What happened when the event industry met the Government?
Source: Event Magazine 30th March 2009
Last week Rouge Partnership creative director Nathan Homan met with a Government department to discuss the value of and issues facing the event industry. Here, in an open letter to the industry and a call to arms, he reveals what happened and what should happen next:
Dear All,
Re: Speaking to Government - presentation to BERR 18th March 2009
As you know I was invited to speak last week to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) about the challenges faced by our industry in these turbulent economic times.
One of the key functions of BERR is to ‘create the conditions for business success’, championing the interests of business across all Whitehall departments. The session was hosted by the director general Jitinder Kohil and leaders from the across the department were in attendance.
I would like to thank the readers of Event magazine for their thoughts on what the Government could do to help the event industry.
As well as the fantastic responses posted on the Event website I also received many emails and phone calls of support from colleagues from across the industry.
I put forward all the suggestions I received, which included:
- The availability of credit from banks
- Changes to the Tour Operator Margin Scheme (TOMS)
- Tax breaks or incentives for business communication events if using 3rd party agencies
- Getting caught out by ‘phoenixing’
- Spreading VAT payments to the Inland Revenue
- Proposed changes to the UK working time regulations opt-out clause
- Increasing the employee benefit for an annual staff party from £150 including VAT to £200 excluding VAT
However, by far the most pressing concern raised by respondents was:
- The negative reporting in the media of events, in particular hospitality and the widespread lack of understanding of the business case for events
I was told not to expect answers to specific questions at this session - this was BERR’s chance to hear the concerns of our industry. I must also note at this point that the session was covered by Chatham House rules, which means that I am not allowed to report any comments made by individuals present. These rules, in existence now for almost a century are in place to encourage openness and the sharing of information at government level.
The audience certainly took on board the points raised, in particular those regarding regulatory reform, such as changes to TOMS, the Working Time Directive and increasing the employee staff party allowance. These are all areas where BERR could potentially affect change if we make our case collectively as an industry.
BERR also recommended that any business finding it difficult to obtain credit from their bank should look into the Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme. Under this scheme the Government will guarantee lending to viable businesses to ensure that they can get the working capital and investment that they need. For further information about this scheme see the text box below.
In order to place the event industry into context I provided some figures showing the contribution of events to the UK economy, obtained from the Business Visits and Events Partnership. BVEP is the umbrella organisation to which most event industry associations belong, in addition to bodies such as Visit London & Visit Britain. The government departments of Transport; Culture, Media & Sport; and UK Trade & Investment are also represented alongside BERR.
The contribution of business visits & events to the UK economy
- Conferences and meetings £10.3 billion
- Exhibitions and trade fairs £9.3 billion
- Business travel £6 billion
- Incentive travel £1.2 billion
- Corporate events & hospitality £1 billion
- Outdoor events £1 billion
- Direct / indirect employment for 530,000 people
Source: Business Visits and Events Partnership
The attendees from BERR were extremely interested to learn of our contribution to the UK economy. They also found it useful for someone to demonstrate how our industry fits together and just how diverse and complex it actually is - that ‘events’ are not just about meetings & conferences, but also about live and experiential events, exhibitions, incentive travel, venues, corporate hospitality, outdoor events and individual suppliers.
Perhaps it is understandable that government has been focusing on the manufacturing and financial sectors. If these collapse there will obviously be disastrous consequences for us all and for many years to come.
But what about our industry? We may be smaller but nonetheless support over 500,000 jobs. Who is fighting our corner and who is countering the constant negative reporting of events in the press? This was without doubt the most important concern raised to me by my colleagues.
I believe the answer to the question lies with every single one of us. Whether we are from a trade association or agency, exhibition or venue, freelancer or student - together we need to stand up for events and start getting the message out there that there is a serious, legitimate and well established business case for what we do. And that those events enable businesses to communicate with their customers, the press, their suppliers and their team.
It is hard enough for us at the moment fighting the effects of the downturn - dealing with the fallout from media reports of ‘fat-cat’ hospitality is a double whammy we just don’t need right now. It is preventing our clients from holding events out of fear that there might be a media backlash.
The answer to this does not lie with the government. For sure they can affect changes to regulation, such as TOMS and the staff party allowance, but they are not responsible for getting our industry better press. That, in my view, is down to us.
What about our trade associations? They are of course key to all of this, but with at least 15 different associations representing various different sectors of our industry, I think it is understandable that a coordinated message is not being heard. I am most definitely not knocking our associations, they do fantastic work and without them we absolutely won’t be taken seriously.
However I think these extraordinary times mean we must now take a new approach, together, quickly and in unison. We have to change the story and if ever there was in industry with the resources to achieve this, surely it has to be us?
I have quite a few ideas about how to make this happen and I am sure your readers will have too and so I therefore call on any who are willing, to join me and my team in standing up for events.
Yours sincerely,
Nathan Homan
Creative Director