Louisa Daley, deputy editor, Conference News, chats to Rick Stainton, founder, The Power of Events, about its Industry Insight App and Cross Four Nations Roadshow.
The Power of Events has come a long way since its launch in 2020. Originally created to bring the industry together during the pandemic, it has now set its sights on a bigger picture.
This year, the organisation has launched a dedicated website, an Industry Insight App and a promotional roadshow across key universities in the UK and Ireland, all in the hopes of showcasing and defining the events industry.
To find out more, I sat down with the organisations founder, Rick Stainton, during his visit to the University of Westminster.
Back to basics
“The Power of Events platform is essentially a map which showcases what’s going on in the industry. You can visit it to learn about the seven sectors, key industry players, news from across the sectors, a calendar of all industry events, the 150 core organisations supporting the industry, as well as listen to expert podcasts – for the first time, all in one place.
“Our Event Industry Insight App is an extension of this. If you trust The Power of Events’ brand and its values, the app will be a more engaging and trusted way of delivering our mission to create better understanding, value and respect for the UK events industry,” Stainton explains.
According to Stainton, the Event Industry Insight App is a tool for anyone who wants to complete industry research. The app is spearheaded by its Research Action Group, which combines association heads with university partners and faculty leaders. “This is because they have often been the drivers of data, insight reports and trend analysis for the events industry,” he adds.
But what’s so important about industry research?, I ask Stainton. “The events industry has told us it needs more credible, authentic and cross sector data. They’ve asked us to support them reporting at a national level and a governmental level, about the size, impact and breadth of the UK events industry – alongside the economic value it brings.
“There’s great stuff going on in individual sectors, but the insight could be evolved to become more collaborative for all to deploy the bigger numbers all for their own remits. The more people contribute to better data insights across the seven sectors, the better.
“In the two weeks since its launch, 500 organisations/event professionals have downloaded the app, which is a promising start. As we ramp up the engagement through media coverage and the university tour, we are targeting for this to be in the 1,000s by the end of 2023,” says Stainton.
The app, Stainton adds, will be vital to the industry and allow them to share their pain points and common challenges. “You might get a notification asking how the tube strike has affected your business, for example, and the results will be shared live in the app,” he explains.
“The events industry can expect the first pipeline of research projects by the end of the year. We’ve already got about four to five potential projects that people have proposed to us even before we launched, which is really exciting. Covering analysis across areas like the freelancer community, unrepresented backgrounds and employment resilience,” Stainton tells me.
Tomorrow’s leaders
The app won’t only be useful for research purposes though, it will also play a vital role in attracting the next generation. After all, how else is the industry meant to attract the next generation of event professionals, if we can’t back up and define the vast opportunities that are available?
Prior to The Power of Events’ Cross Four Nations Roadshow launched in October, Stainton asked universities and students if they felt their relationship and understanding of the events industry was good enough – the answer was unsurprisingly, no. “This is why we approached 15 universities. So far, 11 of them have signed up to The Power of Events, which speaks volumes,” he adds.
One of these universities is the University of Westminster, I asked Andrew Smith, professor of urban experiences why he signed up. He said: “Westminster has been involved in event education for a long time. We were one of the first universities to offer a master’s course on it. We run courses on tourism and events, event design and management etc.
“When we heard about The Power of Events, we thought it was a great opportunity for our students, it was a way of connecting our students to future employers and make sure they understood more about the industry they’re getting into.”
After speaking to the professors, students and Stainton, it is clear that the industry and universities must work closer together. “Both industry and academia have a big marketing job to do, because we want students to come out from their courses and into the events industry and at the moment, I’m told barely 50% of them do which isn’t great,” says Stainton.
“The students I’ve met so far are excited, focused, ambitious and passionate. Their generation will end up being the people that are driving the innovation across the industry. If we don’t have a really strong and broad demographic of individuals coming into the industry, we won’t have the leaders that we need to maintain the growth and impact on the economy and society,” he stresses.
“We want to stay world leaders don’t we?,” asks Stainton, “so, we need the best out there to take that forward into the next 20 to 30 years.”
