We now reach the penultimate blog in our 6-part series! This series has brought to light multiple different factors that we can see having an impact on the UK events industry, and by identifying such issues, we can plan for a more successful future.
Catch up on the political, economic, social and technological blogs now for more insight on the series.
1) GDPR
GDPR gave the majority of organisations a headache when it was introduced, especially the events industry. GDPR completely changed the way event organisers collect, process and protect the personal information of attendees. The new regulation changed data collection from attendees’ in regards to things like registration forms and apps and how that data can be shared with third parties such as venues and sponsors. It also impacted pre-registered delegates as it meant that organisers needed to reaffirm their consent to be on said list.
2) Brexit
As you have probably noticed, Brexit has popped up in a few of the different factors, this is because there are so many elements to Brexit that at this current time might impact businesses politically, economically and legally.
However, here we are focusing on the legal implications Brexit could have on events. Changes in law is a huge factor that could have a drastic impact on how events are ran. In particularly, changes to health & safety regulations as the majority of UK health and safety regulations introduced over the past 30 years originated from the European Union.
3) Gender Inequality
At this day and age, equality is a major concern for everyone with society becoming less tolerant with inequality. However, focusing on the events industry alone, a recent survey among female event professionals showed that 61% of respondents encountered inappropriate behaviour since working in the industry. More recently, we saw the first female footballer, Ada Hegerberg, being asked if she could ‘twerk’ by the presenter of the prestigious Ballon d’Or Awards moments after receiving her prize. This sparked outrage across the globe, yet shows how incidents such as these are becoming less tolerated. Such issues are being taken more seriously than they were just 5-10 years ago, with more procedures being put in place to tackle these matters.
Written by: Paige Cradduck - Events Assistant for Grapevine Event Management.
