All Secure Standard

Kicking off the year by seeing some familiar faces at the AEO UK Ops Group is always a nice way to see in January.

People came armed with questions and solutions to help one another, reminding me that working in such a collaborative sector is how we have managed to survive the last two years.

It was clear that coming out of Christmas, the country’s perception of Covid is changing, prompting questions from members on the need to continue running attendee status checks on the door among other things.

Understandably the views from around the screen were mixed, after all, Boris is telling us that he hopes we won’t even have to isolate with the virus come March, so what message does that give our customers and audiences?

We can all agree that the sooner we can say goodbye to anymore disruption and get back to a stronger version of “business as usual” the better, however, we concurred that the next few months is going to be a period of transition and with that comes caution.

We want to prove events are back and even better than before! With people having been starved of face to face contact, exhibitor numbers are climbing having missed what we give them and the connections they make on the show floor, but we have to keep in mind that this might not be over.

If Omega, Delta 3000 or another variant rears its ugly head and proves more detrimental than Omicron, we have a duty of care to show the powers that be that we can continue to run our businesses in a safe and secure manner.

The All Secure Standard is a corner stone document that our industry worked on tirelessly to prove that we are responsible, agile and - above all – able to operate safely, therefore, as a group we feel that members should continue to champion this as part of their risk assessed process, taking into account measures that will put health and safety at the forefront of any decisions that we make.

This protects our industry’s reputation and anyone that we have coming on to site, highlighting that we have considered all aspects of their wellbeing whilst keeping at the back of our mind that the speed of change has been more poignant than ever, and restrictions could be put in place at the drop of a hat.

Of course, members will measure risk differently and some will even make choices based on the profile of their audience, doing what ever it takes to make attendees feel comfortable, but as a broader rule, we should not forget too quickly where we have been and remember that we have a long way to go.

At our next meeting in April, no doubt things will have changed again, but I look forward to seeing my industry peers and taking on challenges that effect the organiser community not involving COVID-19.

Join us if you want to discuss good examples of retaining and developing staff, tackling traffic management and making events more sustainable as we work towards net zero.