The Election Stutter and How to Avoid It
For those of us seasoned (weathered, tainted, built by experience, etc.) enough to remember the last election, and the ones that preceded it, the announcement of the ‘shock’ election last month will have been interesting from a social point of view, but also bought back memories of the meeting and events industry’s usual reaction to these significant events.
Not all of these memories will have been fond. The fact of the matter is that for many in the events industry, elections can be a pain the backside. From a Lime Venue Portfolio point of view, we see it as our role to try and reduce these pain points, and maybe offer a few solutions on the way.
One of these is, what we call in Lime Towers, the Election Stutter. Brought on by purdah, the halting of government spending, and a general view of businesses and major organisations to ‘stop, wait, and see’ in the face of a forthcoming election. It’s not always great for event planners, very rarely good for producers, and certainly not ideal for venues.
The reality is that, across the industry, this means cancelation, postponement, and limbo, all of which are unnecessary. Allow us to present an, admittedly biased, opinion on the Election Stutter…
When an election is called, purdah is put in place and everyone collectively calls halt on all meetings, ‘let’s just wait and see’ they call. To be fair, that’s sensible. Conferences and events are very often communication platforms and if what you are about to communicate is about to change, then there’s no point in going ahead. As a responsible venue group, our job is not to make them happen quickly, but to make them happen effectively.
However, in the meantime, everyone clocks up cancellation charges, across the UK, in the millions of pounds. This inertia continues, in this case ‘luckily’, for only six weeks. Then, everyone immediately rushes out to get these conferences back in the diary. Not only have they lost their deposits and picked up cancelation charges, now they are booking at peak season where, let’s face it there isn’t an abundance of deals to be done. Now the client is suffering financially twice, and that’s not fair.
This election run in is just six weeks, so we should be thankful for at least that. But it’s not like everything is put down on day one and picked up the day after polling. All in all, we could be looking at a period of inertia that lasts at least two months, maybe three, and all the time we’re getting closer and closer to peak conference season. In previous elections there has been a much longer period, and it really hurt the industry.
So, despite the relative, short and (we hope) sweet, nature of this election. Lime Venue Portfolio have learnt from our collective experience, and we’re encouraging one simple solution to everything. Postpone, don’t cancel.
Simple, but we hope effective. Just think, it means the meeting is being lifted and dropped a few weeks down the line. It means that, as soon as possible, the event can happen and, most importantly, it’s not costing the client any money, at either end of the buying cycle.
The venue gets reassurance, production companies and support agencies get clarity, and we continue to collectively benefit from what has been a pretty good start to the year for the industry, and not see it falter because of political goings on.
It’s a simple plan, and we encourage other venues and support partners to replicate. It shows support for our customers and a belief in our industry. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that it works, and we’re back meeting again, as soon as possible, and at a time that couldn’t be more important for business.
