Live Events Are Back….Right?
Seth Roybal,
Audio Visual Services Manager,
California Baptist University
As the summer of 2021 approaches, it seems as though life is becoming more normal every day. But there is also the big question of how “normal” will “normal” actually be? Is there a “new normal” that we are going back to? What once was flu season, might now be Covid season. Is Covid the new black or was it that weird fad everyone was super into a while ago? While we are all excited to see that live events seem to be on the rise, there will be new challenges that come with them. If Covid has taught us anything, it has been to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Currently, we are preparing to train a lot, to be flexible in the way we do events, and to plan the best we can.
Since our department supports the entire campus with every event, we rely heavily on our student workers. One thing that will be a challenge this next semester will be relying on inexperienced student workers. Because of the shutdown, our group of event assistants has shrunk, mixed, and changed on a massive scale. Many of the younger students that would have grown in AV knowledge this last year, did not get to continue in learning, since some of them were not even on campus. And many of the experienced students graduated. This means one of my focuses this summer will be trying to train as many of the event assistants as possible. As everyone and their mom tries to pull off events to make up for last year, I hope to have our department prepared to serve in an excellent and efficient way.
Covid has definitely taught us to be flexible, but I know that it will be an exercise to stay that flexible. One example of flexibility will be in changing the way certain events take place. It is my suspicion, that although events may be back to normal next semester, many of them will still need to be live-streamed. We have done numerous events that had a small group of in-person attendees, but they still wanted to involve others through Webex or any other live-streaming platform. Livestreaming, while it is common in the large event world, will become even more common in small events. I believe it will be usual, even with events that only have 20 people in attendance. While this may be an example of a small pivot, I am excited to serve our university in this way and to hopefully see our university get even more exposure through the tool of live streaming. And with this example, I am sure many other creative changes will be made to events, and I hope our department will stay nimble to continue to support them.
The planning aspect of upcoming events will be one of the biggest challenges that I foresee. Especially for the events happening in the next few months. Most of the time we prefer to have details nailed down as far in advance as possible. But currently, we have many events on the books that we have been trying to plan for with the assumption that circumstances will be different in 3 weeks. Usually, we plan, knowing exact capacities, expected attendance, and regular safety precautions. But right now, we are planning for events without knowing what the rules will really be.
This can be a challenge, but hopefully, we can use this challenge as an incentive to achieve a more clear and proficient planning process. In the position that I am in, this time of uncertainty has been to my advantage. I stepped in as Audio Visual Services Manager in early February of 2020. I only experienced 1 month here at CBU before the shutdown. This means that even though I have been here for more than a full year, I have not experienced most of the events that we normally support. Whenever someone transitions into a new position, especially a managerial position, they need to learn fast. Everyone around that position is used to things going a certain way, and they expect the new guy to continue on, as usual, sometimes having full expectations with no direction. In my first month, one of the challenges I had to combat, was the phrase “just like last time”. All of us planners know this term well. This is the term used when everyone gets so familiar with the event that instead of talking through details, they just throw the blanket term “just like last time” and alas, everything has been communicated. That was easy! It has been my experience that when this term is thrown around too much, assumptions happen, and there is a lack of communication. This usually produces forgotten details that end up as day-of changes or errors. So, while it has always been my goal to not use that term, I hope that since “just like last time” means “just like over two years ago”, it will be used less often.
With all of these challenges looming ahead, I am looking forward with excitement and motivation. I think because most of us will be planning from a clean slate, there will be more creativity involved. We will find new ways to be efficient and supportive. We have learned what is essential, and what we can do without. I am glad to be serving the university more and in grander ways. And as the events stumble in, I hope we don’t forget the knowledge we gained from these unprecedented times, and that we use it to continue to grow in our training, flexibility, and planning.
Seth Roybal
Audio Visual Services Manager | California Baptist University
Seth Roybal serves as the Audio Visual Services Manager at California Baptist University. In his role, he oversees the planning and execution of campus events taking place on and off-campus for internal and external clients of the university. Going on his 5th year in the industry he has cut his teeth in a wide variety of roles in the events-space. Connect with Seth on LinkedIn and reach him via email at sroybal@calbaptist.edu
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