NC PANDEMIC PROFILE: Amber Caudle

AMBER CAUDLE (The Special Event Company)

Director of Production, previously Program Manager/Director

The Special Event Company is a full-service event management agency. We do anything corporate: conferences, events, incentive trips, special events. Anything from 5-10,000 people. We work with non-profits, basically any event that is not a wedding or celebratory, personal event. In my role, I work directly with our top clients planning and managing their events, and a lot of those are annual events.

Pre-pandemic how many events did TSEC do a year? Probably 30-50 events varying in size. Sometimes, we have a groundbreaking or ribbon cutting - those are small events, more local, and then, we have bigger events that I’m on-site for a whole month. The bigger events are usually a multi-day conference with an off-site event or two, awards ceremony, a continuing education element, keynote speaker. From start to finish - the planning and implementation - including site visits and everything in-between, pre-pandemic, I was traveling about a week or two a month.

How has that changed? I was on maternity leave starting at the end of January 2020, and our daughter was born in February 2020. The pandemic happened while I was on maternity leave, so I left and turned over two of our biggest events that were scheduled to be in March and April. March in New Orleans. April in Orlando. Two big conferences for 300+ people that I had previously planned on multiple occasions and probably by the end of February / early March we started getting questions from our clients about the feasibility of moving forward. At first, there was some varying opinion about whether COVID-19 is something that we need to be concerned about but that very quickly turned into we’re canceling this event – what are our options with the contracts? Because this was unprecedented in our industry, people didn’t know if a pandemic was covered under force majeure: how are you getting your money back, if you’re the one canceling the event? Our company’s job quickly became trying to get our client’s money back to prevent a total [financial] loss. The investment is hundreds of thousands of dollars when you’re looking at sleeping rooms, and food and beverage spend for 300 people for a week.

We canceled both the March and April events, and those were our two biggest streams of revenue for the entire year, gone. Immediately. They were $1,000,000+ events, and that was a really hard loss for our small company. We’re less than 20 people.

When I came back from maternity leave at the end of March 2020, it was not the job that I thought I was coming back to and it was still a scramble figuring out what we were doing. People were asking about events further out in the year and we were still thinking that this was going to turn around.

Did TSEC have to furlough or lay off employees during the last year? Yes. I still can’t believe I have my job. I am so lucky. I am such a minority in our industry to have my job. Pre-pandemic, TSEC had 15-20 staff members, now we’re at 5: myself, Hunter, Sarah, Susan and Sally (CEO). It was a slow reduction. Sally didn’t want to let people go and at first, it was furloughs and salary reduction. We were very lucky to be one of the few companies to get PPP money early on, but that only went so far and, inevitably, she had to permanently let people go. It was a very long process, months and months of trying to keep people on. Sally was really good at taking care of people, and even after she let some people go, she covered their health insurance for a time. It was tough. I can’t imagine.

Sally also joined with Dan Hooks, the owner of Party Reflections, and Jill Santa Lucia from Catering Works, and a number of other people having regular calls and keeping in touch in the industry. She tried to get in touch with the Governor’s office as decisions started being made. The focus was weddings and allowing weddings…and never directly addressed corporate events, meetings or conferences. Of course, we weren’t thinking we needed to have a 300-person conference, but we needed to figure out where we fell in with the rules that were being made and that wasn’t being addressed. We had a phone call with NCDHHS at one point and at the end of our time, they hung up the phone on us. They basically said ‘keep an eye on the news when we think about having concerts again…’ But we’re not talking about having a concert!

When you came back from maternity leave what was your job security? I was concerned about my job security when I came back from maternity leave. I didn’t have any programs to manage. I had two bigger programs locally in the fall and I was hoping that by November or October (2020) they’d be fine. I knew it’d be a tight turnaround for planning, but surely, they’d happen.

How did you see COVID-19 restrictions impact the industry as a whole? Immediately, we started seeing everyone we knew: AV/production companies, hotel sales/management teams, everyone that we had worked with lose their job or get furloughed. Every time you talked to someone, you’d find out they’d been let go or their company was shutdown. Longtime colleagues of Sally – she’s been in business for over 30 years and was in the group that pioneered a lot of the special events industry when there wasn’t one - a lot of those colleagues that had been around the same amount of time simply closed their doors.

It’s been really incredible to see a lot of the AV techs and professionals shift and learn V-mix and start their own companies, but then it’s also heartbreaking to see production companies with all this equipment that’s been sitting in a warehouse unused for months and letting their staff go. There’s just no work. Then, there’s all the hotel salespeople. Every hotel we’ve worked with they’re down to a single Director of Sales and that’s it: one person handling everything. A friend is the Director of Sales at a hotel downtown, and she’s the only one there dealing with weddings, corporate, conferences, etc.; she’s handling everything. I felt for her when I spoke with her early on. She was overwhelmed. It’s unbelievable the level of stress and workload that people have taken on – there’s still a lot of work to do with a reduced staff. Now, I’m over sales, marketing, managing events, virtual and in-person. It’s a lot.

Also, some people have really fought to stay relevant and find ways to keep working even in a changed climate and, some people jumped ship because they had no other choice and went to an industry that was more stable. Why did I ever think that having a job in the events industry was a stable decision? What was I thinking? But I love my job. I love this industry. At one point, I was worried I would have to do something else because that’s not my passion, this is.

How soon after the restrictions were in place did TSEC pivot to start planning virtual events? A couple of months. There was still a bit of denial. We don’t want to get into that – that’s not our business. And then it was inevitable. This IS our business. This is how our clients need to be served. This is how we stay relevant. Totally shifting the way we think about everything.

At a certain point, the conversation changed from “how do we do this” to “how do we move forward and still serve our clients”? People still need to communicate. They still need to get information out. There’s still a need for continuing education and messaging from a company’s leadership team and it’s probably more important than ever to have contact with your employees. So, we started doing some virtual events: pre-recorded, live.

Were clients open to taking their events virtual? Somewhat. They weren’t excited about it. It was like, ‘this is what we have to do’ But we were able to get creative with some of our more creative clients. And, by the fall, people were feeling Zoom fatigued and we had to figure out how to make virtual interesting again. Instead of thinking, ‘I’m conducting a meeting and streaming this AT you’, we thought about your morning television programming and what you like to watch, and how to make programs entertaining but informative at the same time. For example, we did a segment like ESPN SportsCenter, where they talked about the company’s financials and that sort of thing.

Are virtual events difficult to plan and execute? Virtual events are really difficult. We started to get a lot of Request for Proposals (RFPs) that were asking for 5-10 years of experience with virtual events, but no one was doing virtual events until 3-6 months ago! Yes, TSEC had produced webinars or livestreamed something before. Yes, of course. But was it the norm? No. Absolutely not. There was a lot of misinformation coming out and a lot of vendors trying to market themselves as experienced with virtual events, when truth be told, nobody had any experience with this. Everyone was just figuring it out as quickly as they could.

The format of your event is entirely different when it’s virtual. You can’t take a 3-day conference and cram it into a 3-day online Zoom. It has to be condensed. You have to think about it totally differently, and certain things didn’t translate very well to virtual, like entertainment. Try selling a band to a client for a virtual event, and they’re like ‘I’ll just pull up a YouTube video that’s free.’ We had a lot of entertainment bookers still trying to charge what they would charge for an in-person performance ($10-20k) but for a five-minute virtual spot that they’re going to record in someone’s basement. It wasn’t going to fly.

Are you finding that clients are willing to offer up the same budget for virtual events? No. Absolutely not. No way. The $1,000,000+ event I mentioned earlier, their budget for the same event this year is $150,000 and that’s it. But we’re still doing a custom virtual platform that includes sponsorship areas, a keynote, interactive elements within the platform, a chat feature, breakout rooms – all the bells and whistles.

Will virtual events go away once COVID-19 restrictions are lifted? I don’t think virtual events are going to go away, but I think we’re moving to have a more hybrid model: virtual/in-person. It’s very difficult to keep people engaged in a virtual environment and that’s definitely something we’re struggling with. People don’t think about a virtual event and get excited about it like you do an in-person conference. You’re not getting to go to San Antonio for four days, go to this great party, drink with your coworkers, and experience a great keynote speaker. You’re sitting in your office at home and there’s only so much you can do to get people excited about it.

Pre-pandemic, vendor lists for live events could be extremely long – what does it look like now? It’s just (or mostly) us.

Is the live events industry forever changed? I think that it is forever changed. The way we write contracts, for example has changed. We get our attorney involved so much more now to review the wording and cancellation terms. Food service is changed. You probably won’t have a buffet where people serve themselves and touch all the utensils for a long time. There’ll be plexiglass and there’s a server for each item or we’ll move to individually packaged items. Before the pandemic, we were trying to think about sustainable, green initiatives and solutions that we could incorporate or focus on, but now we’re back to individual packaging, boxed lunches. Eventually, we’ll have to find a balance between those two things But for now, it’s going back to a lot of disposables and packaged things. Hotel service has changed. When you check into a hotel you have the plexiglass and they’re not coming to clean your room throughout your stay. Travel is different. Are people even comfortable traveling? There will probably still be people who aren’t comfortable traveling for a long time.

Thankfully, we are now planning for in-person events starting in September 2021, which is encouraging, but all of these events will have a virtual element. For example, one conference that was 300 people, 3-days in one city back in 2019 is now spread across 6 cities so that no one is more than 4 hours away and no one has to get on a plane - they can drive there or if anyone is still uncomfortable attending, then we’ll provide a virtual option for them to login and see the keynote. This event will happen in October/November, max 40-50 people. We have to think about those logistics moving forward on top of planning a dynamic hybrid program. Because, again, a virtual program is very different than a 3-day in-person conference. How do you get people who are still at home connected with people who are in-person? what technology can we use? Which apps along with the platform? What physical thing are we sending them so that feel like they’re getting the same experience as those people who are in-person? Attendees are not getting swag bags anymore, but we’re putting together boxes of different items and sending those to attendees’ homes ahead of the conference. We handle those logistics now: pack it up, mail it out. We partner with local vendors, like Catering Works, depending on what’s going in the kit, and we’re trying to support smaller, local businesses by sourcing branded items through people that we know.

What adjustments have you made to your business practices as a result of COVID restrictions? The production studio. We were renting a studio until November of last year and decided that even as we get back to meeting in-person, people will see the value of this virtual experience or go into a studio to pre-record something. Financially, it made more sense for us to invest in building our own space, and we were lucky enough to be able to lease a studio space in Apex that will be done in a couple of weeks – it’s on Production Drive as a matter of fact. Hunter and Sally have been working tirelessly getting it ready. We’ve already got our broadcast studio ready there, so we can remotely film people. They can dial in from home. We send out a kit ahead of time, ring light and things that will make it look good, professional. Hunter helps them set up camera angles and we do rehearsals. Then Hunter films them in their home from our broadcast studio, edits it, puts it together and some of our events are broadcast like that. People don’t even come into the studio.

We’re sending out at-home COVID test kits for people to test before they arrive, and they’ll be tested immediately upon arrival [at an event]. We’ve been testing at home tests, and there are different services where you can have people come on-site and do tests for you. Some places that you travel require that anyway. Hopefully, we’re not doing COVID tests onsite too much longer, but if that’s what makes people feel more comfortable and safer, then why not.

On our team, last summer, Sarah and I completed COVID compliance officer training in preparation of having people in the production studio. One of us was there at all times and our only jobs were: taking temperatures, having people sign waivers, answer health questions, cleaning everything, setting up personal beverage stations so no one is touching the same snacks, wiping down chairs, switching out chairs being used on camera between presenters. I don’t think people understand it’s a lot of extra work and extra supplies that go into that.

Also, COVID rules vary from state to state, county to county and, we’re having to keep a pulse on that as well. Even just looking at sourcing venues for this series of events in the fall that’s an added thing to our list. What are each of those venue’s policies? What is their COVID protocol? What are regulations in that state in that the county? North Carolina COVID-19 protocols/restrictions are more strict. I get Visit Greenville and Visit Columbia every day; South Carolina is open for business. It was hard not to be bitter about that a few months ago. I felt like it was unfair because you go to Costco, no one is six feet apart and there are how many people in the store, but we can’t have a board meeting with 10-20 people! It was a hard pill to swallow. It was hard not to be jaded and bitter.

But of course, we want to come back as an industry. We’re resilient people. We want to do our best. We want to have safe events. We want our attendees to feel safe. We want other people to see that we’re having safe events so they feel like they can have safe events, too. We only want the best. So, no matter what the requirement is, we’ll always plan to go a step higher.

What would you like the general public who might be looking at hosting or putting together large events – what would you like them to know? Don’t ruin it for the rest of us. (Laughter)

Our industry is working really hard to provide live events and experiences that are safe so that we can get back to that, and it’s our livelihood. I feel very optimistic that people who want to be vaccinated will be by the summer, and I think that people will feel more comfortable moving forward and being in social situations again.

The Special Event Co. has already brought some staff back on, contract for now and hopefully, full-time in the fall as long as things continue the way they’re going. We feel very optimistic about it.

We’re hiring. We’re looking for a Studio Manager.

I think that we’ll continue to grow, it’ll just be different.