With the news this week that a third Covid-19 vaccine has become available to the public—prompting President Joe Biden to say that all Americans could be vaccinated by the end of May—the meetings and events industry is preparing for the possibility of holding sizable in-person business events as soon as July. Case in point: Houston has 19 citywide conventions booked for the coming July-December period, compared to just 12 citywides that took place over that period in 2019.
What will help to get events moving again is the fact that meeting venues and show companies have been busy redesigning event spaces for the post-pandemic landscape ever since in-person meetings went on hiatus in March 2020. One example comes from the Vancouver Convention Centre, which recently held an event called ReDesign to demonstrate new show-floor designs in conjunction with Canada-based Levy Show Service. The event allowed a few dozen meeting planners from Western Canada to come on site to view the show-floor set-ups in person, while others could watch parts of the event online.