The role of content in the Event IP industry in the time of COVID-19

• Shyam Chabbria, COO, Event Capital shares how the event industry can revive through well-curated content around digital events.
• It can help create engagement and build revenue, which will help us generate a calendar of offerings for consumers and brands.

It is a challenging time for everyone, the economy is seeing the impact of mandated social distance and lockdown during this pandemic. Every industry belonging to any strata of society has been immensely affected. With the coronavirus cases rapidly increasing, the event industry had no choice but to cancel or postpone events, both small and large events in sports, corporate, leisure, entertainment and retail industry worldwide.

However, it is important, now more than ever before, to continue to keep the IP industry protected and maintain as well as build new relationships with the audience. While we agree there is no bigger impact than face-to-face networking, the overall sensory experience associated with a virtual event can help us stay afloat during these trying times. One can either wail about it or take the chance to realign and innovate new plans for the year. Due to the lockdown, consumers and business partners are keeping a close eye on how the industry is changing their mediums. This is the year where technology has become very crucial for everyone to be connected whether for work or entertainment. Everyone is investing more time on the internet constantly looking for fresh content and news. It is the best time to take advantage and rule over the digital world by going live through virtual events on social media platforms.

We were embracing this transformation even before the pandemic and this lockdown gave us a bigger opportunity to focus on our goals. We identified content as a key factor in the changing dynamics of the market demands. Through well-curated content on our digital events we can create engagement and build revenue, which will help us generate a calendar of offerings for consumers and brands. It's a new route and a new rise of Content Creators, with proven experience in building experiential engagement models.

We recently went digital with the second edition of the ‘India Event IP Conclave’, which was a resounding success. The conclave took place on 30th April 2020, from 2pm to 10pm IST and was streamed live on Zoom, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. It created a great impact, since it brought eminent personalities from global IP and live entertainment companies. The idea was to bring in an international perspective to the challenges being faced by the industry and guidance for not only survival but growth as well. We witnessed an engagement of 8500+ people who came in through the day and got an opportunity to take away learnings from key leaders of the market.

On the other hand, it is also crucial to understand the number of paying consumers for financial sustainability in the industry. On average, under half of the consumers pay for media – 44% for entertainment and only 16% for news. We observed there is room for improvement and this encouraged us to spread our wings in the IP space. By using content as our tool, we are also soon venturing into upcoming new projects and create user experience for our audience. This will enable us to give the audience the on ground feel and engage them with unique content.

At some point, this will pass and the event industry will be back to full-strength. During this time, it is very important for us to reinvent ourselves and be on top of the minds of our audience. I believe we need to cover all areas from being event creators to content creators across entertainment, news, sports and music platforms. We, as experts, will bridge the gap and unlock the struggles on how to communicate with the audience. We are still looking for new ways to implement and to make bigger and better innovations in the IP space. Our aim is to look at the long term sustainable business models and make the most of the situation to be prepared for a great comeback. This will not stop the event IP industry and it will find different ways to get back again as a winner.

- By Shyam Chabbria, COO, Event Capital