Flemish government press conference in the middle of the COVID-19 lockdown

We assisted our client in2com in organizing a press conference for the Flemish government and a consortium of contact centers, in2com among them. The topic: tracking and tracing of Covid-19 infections.

In summary the job of the contact centers is to contact all the people who have been in touch with someone who tested positive for Covid-19. A consortium of contact centers has been set up. The press conference was organized to explain the method. Main speakers were the Flemish minister-president Jan Jambon and the Flemish health minister Wouter Beke.

Attendees were checked for their body temperature, they were given masks and were offered the use of gels to disinfect their hands.

For the press conference, which was held at 2.30 pm, we needed to make sure people were able to keep their distance. The best room available was the company restaurant (we also set up an overflow room with a live-feed of the press conference for staffers of the numerous organizations involved). As a consequence we needed to set up an alternative restaurant for the employees of the contact center. Together with the client we decided to set up a tent on the parking lot and provide free sandwiches and drinks for the employees. They were asked to eat in shifts so as not to overcrowd the tent.

Detail: the sandwiches were ordered by kind, so people didn’t have look hard for their favorite sandwich. Why mention this? Because the best rule of thumb for organizing events in these new Corona times is this: uncomplicate things! The Corona-reality is already complicated enough. Everybody is trying to get used to it. So what should event managers do now in the beginning of this new era: create events with as-simple-as-possible logic and flow so people are not distracted from their main challenge: adapting their behavior to the Corona-reality. Secondly: remind people that the Corona-reality is still very real. Old habits die hard and people tend to want to behave like before. It’s only human.

One last note: Boy, oh boy, did it feel good to be involved with organizing an event again! We were asked Friday at noon to help out, Monday was the press conference, which gave it that extra spice we event managers love so much!