Page 17 - BusinessWest October 12, 2020

side of the business this year. “We kind of already had a foot in the door.”
One upside to the current situation, Jensen said, is that it’s forced busi- nesses to think differently about their events.
“It’s a chance for our clients to think outside the box and become OK with not doing things the standard way, the rinse-and-repeat event you’ve done for 10 or 20 years. You get used to doing things a certain way: guests arrive
at this time, you do a cocktail hour, there’s a formula to every live event. “Now, you’re trying to recreate
something where the guests’ attention span is definitely lower because it’s virtual, and you’ve got a lower level of interaction from guests,” he went on. “You’ve got to make sure whatever you put on the screen will resonate with guests.”
Working creatively to achieve that
“It’s a chance for our clients to think outside the box and become OK with not doing things the standard way, the rinse- and-repeat event you’ve done for 10 or 20 years.”
goal, he said, can often spark inspira- tion for future events as well, even the live ones that will return ... someday.
Optimistic Outlook
Zaskey is looking forward to that day.
“We’re pretty fortunate to be pretty busy, but the profit margins are not the same as they are for live events,” he said. “The entire industry is still strug- gling greatly.”
Much of the staff laid off in March has come back on a part-time basis as jobs are scheduled. “A lot of what we’re doing, we have to deeply discount, not just to be a good neighbor and help cli- ents so they can pull out of this as well, but to keep our people working.”
One long-term concern is a possible ‘brain drain’ as the pandemic wears on, he added.
“The industry is at risk of losing talent, and that scares us a little bit.
As people get desperate and wonder about the future, they might consider career changes. Maybe they’ll come back, but maybe they won’t — maybe someone has always wanted to be a chef, and decides it’s time to go to culi- nary school. When the world bounces back and live events come back, we need highly skilled people to work on them.”
Events
Continued on page 29
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