How an events agency that has worked with Hilton and Barack Obama is safeguarding its business as the coronavirus wreaks havoc on live events
- The live events business has been devastated by the coronavirus.
- Chicago's Agency EA, which organizes large-scale events for clients like MillerCoors, Hilton, and President Barack Obama, said it's shifted to virtual events and is advising clients on their post-coronavirus strategies.
- Marketers are increasingly going to virtual events, but Agency EA said they would never replace the real thing.
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As the coronavirus spreads, events like SXSW and large gatherings have been canceled and restaurants, bars, and other venues threatened with closure.
Chicago-based events company Agency EA has had to turn events into virtual ones and use custom content to keep its business going while figuring out how to provide increasingly isolated customers with something resembling one-on-one connections. It's also planning for the post-pandemic future.
Coronavirus cancellations have wiped out Agency EA's calendar for months
21-year-old Agency EA makes almost all its revenue from live events like the Hilton Global Owners Conference and the MillerCoors Distributor Convention, which attracts about 3,500 independent beer distributors from around the US each year.
Agency EA also worked with former President Barack Obama on events surrounding his inauguration, 50th birthday, and post-presidency Foundation.
"It's devastating what [the virus] is doing to the industry," co-founder and managing partner Gabrielle Martinez told Business Insider. "Our calendar has been cleared for the next 3 months."
Agency EA's employees are scrambling to help clients minimize losses stemming from things like product launches that had been scheduled for now-cancelled events.
Even in a field that has always relied on contingency planning by necessity, Martinez said she now finds herself reconsidering the agency's worst-case-scenario approach on an hourly basis.
Even skeptical companies are jumping into virtual events because the coronavirus leaves them no choice
For most clients, the answer so far has been virtual meetings with enhanced content.
Many of Agency EA's live events long had some sort of streaming or virtual component. And the agency had already begun organizing entirely online events despite hesitation from big-name clients like Hilton.
Martinez said Hilton was initially skeptical about a virtual meetup event broadcast simultaneously in five global cities last fall, but that the results left them more receptive to this new reality.
"Brands are forcing themselves to know it's the way forward," she said.
The agency is also developing more content to make each event unique, shooting videos and facilitating online interactions via live chat and other tools that let people connect on a more emotional level, especially since most attendees are now quarantined, isolated, and using screens more than ever.
The agency is also looking to other revenue streams
Agency EA has also turned to research and consulting, for example, advising clients on questions like these:
- How should they write event contracts differently now?
- Should they still plan a project launch for fall, assuming the pandemic is contained?
- If so, how can they better design contingency plans?
Martinez said virtual events won't replace the real thing and that she believes her company is relatively well-positioned to endure the coronavirus. Like many in media and other industries, they have begun holding virtual happy hours and "pump up" calls to inspire remote teams.
"Other industries that rely more on the physical world will have a tougher time," she said.