented by a live digital experience. Let’s learn from their experiences and thought processes related to everything from marketing to safety to sponsorships.

Budgeting

Given the uncertainty of the virus and the expected number of people attending in-person, we had to develop lean production and logistics budgets to accommodate a wide range in number of attendees and keep variable costs so that they are directly affected only by an increase or decrease in actual attendance.   

Chapters

Chapter leaders are really looking to MPI Global to see how we pull off an in-person meeting. Most of them are just now starting to do something F2F, so they’re hungry for guidance and examples. They’re personally navigating the desire to see and hug all their friends with anxiety about travel and COVID and all the other unknowns.

We provided some really compelling talking points for chapter leaders on how MPI is leading the way forward with a hybrid event in August, which will position them as thought leaders when the decision to meet F2F is questioned. However, we could have minimized some of the negative chatter in the marketplace had we provided talking points about the “why” consistently to chapter leaders from March through July. Big learning is the need to coordinate that with marketing.

Communications

Authenticity is key! When we were considering our options for postponement soon after the pandemic hit the U.S., our community wanted to know our direction. We hoped to announce new dates by GMID, but there were a ton of moving parts: new dates at the hotel while they were moving over 200 groups in the year, host destination and other major sponsor availability, projected spread of the virus and unmovable financial commitments. We weren’t able to announce new dates until about five weeks before our original ones. It would have been useful to go to market with some general language around “we are considering all options” and try to build some empathy with the audience about the complications of planning during a time of uncertainty.

Live entertainment needs lots more prep due to COVID regulations and designing how to make it interesting for a digital audience as well.

Concurrent Education

It was difficult to whittle down the number of sessions for a smaller audience but still cover a wide variety of topics. For our WEC Digital Experience, we are having some of our in-person speakers present their education sessions live to the digital audience. We wanted to make sure the digital experience wasn’t just recorded content and that presenters can interact with the viewing audience. Since we have four main concurrent education rooms, we assigned each room a track for consistency. Our tracks include Business Strategy, Meeting Design, Professional Development and Wellness, which all have a COVID focus to them.

Keep in mind that speakers, just like attendees, may fluctuate in their level of comfortability with traveling to a conference. Seven weeks out from the event we had four concurrent speakers pull out of the program. Luckily, we can have more speakers do repeat sessions and we have a network of local speakers who are willing to travel. Four weeks out, we had three more cancel in-person sessions.

Evening Events

It’s all about space use, food prep, entertainment, etc., given state and local mandates regarding physical distancing, F&B and all other logistical elements. We’re showing the industry how to have safe networking events.  

F&B

How do we change attendee mindsets that a grab-and-go lunch isn’t just a sandwich and cookie? Can we safely stagger release times from the General Session to keep queues distanced properly once they reach the F&B room? We must be able to preset items to keep service times at a minimum so that attendees can enjoy great entertainment.  

General

Distancing conversations have been interesting! The state mandate says six-foot distancing for groups over 10, the CDC says six feet, but the WHO suggests three feet. And if you have seats properly distanced, can people remove their masks while they sit? If they are wearing masks the entire time, can we reduce the distancing space? What we thought was a huge amount of space now feels surprisingly small given all these mandates.

Logistics

Transparency is key!  Once we can determine the final layouts and plans, we must be able to share those with registered attendees ahead of arrival so that they know what to expect. This goes beyond the typical “Know Before You Go” and expands the information provided. It will include information regarding ingress and egress to meeting space, information on daily temperature checks and many, many other details.  

Local MPI Staff

Since this event is in our backyard, we were originally anticipating that all of our MPI Global staff would be able to work the event. Now we have to figure out who is available and not available due to a variety of reasons (being HIPAA compliant, of course) and providing protection for them.

Main Stage

We redesigned main stage to be more of a TV show vs a typical main stage flow so that it is also of interest for a digital audience. Live entertainment needs lots more prep due to COVID regulations and designing how to make it interesting for a digital audience as well.

AV/production planning has been and continues to be very challenging due to lowering of budgets and smaller teams from partners. We also needed to rethink crew and behind-the-screen paths regarding social distancing and sanitation. 

Remaining nimble and ready for anything is challenging! We learned three weeks out that all of our participants for one panel canceled their in-person presence in Grapevine. 

WEC Grapevine: The Live Event Reimagined

Marketing

We shifted focus to the drive market and the digital audience, as people’s hesitation to travel continued. Each week the national sentiment shifts with news of reopening in certain states, then COVID increases in others. 

Safety

What about mandatory contact tracing and COVID tests on site? If an attendee fails the quick onsite temp check and secondary test, they will need to get a COVID test, but who pays? A local clinic could charge more than $200 per test, and even providing this on site by a licensed provider is $150 or so. What’s our obligation to follow up with attendees afterward; if anyone gets sick do we strongly suggest they submit contact tracing, which could possibly lead back to WEC?

Sponsors

Late In-kinds—we must get these in as early as possible. 

Plan for shipment tracking, specifically when sponsors ship giveaways. Despite detailed directions, deliveries came to several different locations. It took a while to track everything down once on site. 

Flexibility with internal team to make pre-event calls with sponsors. 

Last-minute changes to any floor plans, making sure we are informed.

Transportation

Our attendance projections are less than half of what was originally anticipated, but I need the same number of coaches/buses in order to properly physically distance attendees. We will have to secure adequate space to stage attendees for transportation.

Venue

Trying to determine just how many people we would be able to get to come in-person to WEC and how to fit the estimated number into the revised available space at the hotel and offsite venues given all physical distancing mandates and guidelines. In addition, knowing what the hotel was doing in their “Commitment to Clean” process. Were there going to be other groups in our space? How were we going to ensure that their guidelines matched up with ours? Navigating different rules for different hotel brands. Organizing our Duty of Care for attendees so that we can allay fears to the best of our ability. It’s extremely important that we show the industry how to meet safely.

Welcome Kits

The decision to go with welcome kits mailed out ahead of arrival was key to ensuring that we were minimizing the typical lines that you see at conference registration and other areas.  

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash