The coronavirus crisis has made many companies rethink their planning and management due to a lack of risk management. That's why it's important to develop a discipline of Risk Management, where smart strategies are designed for future actions.

The challenges found in this study show that for agencies or intermediaries, their main challenge after this crisis will be to make their product or service stand out from competitors. On the other hand, for clients, the main challenge will be managing their budget.  The big challenge for both will be to measure and show the impact of events in terms of sustainability. 

A notable point in the study shows the need for industry collaboration during these tough times. That's why we need to help each other out, and it's important to reward loyalty and trust, meaning that customers who stick with a business should be rewarded for their continued support.

The study questions whether virtual events can truly replace in-person ones because they lack goals like building community, fostering loyalty, experiential communication, getting feedback from attendees, and more. But this doesn't mean that these virtual practices will disappear once the lockdown is over; instead, they could become complementary to in-person events.

Marketing has evolved from selling products to selling experiences, and now, values. So, events should be used as a way to share brand values, both internally by reaching out to employees, and externally by connecting with suppliers and clients.

A new trend is to offer such an appealing event that attendees actually want to spend their time there and are even willing to pay for it. Also, small-format events will still be super important, and bigger events should definitely include break outs.

Personalization in the events sector is evolving, but we still need to work on it, as it's rarely achieved. Right now, events often offer many different experiences, but that's not really personalization; it's more like an experience menu. So, we need to focus on segmentation by understanding our clients' and users' data, which is collected through apps when they register.

With people currently isolated, the use of technology is intensifying for multi-venue events, webinars, streams, apps, virtual and augmented reality, and more. But even though information is shared from participants to attendees, there's one area that needs improvement: the lack of interaction.

Finally, this crisis has made companies evolve their values, making them more human and emphasizing community. CSR policies will be a key factor from now on, because right now, less than 10% of the CSR policies mentioned only count when proposals are submitted and aren't decisive.