Stronger together

Neil Thompson, founder and managing director of The Delegate Wranglers and Advisory Board member for The Meetings Show encourages event professionals to support and help one another through challenging times:

These last few, challenging months have really brought something home to me. Events people need the support of each other, now more than ever.

When lockdown started, we took a decision at The Delegate Wranglers to try and make things happen for our 20,000 members and the wider meetings and events community, to try and play our part in getting the industry back on its feet again. This was not a time to think negatively and look inwardly at what we were losing, rather a time to look at the bigger picture and see what we could give back.

We concentrated on helping people with the small wins, because these small wins, collectively can make a big difference. Examples included helping to upskill people through free Delegate Wranglers Live shows, offering to give an event free publicity, advertising an industry job, or running a feature on one of our members.

This approach, we felt, would not only help others, it would also give us a focus and a purpose. Knowing that we were helping people - in our small way - to stay upbeat and positive throughout the crisis and concentrating on what we could affect right here, right now, stopped us dwelling on the situation, or worrying about what might happen.

We also encouraged other members of the industry to engage with what others were doing, even competitors. It could be listening to a podcast, or attending a webinar, reading a blog or simply commenting on or liking a post on social media. Because engagement breeds positivity, positivity breeds confidence and so on. Enough small, incremental wins can eventually make a huge difference to the industry.

So, if the events industry works together, and each of us makes a positive difference to another event industry professional, we will in turn drive more positivity and inspire confidence so that we turn the ship around a little bit more every day. Some may think it’s an idealistic view, but that doesn’t matter to me. I really believe we all need to be team-mates at the moment, even with those you may consider competition. We are fighting a much bigger battle and we can’t do it alone. Together we are stronger.