Whilst holding an event in 2020 might seem impossible, developments over the last few months have made it easier to hold an event in this “new normal” we’re living. If you’re planning an event, here are some ways technology can help your event run smoothly and safely.
Organise your ticketing online
Over the last decade, the way we sell or allocate tickets online has changed massively. When a big band announced a concert a few years ago, you would have been forced to queue up outside of the box office overnight to make sure you got a good place in that physical queue. Since then it’s almost impossible to purchase a ticket for events like these unless you go through a booking website. Nowadays, many events won’t even send you a physical ticket through the post. Instead they’ll send you a document you can print at home or even a virtual QR code you can load on your phone. All of these modern processes are ideal for keeping to social distancing rules and should be implemented at any event.
If you’ve booked onto an event before, you might have come across the website Eventbrite. Whilst it’s a very popular brand, there are better alternatives to creating an Eventbrite WordPress site for your event. For example, the website takes a percentage of every ticket you sell, whereas other websites like Event Espresso have a much simpler pricing strategy which doesn’t depend on how many tickets you sell. If you run regular events, you could end up saving a lot of money by using this alternative.
Add safety procedures
At the start of the pandemic, meeting in groups in public would have been almost impossible to organise and most definitely irresponsible. As COVID-19 was a completely new virus, there was very little knowledge about how to reduce the risk of becoming infected by it. That meant that there were very few procedures and pieces of technology that had already been developed to reduce the spread of the disease, other than the option that everyone was encouraged to do – stay at home.
Since then, we’ve learnt a lot more and technology has caught up very quickly. For example, many pubic buildings and workplaces now have a screen to check your temperature before allowing you access into the building. As a high temperature is one of the main symptoms of COVID-19, this is a great way of reducing the risk of someone entering with the virus.
Hold it completely online
Due to social distancing, it’s very hard to fit a lot of people into even the biggest of buildings. It’s likely that you’ll need to leave multiple empty seats between each social bubble of guests to reduce the risk of spreading the virus. If you’re looking to access a large number of people, why not host your event on a video conferencing site like Zoom. Practically the whole modern world has learnt how to use the software over the last few months, and you could find you attract even more attendees who wouldn’t be able to make a physical event. Lots of software has been developed to help broadcast a professional looking programme with graphics and multiple guests in multiple locations, so your brand will still look as impressive as it would at a physical event.
