Liz Warwick, Warwick Strategic Planning

Tell us a bit about yourself and your work on Events Industry Council Meeting and Event Redesign workstream.

I have been in the global events arena for more than 30 years. My consulting practice, Warwick Strategic Planning, is focused on event strategic planning and risk management. I was Chair of EIC 2020-22 Meeting and Event Design group for COVID-19 Business Recovery Task Force. The focus of the Guidebook was to build trust with event decision makers so that it would be safe to bring in-person meetings back, providing that the appropriate practices were in place. 

Due to the evolving science and data, as well as global locations of planners, there was not a one size fits all approach. We included an Event Risk Grid that planners could dial up or down, depending on the risk level. The planner was able to take the information we presented and customise it for their specific organisation and event destination.

You helped to develop the latest Meeting & Event Design guidebook, which provides some key insights into mitigating risk and rebuilding trust. Have you found that this has changed significantly since the relaxation of COVID-19 rules and regulations? How?

The EIC Guidebook, distributed July 2020 and updated November 2021, was intended to flex and adapt as the science and data around in-person events regarding COVID-19 evolved. When we initially designed the Guidebook, vaccines weren’t even on the horizon. 

The most important takeaway for CMP folks is that event planners have a responsibility specific to attendees for the communication and implementation of health and safety guidelines. Whether that’s food allergies, COVID-19 compliance, or a union strike on site– you need to understand your organisation's as well as the venue’s decision-making protocols and the communications process. You might not be the one doing it, but if you are the event lead, you need to know who to go to for answers.

Have you seen any new risk management trends emerging in Q1 2022?

Yes. For several decades, there has been a standard group of event risk categories: Financial, Operational, Reputational, and Health and Safety. 

Because COVID-19 shed a spotlight on risk, several other categories that were previously embedded in Operational are now, I believe, in their own category. They are: Stakeholder Communications, Technology and Guest Experience.  A fourth one is new: Culture.  Culture covers two areas: 1) the impact of US designed events that are either hosted in international countries or where there is a high percentage of international attendees and 2) social media driven postings that are event related.

If you believe that communities drive culture, then the impact of social media communities that generate rapid fire commentary on events, real time, must be considered.