A year on since exhibitions returned after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, EN guest editor Phil Soar explores who the ‘heroes’ of the pandemic were.
After El Alamein Churchill said that it was not the beginning of the end, but perhaps the end of the beginning.
And we don’t know yet whether the pandemic is on a downward slope to becoming a regular common infection, or whether it will flare again.
But it is now a year since we were able to run shows again and I believe it is time to speak of the heroes of our own “Exhibitions versus Covid19” war.
Assume we had all got together in January 2020 and said: “There’s a plague coming which will mean that our industry just stops dead for 18 months. No shows and no income for anyone…”And then where might we all have assumed we would be some three years later?
In a lot of places perhaps, but few of them very good. So where we are today, while not perfect, seems to me to be somewhat miraculous.
Miracles don’t happen without heroes, so here are some suggestions of my own.
Let’s start with the venues
I have nothing but the highest praise for our venues, and here I will focus on the NEC, Olympia and ExCeL. I stress that all of our major venues deserve praise but confess that I can only talk about those with which I was in direct, personal contact.
In each of these cases, the situation was similar. To start with everyone maintained the status quo on the basis that the crisis might only last a few months, and the issue was going to be cramming dates together – tough but manageable.
As an aside, myself and colleagues were surprised at how sanguine many organisers seemed in those early months. Both CloserStill and Nineteen decided from the start that we were probably looking at 18 to 24 months without shows and we told our shareholders that we had to plan our cash flows on that basis. We did this because of the history of pandemics – that they always have “echoes”, Spanish flu being the best recent example.
But after three or four months it became clear that greater sacrifices were going to have to be made. Given the size of staffing levels at the major venues, redundancies became inevitable – and this was the toughest part for their managers. Paul Thandi was almost in tears when he spoke to me of having to make staff who had worked at the NEC for twenty years redundant, and we saw similar scenes almost everywhere.
What were the nightingales all about?
Both Paul at the NEC and Jeremy at ExCeL immediately offered their venues to the Health Service as Nightingales (the same was true in Glasgow). They received no compensation for this and the bulk of the work was carried out by their venue staff – working round the clock – and GES. Ultimately, the great debate was about whether they were simply Potemkin villages. Early on Paul Thandi quizzed the local health service about how they could possibly be staffed. All the local hospitals were utilizing every staff member 24 hours a day – and losing many doctors and nurses to the virus. Where, asked Paul and Jeremy, were the staff coming from to minister to these massive new thousand bed hospital wards?
As we know now, there were no new staff (and apologies for the traditional lament, but the final Brexit bill in January 2020 managed to make things far worse). It is hard to imagine now how they could ever have been used – expect as simply beds for hopeless cases.
The thing which mattered most was the single ecosystem
What emerges from talking to people across our business was that our survival depended on one underlying perception. Which is that we were and are a single ecosystem where each part depends on the others. Analogies with the natural world are not too exotic. But it is one thing to say that and believe it. It is another to decide that you will make the sacrifices necessary for that ecosystem to survive. Again, the natural world and climate change are an analogy. We can all say “Something must be done.” But we have to take the necessary responsibility. Turns our thermostats down, accept wind farms on our local hills, drive at lower speeds, wear jumpers.
The issues the NEC, ExCeL and Olympia faced
Organisers tend to think of venues as being dependent on rental charges for their exhibitions. But that is not the majority of their income. Take car parking. The NEC can take north of £10,000 a day in car parking – but for 18 months the car parks were closed. Work that out. And then there is revenue from catering, from franchising, fees from the ticketing businesses and the big concerts. All gone.
But the single most important decision the NEC (and the other venues) made was that there had to be an acceptable compromise on rents. We all had to realise that we were a single ecosystem. That organisers could pay a certain amount, but if it was too much they risked going out of business. And when things recovered there would then be great holes in the timetables for everyone. I cannot comment on every single negotiation, but the ones I was aware of suggest that paying around 25 or 30% of the annual fee until such time as shows could run again was not untypical. This allowed organisers to survive, though the hit to the venues was massive.
And it was the venues who had to lead on this – they were the ones who had to take that first hit – contractual or otherwise (Ian Taylor says the NEC never bothered quoting contracts – there were not going to be any legal solutions to this crisis).
If there ever needed to be proof that we were all interdependent, then this was it. And if there has ever been a moment when we should acknowledge that the whole industry needed a single voice to represent it – then it had arrived (I wait hopefully but not confidently to see developments).
How ExCeL dealt with the crisis
Jeremy Rees, CEO of ExCeL, says now that he, Simon Mills and their CFO understood early on that they needed to find a way to share the pain. It wasn’t obvious how long the pandemic would last, nor whether nor when ExCeL would be open anyway because it was being turned into a Nightingale.
Jeremy says they felt a genuine sense of responsibility. They had to do their part to protect as much of the industry as they could. This was not entirely unselfish – if organisers and suppliers started going out of business, then ExCeL’s future would be under threat.
The most difficult part was their recognition that everyone had to be treated basically the same. Clearly there were some customers like Reed and Informa which were massive and ultimately not under threat (though they could have reduced their exhibition exposures) and others like Clarion and CloserStill which had major PE backers. And then there were other small organisers and associations which were potentially in a far more difficult place. “We did have to have a number of challenging conversations, but almost everyone was very mature and we worked through it,” says Jeremy. What we decided we could not do was offer different terms to different companies – we could not have A arguing that B had got this discount while A was being asked for rather more.”
“In the end it was fairer to try to deal with everyone on roughly the same basis – that way everyone would be somewhat unhappy. We think we got it about right,” he says now, “I cannot think of a single show which has ceased to run.”
Jeremy believes that one positive thing which has come out of the pandemic is that the venues now work more closely together. They had the same problems and dealt with them very similarly. And perhaps the most surprising thing is just how well the industry has recovered: “If I had been forced to predict the outcome, I would never have been so optimistic.”
Ian Taylor and the response of the NEC
“We were beginning to see what was happening around the third week of February – the cancellation of World Mobile Congress was really the tripwire. By the third week of March we knew we were going to have to put our arms round all our customers,” says Ian.
“We had our own interests – in particular trying to protect as many jobs as possible, which was by far the hardest part of the whole crisis. But it was very obvious that if everyone simply tried to protect their own interests then it would be a disaster. We had this to deal with, the heart breaking redundancies, and then trying to plan the Nightingale Hospital. This was the single most challenging period – by far – in my whole working life.”
I asked Ian about Blackstone, their private equity owner. “They were superb throughout.” he says. “They had the attitude that we must be supported and they did so throughout the whole crisis.” “Is it possible that the fact the big three English venues are all privately owned helped us?” I asked. “Quite possibly yes. We have different commercial pressures than say the Messen where they generate income for their cities but, when they are not operating, are a major cost to the public purse. But I wouldn’t claim to be certain how each of them handled things.”
“We talked at length with all of our customers. We didn’t have a one-size-fits-all approach. This did help us to get closer to our customers than we perhaps had been before – and helped them understand some of the pressures on us better. I think relations are now rather better than they ever have been – we came through a great crisis which some observers thought might be the end of our business model, and we did it together.”
“We never got into contractual disputes – that would have been terrible. We knew that we would come out of this one day and then we would all have to work together again. The whole industry really is a single ecosystem. We are interdependent and we should always recognise that. The spirit of partnership is absolutely vital.”
(I should add from the point of view of my own companies, that things never became difficult. There had to be give and take. And I think that it is now easier for us negotiate with really close friends in the main venues.)
“Did you lose any shows?” Ian says that a handful of smaller, newer events have not run since the pandemic. Given the depth of the crisis – no revenue for a massive industry for 18 months – this is remarkable. And suggests a depth of resilience and strength which was not really recognised before. We kept repeating the mantra “RESILIENT” – never perhaps realising quite how true it would prove to be.
Ian and Kelly Haslehurst, the NEC’s Marketing Director, showed their commitment to the whole industry in the way they supported the very first major industry meeting – the AEO Awards in December 2021. It had been two years since there had been any intra-industry meeting and this was a tough call. What would the travel and vaccination restrictions be? Would people come in December at all? What could we spend and what could we offer – given that it was also the AEO’s 100th Birthday?
They took this on board. They offered the NEC’s full support and Kelly (with Sarah) largely ran the presentation of the event. It was at great cost in terms of money and effort for the NEC, but they did it willingly and showed as clearly as it was possible to do their commitment to our single ecosystem.
Speaking a year after events restarted, Ian says the situation remains volatile. In the cases of many individual exhibitors, there are still supply chain problems – exacerbated by continuing lockdowns in China. They can sell, but they often can’t fulfil orders. And this is not necessarily in obvious sectors – there can be a randomness to it. The same applies to our own suppliers, who continue to suffer from a lack of personnel and, in some cases, funding. Ian watches every show carefully, and sees that the obvious isn’t always the case. Some consumer shows have returned very powerfully, defying expectations, while overall performance seems to be affected by the investment of the organiser. Some organisers with strong financial bases and aggressive managements are doing very well, while some association run shows have perhaps suffered more from the loss of cash in the pandemic and are finding it harder to recoup lost ground.
He doesn’t dispute the consensus – that the UK exhibition industry will be at around 85%-90% of its previous highs in 2023 and perhaps 2024. But the gap by then will be more a result of recession than of the pandemic.
He finishes by noting the effect of the pandemic on his own people and the wider industry supply chain.”Collectively, we reopened the industry and restarted event activity with far fewer people compared to pre-pandemic levels. The pressure this created was enormous. Let’s not forget that we were operating under a whole set of new measures to show that we could safely re-open our industry. That the standard of professional delivery was so high, not just in those early events but right through the last 12 months is testament to the resilience, commitment and quality of all our people.”
Anna Golden at Olympia has very precise memories
Anna, who runs the exhibitions side of Olympia, has her version of: “Where were you when you heard the news about Diana………”?
“I’m a little embarrassed to say that on 19 March 2020 I spoke to all the staff: “OK, I’ll see you all in six weeks.” That is how long we thought the crisis would last, and by summer the warm weather would have dealt with it. We soon changed our minds of course and started to work in 6-month blocks – moving shows forward into the next half of the year and then the next half year etc etc.”
“The crisis really hit when London Book Fair cancelled in March. They had no choice of course, because their major exhibitors simply said they would not attend. I then rang Lee Newton at Media10, whose Ideal Home Show was coming up next, and told him about the Book Fair. His first reaction was: “No, they can’t cancel, they can’t.” But it didn’t take long for us all to realise that this was going to be a lot bigger than we had initially thought.”
“The frankness of everyone was critical. I would estimate that my staff spent four or fives times more than usual talking to organisers. Everyone had to admit as quickly as they could what their situation was. Obviously some of the larger groups had far greater financial resources than others. And for some small organisers it was life or death. So we tried to deal with everyone as best we could according to their circumstances. While we didn’t push for large tenancy fees to be paid, we were helped by most organisers not asking for their deposits back. That was a big help. And, of course, we knew some organisers had insurance and were in far better position.”
“Our owners were helpful and didn’t put pressure on us. We immediately explained that going down the contractual route would be disastrous. Many companies would just go out of business, and others would refuse to deal with us again when it was all over. So that wasn’t a serious option for more than a second’s discussion.”
“The frankness of everyone was critical. No one in the early months could possibly make realistic projections nor assess ramifications which might well be huge for their and our business. I really think people were authentic. They had to tell the truth, and they also needed to understand our fragility – that we had to hold onto their deposits because we had to pay our staff as well. It became a most collaborative time – by far the most collaborative in my time in the industry. And I think that has continued. Relations now seem better – we are talking to almost everyone really frankly. We understand the problems and needs of all sectors of the industry and recognise that we are all in it together.”
Anna gives a personal perspective: “I think this experience should make everyone realise that we have to work as an industry. That we surely need an industry body which has real influence and represents every part of our trade. We are a very big business. We can still have AEO, ESSA, AEV – but the pandemic has shown that we can all work together and do so very effectively.”
Nigel Nathan: “the real heroes were out staff”
Nigel Nathan, Chairman of Olympia, says that: “The real heroes were the staff that came in all throughout the pandemic to keep the buildings open so that construction and the food bank/ the vaccine centre and the rest could operate. Those teams should be the ones who receive the praise now – and in particular Gillian Kiamil who heads those teams at Olympia. We must ensure that we don’t just praise the people at the top – they are simply part of a far larger infrastructure which contains a great number of heroes.”
And Nigel of course brings to our attention that the recovery from the pandemic has not been a source of joy and happiness for many of our colleagues. The recent AEO Survey, of all UK based exhibition companies, states that our organisers had 10,060 employees in 2019 and currently have 7,690. This is 31% fewer employees – fully one third. Note that this does not include venues and service providers, but given the redundancies of 2019 and, for instance, the loss of Freeman it may well be that the whole industry has lost one person in three in the last 3 years.
I am not absolutely convinced of the accuracy of these numbers (though the methodology is not to be criticised) and wonder about the willingness of some of the larger players to release such information, but their broad thrust is probably realistic. A large number of very good people lost their jobs and have not returned – a clear loss to the industry. It is difficult to believe that we are going to return to 2019 turnover and attendances with one third less people – particularly as those one third were often culled at random. But if we do, then what might it say about staffing levels at some of our larger companies?
And an unexpected group of heroes
The private equity companies which have invested so heavily in the trade show industry in recent years really showed their mettle. Ian Taylor and Paul Thandi have spoken about how Blackstone supported them through some very dark times. And I will personally mention Kevin Keck and Richard Hill at Phoenix and Andrew Tisdale, Robert Sudo and Alex Mishenin at Providence, who saw from very early on that their role would be to provide funds if they were necessary and maintain businesses ready to be fit for when the storm clouds passed. I believe that the private equity investment in our business has proved – in the most unlikely of circumstances – to be of enormous value to the whole industry. Their continued commitment supports everyone – suppliers, venues, registration companies, printers as well as the organisers themselves.
I don’t want this article to suggest that all is glory and that we can or should forget that it was a very miserable period for many – and that there are those whose personal circumstances have not yet recovered.
There are many heroes beyond those at the top who were charged with the big decisions. But it is still right to look inside this particular box and to recognise that we seem to have come through what might have been a life-threatening hurricane in surprisingly good shape. It is also right to recognise that there were individuals and organisations which made that possible.
