The COVID-19 pandemic has left no sector untouched or unaffected. Among those worst hit happen to be event managers.
As per a report published by the Event and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA), the Indian event and exhibition market is expected to experience a loss of around Rs 1 lakh crore in just the first quarter of 2020 with over 10 million job losses.
The Events and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) conducted a member survey with 170 members representing over 1,00,000 companies that were affected by this pandemic across the country. The survey also estimated losses due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Reports showed that 52.91 percent of companies saw around 90 percent of their businesses being cancelled between March-July 2020. The Association further urged the government to consider taking some serious steps from both the central and state level to help out the event management companies.
To find out the problems ailing such businesses in Guwahati, G Plus got in touch with two event organizers in Guwahati.
“The future is completely uncertain for event managers like us. Our work is to gather people which is not an option given the COVID-19 situation,” said an event manager from Guwahati, talking to G Plus.
“Round the year, we tend to be buried neck deep in work with all sorts of events. It is only about 2 months a year that we don’t have events lined up which is around the months of June, July and August, owing to monsoons,” said Kaushik Dutta, owner of Sync Media, an event management company.
“The last 10-12 events which were lined up for the month of March, April and first week of May have all been postponed and some might even have been cancelled. The market usually goes through a slump after that till the rainy season passes,” he said.
“We have lost 15 to 20 lakh rupees worth of business in a period of 70 days, which is a big loss for an organization like ours,” said Kaushik Dutta. This is just one event management firm. There are hundreds of firms like these, both big and small who have run out of business these past few months.
The event manager has 6 people working in his firm and expressed concerns about not being able to pay salaries to his staff. “We’re giving them a minimum amount and we’re getting small digital marketing assignments which help us get through but it is certainly not enough to meet requirements,” he added.
“We have a lot of equipment that we had purchased. The necessary items include huge sound equipment and things like that which must be stored in a godown. Storage has also become a problem as we must pay a lot by way of rent,” said the event manager.
Apart from all this, a lot of miscellaneous expenses which are not even visible must be borne by these event management firms even in their off seasons.
“Some of the major events organized by us prior to the lockdown included the Big Burp Festival, the Around Guwahati Food Festival, Consensio - Royal Global University’s Annual Fest and a few other government events,” said Dutta.
Some event planners have completely bailed out due to the kind of weddings being held these days. With all sorts of new restrictions and with a gathering of only 50 or less people, wedding planners and wedding organizers have nowhere to go for business anymore.
G Plus got in touch with another event organizer from Guwahati who had a similar experience to share.
“We organize events in our business. Over 90 percent of people are employed on daily wages. Only the owner, executor and supervisor are permanent in our business and the rest are people involved through skill development who are all daily wage earners,” said Vijay Naidu, Director of Swargojyoti Events in Guwahati.
There are two wedding seasons, one from November to March and the other one is from April 15 to July 30. In between this, the month of June is usually considered an off season for weddings. During this period so far, Naidu has lost 16 big weddings and 11 corporate events with some being big budget corporate events. His firm alone has incurred a loss of Rs. 2.85 crores.
“There are some workers who earn 400 rupees a day; some earn 500 to even 1000 rupees a day for about 15 to 20 days in a month. These workers have events and are unemployed for the rest of the year. Flower decorators, thermocol decorators, painters, artists, hosts, DJs, singers, musicians, technicians, catering service providers, cleaners, photographers, make-up artists, transport services, security services, cloth suppliers, printing services, and many such people associated with us over the past 12 years have all been the worst affected,” he said.
The firm has been trying to help daily wage earners and workers employed on contract basis for over 2 months now and several other such event management firm owners believe that the government must put one step forward to help such people, especially during a time like this with so many unresolved problems in the event industry.