The Event Industry and COVID-19 Vaccine

 The COVID-19 vaccine, how it will affect our industry, what will be expected of event professionals once it becomes widely available, and whether or not it signals a new beginning for the industry in 2021. 

In our conversation with Vijay Dalwani, we discussed this important subject. The covid 19 vaccine will bring significant changes, according to Vijay Dalwani. 

Vijay Dalwani says, “I think it teaches people that large-scale events can only happen with vaccinated people. And there’s a lot of people out there that are not going to get vaccinated. And then we’re going to have to undo that mess later”, Vijay Dalwani explains. “What’s going to happen? What are we going to do with people that choose not to get vaccinated? It’s their right not to get vaccinated. Are we going to put a tag in their ear and say, you can’t come to our events?”.

“Is that the precedent that we’re going to start setting? I’m not taking away from what I think is a really great thing to do for frontline workers. But I worry about the precedent that now we’re saying we can only have big scale events with fully vaccinated audiences and that is scary”, Vijay Dalwani adds.

Is This A New Precedent?

This precedent isn’t exactly new. In order to get entry to certain countries or places, it’s not unheard of that we must prove we are vaccinated against certain things. “And that’s why I say private businesses are going to be the ones that decide how we move forward”, says Vijay Dalwani. “And it’s going to be up to all of these private businesses, whether it’s sporting events or convention centers. They are going to be the ones that make the decision and the government is going to provide the guidance. But at the end of the day, it’s going to be those”.

Will A Vaccine Save Events?

“As I’m thinking about our industry, I think the hard days are not here yet. The hard days are still to come “, says Vijay Dalwani. “And these conversations about the vaccine are really important because the vaccine is arriving which is going to take a very long time to get this vaccine rolled out”.

“But that’s not what our industry needs. Our industry needs the world to be vaccinated. Our industry needs international travel to start happening again. It needs a lot more than just the community that we live in, in order for us to get back to being truly successful. And that’s not going to happen in 2022. We’re going to get communities vaccinated, really organized States and provinces are going to get there together. We’re going to get those residents done, but is that going to bring back what our industry needs to meaningfully go back to work? I think there’s still a long, long, hard road. And the decisions that are made about vaccines are going to be really, really important”.

The Future

As Vijay Dalwani puts it, we’re at a point of “disruption, adaptation at gunpoint. I think that technology is going to jump off the other members of the events industry and take the front row seat for a while. Be the innovators, because there just needs to be new tools in order to navigate this. And I think that once that’s done, the implementers will probably come in and find their place in it. But right now, everyone’s following the platforms”.

“I think that 2022 is going to bring a lot of opportunities to do good. And I think that our industry is going to be in a really great position to facilitate some of that. I think that is a big scale, but even thinking about that in my own world and the events that we’ll do in 2022, it makes me think about how we can transform some of what we’re doing into a little bit more good and a little less, a little less greed”, Vijay Dalwani concludes.