I sit here typing this from the “bio dome” of the Gaylord Texan at the end of a two-day site. This cautious-but-fully-vaccinated lady just spent two days with four other vaccinated humans, unmasked. Laughing, planning and overeating. I ran into all the things. Weather delays. Southwest Airlines systems crashing and cancelling my client’s flights – twice. Do you know the beautiful thing? None. Of. Us. Cared. We were together again. Our lovely Senior Sales Manager was doing her amazing thing, the clients were excited to talk about face to face and I was happy to be right in the middle of all of the brainstorming. None of us missed that we all will be forever changed. We each had our own stories about our journey over the past year. Not one of those stories was easy.
The site was full of imagination about what we could innovate, what we could grow, and what we could change. It was about the attendee experience, human connection and how to make people feel at “home” away from home. It was full of the wonderfully authentic conversations we couldn’t always find the time to have before COVID – because we were too busy being busy. Checking phones. Doing a million things. Not living in the moment. But not this time.
Recovery for me started with three hours worth of work a day, slowly increasing to four, and then five…and then six…and then a full eight. Cancelling and moving meetings suddenly became less common than begging my hotel friends to respond to an RFP for rooms and space in less than 24 hours for a client who suddenly felt safe to move ahead again. It happened somehow, suddenly. But I’m not falling back to the girl I was before COVID-19; I’ve made that profound promise to myself.
There are just some aspects of COVID that I really don’t want to forget. I don’t want to forget the balance. Really BEING in a conversation because I wasn’t thinking about my list of “to-do’s.” I don’t want to forget how much I appreciated that first time I got to go back on-site after many months of sitting at home, wondering if our industry was going to ever return to anything that remotely resembled normal. I don’t want to forget how much I loved those first few conversations with people I got to see again after a year of being locked away – how much I couldn’t wait to hear everything that they had to say and listen to every story that they had to tell. I don’t want to forget how well-rested I started to feel after having two feet on the ground for months in a row. I don’t want to forget those conversations I had with industry friends, some shamefully relieved at a bit of a break at first, some in a blind panic, some bored, some just sad with all the stages of grief. Through those conversations came some of the most beautiful and real connections; a strengthening of friendships that I thought were good, but somehow just got impossibly better.
I do love fist bumps versus handshakes but haven’t managed to shake my love of hugs. I still really love hugs. If I am going to get your cooties, it better be worth it.
I am so relieved that our biggest problem right now is getting those that we lost to furloughs and layoffs back into the industry…and recruiting new talent. We are a pretty creative group – we can figure THAT out. I personally hope that none of us lose some of the valuable lessons we learned during this past year. The being present part. The taking our time part. The doing one thing at a time part. The listening part. The baking and creating to fill the time part.
I am looking forward to seeing all of your faces at IMEX America this year. I can’t wait to talk to each other about what we got great at in 2020, whether it be patience, resourcefulness, teaching, parenting, delegating, home office-ing or webcasting. I want to hear all of your stories. Come find me. I truly can’t wait to see you.
Best Wishes,
Alisa Peters, CMP, CMM
Chair, CMP Governance Commission
Events Industry Council