This blog is for motivational and keynote speakers, as well as event planners, and anyone else in business that might need some ‘hope’ that we’re going to come out of this crazy COVID-19 time and we’re going to be a-okay in the events space.

This morning waking up, that was the question on my mind, it’s a valid question, speaking is my job and it’s suddenly being threatened with all my work being cancelled.

Three weeks ago, I had a lot of big events lined up all year round.

One by one, each event got in touch and cancelled, dropping like flies. And when one fly dropped, I was just waiting for the next one to drop. And it did, spectacularly well.

Emails to my lovely assistant Bee, were written like,

So sorry to do this, but the event has been cancelled. Also, apologies that we haven’t got round to signing the contract or paying the invoice yet. So can we just get back in touch at a later date?

Yeah, I know. There were plenty of head splat moments.

As each email popped in and each day evolved, the question that kept occurring was, ‘is this really happening?’

Today, it’s hit me, the corona virus is literally happening and my work for an entire year is cancelled – ka-poofed into thin air.

I think what triggered the reality ‘check in’ was that last week a big corporate event that I was flying to the other side of the world to do, was cancelled, and it wasn’t happening till October – 6 months AWAY!

Boom. There it was. Event planners were now thinking about their events more than 6 months in-advanced, and were cancelling.

As I said, that October event was a big one and I knew there were top level people making solid well educated decisions.

That’s when I knew we were in this COVID-19 for the long haul. Potentially years.

 

So will people right now be booking motivational speakers during the COVID-19 period?

 

That is the question, but it’s not a simple answer.

Can you imagine creating a public event and asking people to attend right now?

You’d be publicly hung and rightly so, staying in doors actually saves lives.

Swiftly moving on to the next question…

 

Will event planners be booking motivational speakers for public events at the end of this year?

 

Maybe? Maybe not? If they are, they’ll have to be socially distanced. And whoever is making that decision will know that there’s a huge risk involved and that it might not be able to go ahead as the virus might still be floating around.

Next question, we’re piecing this together quickly…

 

Would it be possible for an event planner to be booking a motivational speaker for next year at a public conference?

 

I’d say ‘yes’! How do I know?

The speaking agency who is managing the big booking (the gig on the other side of the world) has just been rebooked and confirmed for September 2021.

Remember, the people that are making this decision for the conference, know their s**t (excuse my French!).

So there’s hope for us yet that the world will shift once again back to normality, somewhat.

I haven’t quite finished yet though, as I have more good news and more hope!

 

Booking a motivational speaker virtually through Skype or Zoom:

 

There’s definitely a shift with the times where companies still want motivation (well, they’ll probably want it more than ever now!), even if they can’t get a speaker in-person to speak to their staff.

About 50% of all my bookings pivoted to zoom and microsoft teams to motivate staff through a camera lens. I know? Motivational speaking down a camera lens, and hearing nothing back from an audience. Scary or what?

I’m now over 15 virtual talks down and I’m not going to lie, every single one has made me want to poop my pants. It’s a challenge, cracking out funny stories only to hear nothing back and having to believe your funny, but hey ho, it’s working and the feedback is nearly as good as doing the talks in person. It’s crazy!

 

Final words:

 

Anyhow, I’ve probably talked a little too much, but hey ho, I hope this has been useful for you.

For me, I’m in a lucky position that I don’t need to chase the next pay cheque, so I’m not going to ‘chase work’, I’m just going to go with the flow and if I’m needed, I’ll crack out my Adventureman suit and blast my powers virtually through the internet.

My heart really goes out to you, if you are chasing the next pay cheque and I’m sending a whole lotta love your way!

There’s one thing for sure, that the world is coming together more than ever, and there’s not better hope than that to get all down and dirty and ultra resilient if we need to! I do believe this could be the future, so much so that I now have a dedicated page as a virtual keynote speaker, it’s ‘a thing’ and I genuinely believe this will be the future, so if you’re a speaker, or you work in the events space, I think it’s time to get your geeky tech on as the event space is going virtual.

 

Here’s a video of me as a Virtual Keynote Speaker:

 

 

Adventureman, over and out! x