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Zasco Productions

Event Company Works to Pivot, Position Itself for the Long Term

Mike Zaskey says his ‘spreadsheet of doom’ includes more than $1.2 million in lost events for this year, but he’s pivoting with virtual events and other initiatives.

Mike Zaskey calls it his “spreadsheet of doom.”

And for good reason.

It chronicles what he estimates to be $1.2 million in lost business since early March, when the phone started ringing … and kept on ringing. On the other end were representatives of corporations, colleges and universities, and nonprofits calling Zaskey to let him know they were canceling or postponing — in most all cases, the former — the large events his company, Chicopee-based Zasco Productions, has come to specialize in.

“After a while, I was afraid to answer the phone, because every time I did there was a cancellation,” said Zaskey, noting that more than 40 major events, including 20 college commencements, have been erased from the calendar. In fact, when he talked with BusinessWest just after the Memorial Day weekend, he was lamenting how what was normally a very busy week for him — clients Holyoke Community College, Springfield Technical Community College, and the Rhode Island School of Design traditionally schedule their commencements for the final days in May — was now anything but.

Indeed, a business leader who rarely has time on his hands, especially at this time of year, now has way too much of that commodity. And he’s devoting it to everything from finding ways to somehow pivot — some more successful than others, as we’ll see in a minute — to advocating for an industry that is large and impactful, but often flies under the radar.

“The Live Events Coalition has put together some interesting statistics, and by their estimates, the live-events industry employs 12 million people and contributes more than $1 trillion into the U.S. economy,” he said, adding that few understand the size or importance of a sector that includes everything from venues to caterers to companies like Zasco. “If live events were a state, we’d rank seventh in population.”

Turning the clock back to early March, Zaskey said that’s when he first started getting calls from “six-figure clients,” as he called them, inquiring about cancellation terms in their contracts.

“It was around Friday the 6th,” he recalled, noting that some dates stick in his mind, for obvious reasons. “I got a few e-mails before that, but things really started to get scary on March 6. We had a team meeting at the end of that day, and I said, ‘something’s going on here, and we all need to be aware of this.’ And it just ballooned from there.”

The calls kept on coming, he went on, adding that the events, as noted earlier, have been canceled, not postponed.

“Most of these events are not being postponed — it’s revenue lost; it’s not coming back,” he told BusinessWest. “If there’s an annual event, a 2020 gala or conference, the 2020 event is not taking place, and they are going to have one in 2021. But the event in 2021 is the 2021 event.”

Despite these losses, one of the first decisions Zaskey made was to work with clients when it came to deposits and existing balances.

“A number of clients have multi-year contracts with us, so their deposits were paid two or three years ago, depending on the terms of the deal,” he explained. “Technically speaking, our contract says that, when an event is canceled, the deposits are non-refundable, and, in some cases, the client would still be liable for the cost of the event. But, in looking at the situation going on in the world, we decided that the right thing to do would be to apply those deposits to future events for clients, and that’s exactly what we did across the board.

“Most of these events are not being postponed — it’s revenue lost; it’s not coming back. If there’s an annual event, a 2020 gala or conference, the 2020 event is not taking place, and they are going to have one in 2021. But the event in 2021 is the 2021 event.”

“While it’s not the greatest for our financial position,” he went on, “it’s the best for our customers, and we’re looking to build long-term relationships with those customers and keep those customers.”

And a few customers have returned the favor by essentially paying balances due for next year’s event now, to help the company with cash flow.

Faced with its spreadsheet of doom, Zaskey said his company, which eventually had to lay off most of its 12 employees, looked to pivot in an effort to create some revenue streams. And upon taking a hard look around, he said one early option that presented itself was to put Zasco’s large fleet of trucks to work as couriers.

“But it doesn’t generate as much revenue, and we would probably actually lose money if we tried to turn into a delivery company — we’re not set for that,” he told BusinessWest. “We did actually try it — a friend of my owns a courier service, so we did a day of deliveries. But the revenue we generated versus the hassle of trying to pivot into an industry we weren’t suited for just didn’t work out.”

The company has had more success pivoting toward the staging of virtual events.

“A virtual event is more than just a video webstream or livestream,” he explained, adding that he’s now working with several clients on such initiatives. “We’re trying to capture the elements of a live event that can be held across multiple sites and make them feel like they’re at the actual event.”

Summing up what’s happened and what might happen moving forward, Zaskey summoned a phrase put to use by just about every business owner in Western Mass.: “we’ve never experienced anything like this before.”

Indeed, and while the short term (and that spreadsheet) looms ominously, this company, which put itself on the map by pulling off big events, continues to position itself for the long term — and, more specifically, a time when Zaskey won’t be afraid to pick up the phone.

—George O’Brien