Event Planning in a Covid-19 World
While many aspects of our daily lives are returning to some semblance of a new normal, in the world of event planning we are still plagued by uncertainties. There is no crystal ball that will tell us how the re-opening of society is going to unfold, or what the circumstances will look like in March of 2021, when Paper Covers Rock is scheduled to take place.
What we can do is prepare for a variety of scenarios and do our best to adapt and innovate as we near closer to event dates. If we find that are are unable to host keynote sessions with an audience capacity of up to 175 people as planned, we might proceed with an audience cap of 50 or possibly 100. If group gathering protocols indicate that it would be irresponsible to bring festival attendees together for an opening night reception, we will adjust the social and networking festivities, or cancel.
Right now we are working behind the scenes to lay the groundwork for an amazing event to take place. Safety will always come first, and we won’t proceed with plans that put our attendees, speakers, or staff under unnecessary risk. As we are booking speakers, coordinating with venues, and planning other logistical details, we are taking a “hope for the best” approach in our planning.
We had intended to release early-bird ticket sales this June so that people could secure Full Festival weekend passes. Because of the uncertainties around audience capacity, we are hitting pause on early-bird ticket sales until we can gain more clarity into how ticketing is going to work for this event. There likely will be some extra caution involved, thereby reducing the number of tickets we originally planned to release. Please make sure you’re signed up for our newsletter to stay informed!
Know that as festival organizers, we are continually looking to WorkSafeBC guidelines and advice from the Province of British Columbia for guidance on how we can safely adapt event logistics to ensure that attendees can still come together next March to celebrate readers, writers, and ideas.
