(para português use o tradutor na barra lateral
do site)
The world has been under
constant uncertainty since we as humanity started to face this unpredictable
crisis with Covid-19. By now we know that our “normal” world
is not going to look as normal as it used to be. Somehow it can have several
benefits from a broader and environmental perspective in general if we take
this time to reflect and change a variety of habits we used to have.
Since my late 20’s I have been
working as a Conference and Events Organiser and have been enjoying and
acquiring some good experience in my history, Although, right now I am very
skeptical of how the future scene is going to be for that profession. There are plenty of articles out there with ideas, prospects, and possibilities. However,
I intend to briefly describe my experience in my first event after the
restrictions are been lifted and step by step we are finding our way again.
Just as a piece of base
information, I live in Hobart, Tasmania, an island in the very south of
Australia and since the very beginning of the crises the local government had
closed its borders and is controlling in a very good manner everything and the
cases were mainly found in the north of the island. There are today 11 days
with no new cases here and the restrictions are been now a bit more flexible.
Moreover, the government is tracking in many ways people that might be sick,
for example, when they had found new cases they track all the step of the
patient in the last weeks. Then, if a sick person said that he or she was in a
specific bar they will try to find everyone that was there and test them all.
That said, last Saturday I went
to my first event here. It was a Food Market at the Hanging Garden. I was
surprised of it been approved by the government at that stage of the Covid-19
procedure. Although, they have used all the guidelines provided by the
Department of Health.
So they were running the event
with limited numbers of patrons available per time at the venue. That means
they opened up bookings on their website even though they were accepting
walking ins, but with no guarantee entry for those not previously booked. As I
first step into the venue they took my body temperature with a no-touch
thermometer and they got my name and phone number. In this way if someone
reports sick in the following days saying that it was there in the event, the
organizers can call every single person that was there on the same day to get
tested for covid-19. The second procedure I noticed is that the way you have to
walk through the venue is also controlled and there is only way to go
throughout the place. They made use of bollards to manage it and lines on the
floor were creating 1,5m distance from a person to another. On the website they
were giving some guidelines to not touch any product displays, we should tell
the vendor which one we want and they would prepare it for us. There was plenty
of hand-sanitizer all over the place.
I ended up been there shorter
than I was expecting, of course, it wasn´t a social gathering as we are used
to… not at all. It is a new time, a new moment where we will need to re-create
everything and especially our social behaviors. The world it not the same
anymore and we must get used to nevertheless how difficult and awkward it may
seem.
I truly don´t know how the
events industry will look like after all, that experience was just a glimpse of
how works life will look like for professionals like me. In other words, my
professional future looks like a question mark at the moment.
My final hope is that we as
humanity will reflect on our behaviors and possibly build this new world with
a new event perspective where we will find more conscious ways to socialize and
produce events with a better environmentally mind even though I am personally
considering finding a new profession somehow.
And you? How do you think the world will look like when we think about socializing and gathering?
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