Julie Ann Schmidt, CMM, CMP, C19CO, is founder and CEO of Lithium Logistics Group, a full-service MICE agency based in Minnesota. With more than 25 years of experience in the event industry, she has recently become a COVID-19 expert, Certified COVID-19 Compliance Officer, and has served on national and federal COVID-19 task forces. She trains planners on how to get back to live meetings and other COVID topics. For more information, visit lilogisticsreg.voicehive.com.

As an association planner, we face different challenges than our corporate peers. For many associations, our large conference of the year can be a significant source of association revenue. In addition, it can be a key part of our value proposition to members. Our relationship with our exhibitors is vital to our organizations and to our members. Post COVID-19, we needed to get back to live meetings quicker than everyone else.

So how do you do that if you haven’t already? What are the changes we need to make in how we plan, and what are the new things we must consider? And, given the possibility of a new variant and another surge, how do we react?

The first change is having deeper conversations with our venue and our catering team about how our meal functions will work. We know how a buffet was served before COVID, but now we need to ask how the food we selected is going to be served. The supply chain is an added factor that will impact our food and beverage. So, for example, if last year you were able to ask your banquet captain to add 30 more plates to your lunch a few hours before the start, now they might not be able to accommodate that request.

The second change in how we plan is the impact of social distancing. Most locations have gotten back to pre-COVID conditions, but we need to be prepared to adjust if a new variant strikes and the city or hotel changes their policy. This will also impact how we manage our flow in and out of the room and around our spaces to help maintain social distancing.

As we move through the planning process with other vendors, the key question we need to ask is “What is different in how you are delivering your services today?” Your production vendor might say that you need to modify the sound system to accommodate a larger space because of social distancing, while your registration vendor might recommend adding more stations to your plan. Everyone is doing everything just a bit differently, and we need to keep asking new questions as we go.

Unlike our corporate peers, our attendees have a choice if they attend our conferences and events, and we have to sell them on the value of attending. We now need to also sell safety of attending and communicate how the event will be different. If we do a good job communicating and setting clear expectations for both our attendees and exhibitors, we will have a successful event. Our exhibitors are a unique and important set of attendees, and it is worth considering scheduling a few conference calls for exhibitors prior to the conference to answer questions and set clear expectations.

So what do we need to add to our planning tool box? A COVID-19 protocol document that contains all the details on how we are addressing issues of COVID is as important as our conference resume. While COVID will be a part of every step of our planning, our COVID protocol document will address things such as cleaning, screening, testing, contact tracing and reporting.

The cleaning section will include all the details of what the venue is doing to clean our meeting rooms, public spaces and hotel rooms. It will also include details on our vendor’s cleaning responsibilities and what cleaning we are a responsible for on-site. The CDC recommends cleaning high-traffic areas three times a day, but if you have 600 people go through your registration area in two to three hours, you might be wiping it down every 30 minutes.

Screening and testing has given way to vaccine requirements, but all three might be part of your plan. While having your temperature taken everywhere has dropped off, asking screening questions such as “Are you or anyone in your family awaiting the results of a COVID test?” still are common. Screening is used to eliminate anyone who might be COVID positive from coming to our event, whereas testing is used to eliminate someone from the event who is found to be COVID positive. The CDC states that 100.4 degrees or higher is a fever, and the Mayo clinic says 95-100 is a good oxygen reading, and that below 90 is considered low. If you choose to do screening, you need to decide if you will do secondary screening and what that will entail.

A one-day meeting for 75 people is different than a 1,000-person meeting for three days. You have to determine what is right for your budgets, your meeting and your organization.

Testing may be a part of our protocol. If it is, we should be hiring a professional medical-testing firm to come in and administer rapid testing. Some groups choose to test everyone coming in, while some choose to have it only as part of their secondary screening process.

As we move through the next 12 to 24 months, what it takes to execute a safe and successful conference will change and evolve. But just like after 9/11, we will settle into a “new normal” and be better at our jobs than we were before. | AC&F |