Event Management Skills in the Post-covid-19 World: Insights from China, Germany, and Australia

Abstract

The recent Covid-19 pandemic has caused the event industry and providers of tertiary event management courses to reflect on the nature of future events and the form they will take. With hybrid, virtual and innovative events being foreseen for the coming years, skills taught in the relevant programs and courses also need to be reassessed and restructured. Using qualitative, semi-structured interviews, this research explores the viewpoints on requisite future skills from three groups of event stakeholders – professionals, lecturers, and students – across three countries, China, Germany and Australia. The results show agreement on what event management skills will be needed, among which technical and digital expertise, communication, innovation and leadership are seen as the most important.

The impact of COVID-19 on regional event attendees' attitudes: a survey during and after COVID-19 lockdowns

“…Many event planners have found online events as a practical alternative to face-to-face events during the pandemic (Saarto, 2021). This is supported by Werner et al . (2022), who highlighted that events are better to hold online during the pandemic.…”

“…Many event planners have found online events as a practical alternative to face-to-face events during the pandemic (Saarto, 2021). This is supported by Werner et al (2022), who highlighted that events are better to hold online during the pandemic. In fact, event planners also anticipated the potential for online events to continue after the pandemic (Grassilli and Colta, 2021;Potter, 2020).…”

“…The current findings are novel as most prior studies have suggested that online events have been adopted by event attendees as an alternative to live events during the pandemic (e.g. Ryan et al ., 2020; Werner et al ., 2022; Wreford et al ., 2019). However, our results indicate that despite the restrictions of COVID-19, people still prefer live events.…”

“…cancellation of events and venue closures). As a result, the industry saw an acceleration in digital development and transformation (Werner et al ., 2022). Given the impossibility of holding live events in the face of the pandemic, online events became the alternative (Estanyol, 2022).…”

“…Furthermore, investigations regarding the most appropriate alternative to live events arose during the health pandemic (e.g. Ryan et al ., 2020; Werner et al ., 2022; Wreford et al ., 2019) since many events and festivals were forced to cancel or postpone. Many event planners have found online events as a practical alternative to face-to-face events during the pandemic (Saarto, 2021).…”