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Why are exhibitions being discriminated against? Mike Seaman responds to latest Covid setbacks

Mike Seaman, CEO at Raccoon Media Group and chair of the AEO UK Organiser Group hits back after 18 months of being ignored by Government.

“Why are exhibitions being discriminated against continuously and disproportionately time and time again? I am frankly fed up with the lack of engagement that government has with the UK exhibition industry. Pre-covid the UK ran 1,077 trade and consumer shows every year and employed 114,000 people. The AEO estimate that over £70bn of trade used to happen at these exhibitions the U.K. but that has all but disappeared due to their blundering, shambolic and ill-informed approach.

Since covid I have watched my colleagues from across the industry lose jobs, be ignored and cast aside by a government that doesn’t know the difference between a wedding and a trade show. These people need protecting and have been ignored again. To illustrate – around 50% of full-time staff have lost their jobs and 83% of freelancers are without work with no support and barely a mention. That is over 60,000 people with families that have been overlooked.

Yesterday’s announcement means that yet again, we will have to move another exhibition which will costs us tens of thousands of pounds. We had to raise private investment last year to cover those losses, but we will be ok. However, I am genuinely concerned for the financial security of our suppliers. Normally we spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on every event – booking venues, speakers, staging, hotels, security, catering and so much more. These suppliers are small businesses who you have hung out to dry. They are currently on the breadline, waiting for you to throw them a crumb.

In addition to this, 80% of the companies that exhibit at our events are SMEs that often don’t have mass market distribution channels. These companies rely on events like ours to introduce their products to new customers, to trade and to stay afloat but they are being preventing from doing so.

The industry has met all the requirements of government, including running a successful pilot event (that the government approved) and developing covid-safe event guidelines (that the government also approved). We already have a built-in capacity for track and trace (due to our ticketing systems) and we stand ready to open our doors and implement covid status certification upon arrival. Unfortunately, ‘vaccine passports’ aren’t good for polling, so we are once again ignored. Show me why our events are less safe than un-tested people cramming into zoos, theme parks shopping centres or football stadiums! How can you allow 22,500 people at Wembley but only 1,000 people in a ticketed and tested event at a major event venue like the NEC? The numbers are clearly arbitrary and your approach is ill-informed.

As a business, we wasted our time trying to get on the pilot schemes – these were clearly just a backdoor for the government to deliver elite sport such as the Euros and Wimbledon – they neither care about, nor understand exhibitions. Our events are important and they matter. We bring communities together to share their passion for being active outside. We promote physical activity such as running, walking and cycling which can also be vital tools when tackling mental health issues. Our communities want to be together again and if we can deliver that safely, what right do you have to keep us apart?

I don’t underestimate the size of the problem or the seriousness of covid-19 but there are OTHER issues which we should be equally concerned about. When 19 people take their own lives every day in the UK then perhaps we need to broaden our view?

The entire industry joined together with one voice and wrote to you in April, requesting that we could open using Covid Status Certification which is what you should have approved yesterday. So please Boris, stop this war on events and leave my friends alone. Stop chasing opinion polls and make a measured and informed decision about the viability of well-managed and vital exhibitions.”

The new way of working isn’t necessarily new! – by Mike Seaman

One of the (few) positive side effects of the pandemic seems to be a new openness from employers around flexible working culture and I hope that this continues as we emerge from lockdown. There has been a lot of coverage in the news over the last few weeks about a shift in static office based employment versus a more flexible and dynamic way of treating staff. We’ve been operating a flexible working policy for the last 4 years and I think it is one of the main foundations of our success. We are ‘accountability based’ and not ‘hours based’ which means that as long as you do your job well, then we don’t mind when, where or how you do it.

A high percentage of our team are working parents who fit their job around their role as parents. We also have lots of fitness enthusiasts who like to take exercise during the daylight hours. I believe that allowing those people to perhaps take a walk in the hills on a sunny day or leave to watch the school play makes staff happier and more effective in the workplace. We have built a business that feels like a family on the back of this principle and it’s something that we are very proud of.

For our business, technology makes it easy to work from anywhere and to monitor outputs so perhaps we don’t need an office at all? My view is that the office is still essential but it’s purpose has changed. Remote working is efficient and transactional but having your team together in one place inspires creativity, facilitates learning and  builds culture. We allow our employees to choose the days they come in and they tend to do so in clusters to be with their local teams or their friends. I believe that the office days often have softer outputs than the days working from home but we value both as equally important. There is certainly power in allowing a mix of hyper-productivity at home, combined with a social and collaborative approach in the office.

As employers, we believe that maintaining an office is very important as we don’t want to presume that someone has a suitable working environment at home. However, if you want to work from home a few days a week, that is fine by us! As I said at the beginning – as long as you do your job well, we don’t mind when, where or how you do it! I think it is important for other employers to recognise that, for the most part, if you treat staff with respect and as the adults they are, then the rewards will follow. I think we may be saying goodbye to a very prescriptive and controlling way of working and instead adopting a more grown up, healthier approach to our working lives. It has certainly proved very successful for us.

Mike

Sound good? We are hiring so why not come and join the family: https://raccoonmediagroup.com/job-vacancies

An update on The National Outdoor Expo 2021 from Mike Seaman

Hi everyone,

It is with a heavy heart that I write this note, but unfortunately, we will have to delay the National Outdoor Expo until 19 & 20 March 2022.

We left it as late as we could to make this difficult decision but unfortunately with the new variant and the third lockdown it just feels a bit too risky to try and run the show in March. We have a rule inside the business that our shows are about ‘hugs and high-5s’ and we don’t feel confident that this would be possible by in Spring 2021. We would rather wait and get it right than deliver an event that is anything less than awesome. We feel really hopeful about the fast-testing programme that the government is working on and also the pace at which the vaccine is being rolled out and we think that life will return to normal very soon. However, we understand that our exhibitors, partners and visitors need to plan in advance in order to deliver an event at the size and scale of the National Outdoor Expo which is why we have to make the decision now.

How will this affect me?

We consider ourselves to be very much part of the outdoor community and we want to protect you from any commercial impact of the show cancelling –

  1. If you are a visitor and you bought a ticket, then you will be contacted by See Tickets who will arrange a refund. You can also update your order with See Tickets here
  2. If you were given a free ticket to the show you will automatically be registered to attend the 2022 Expo and will also be given the opportunity to get a free ticket to The National Running Show South and/or the National Snow Show
  3. If you are an exhibitor, partner or sponsor, we will be in touch with you in due course to outline your options and to explore some cool new opportunities for you to promote your business and products

Our Digital Event

We understand that March is the right time for an event focussed on getting active outside and this is why we are waiting until next March for the exhibition to take place. However, we also have something really cool planned for this March on the original dates when the show was due to run. Keep an eye on Outside and Active on social for announcements coming soon!

I am very sorry that we aren’t able to deliver the show for you guys this year but I promise you that it is going to be worth the wait and that March 2022 is going to be EPIC!  We have already confirmed that THESE SPEAKERS will be there and THESE COMPANIES will be there too.

See you next March for hugs and high 5s!

Mike Seaman, CEO, Raccoon Media Group

P.S. If you have any ideas, feedback or suggestions then please do contact me directly at [email protected]

 

An update from Mike on COVID-19

Hi everyone, I hope you are all safe and well?

I wanted to give you all a brief update on our position regarding COVID-19 and what happens next. As you know, restrictions are starting to lift and we are starting to consider what the future will look like. We understand that despite the restrictions easing, this remains an emotive topic and I wanted to assure you that even though we are bursting with excitement at the prospect of events coming back, we will continue to put your safety and wellbeing first.

Our next live event is the National Running Show which will take place in 7 months’ time on 30-31 January at the NEC in Birmingham. We expect that by then we will be able to deliver the same vibrant, community-lead, exciting and inspiring event that we have delivered in previous years and that is what we are working towards. I am also working closely with our industry body (the AEO) to ensure that we take all of the appropriate steps to ensure everyone’s safety at the event. We will be using a dynamic risk-assessed model linked to the Covid Alert Level and will follow the advice from the All Secure Standard which you can read more about here. As I’m sure you know, our venue partner (the NEC) was converted into a Nightingale facility during the pandemic, however it did not receive any patients and was subsequently put on standby. The NEC is following government guidance and will be implementing measures across the venue to ensure everyone is safe and protected as events return.

We know that the first events will be returning in August 2020, so we fully expect to be able to deliver our events in January 2021 without any significant disruption. However, our promise to you is that we will continue to put your safety first and we will err on the side of caution rather than take risks. If we feel that this will substantially impact the delivery of the event then we won’t go ahead – it is important to us that you get the same fun, buzz and excitement from our shows that you are used to and if we can’t deliver that then we will wait until we can. If (as we did with our London show) we decide not to run the event then we will offer our customers a refund or a transfer to a future event.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of our customers for their support during this period – to all of our sponsors and exhibitors who keep booking stands and our visitors and partners who have been promoting and supporting the shows. Thank you for sticking with us through this difficult time and whilst we aren’t out of the woods yet, there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel!

I look forward to seeing you all at a live event soon!