When large parts of the U.S. were effectively shut down in March as the coronavirus spread across the country, some media companies pushed back their in-person events to the fall.
In fact, by now many media companies have pushed back in-person events until 2021 and even then it’s likely to be a wait-and-see approach. The Los Angeles Times, which produces 90 or more events each year, postponed its large in-person offerings during the spring and has yet to make a final call on its event calendar for the remainder of the year and 2021.
It’s understood that both of those will have safety measures in place, like timed entry and capped attendance, contactless entrance, sanitizing stations and social distancing. Popsugar is also finalizing the venues and locations closer to the event dates to give it flexibility due to COVID-19 on-the-ground realities varying across the country.
The Economist Group has four in-person events in Asia and EMEA scheduled to start in October through the end of the calendar year, but it is monitoring the situation closely and is prepared to respond as needed.
The New York Times has also been busy, running 125 virtual events during lockdown with a total audience reach of 800,000. Flood also manages the Times Center, which is in the publisher’s New York office and is where the paper holds many events, and is working on reconfiguring the space to make it appropriate for social distancing.
As for how to monetize virtual events, that’s through sponsorship for The Times. The majority of its in-person events were ticketed, but virtual ones are free. It has maintained some sponsors for certain projects — such as MassMutual, who had committed to a three-part in-person series “Unfinished Work,” which was moved to the virtual space — and also is working with new ones such as PayPal, according to Flood, who added garnering sponsorship is a continuing work in progress.
This event is free for the first time , with The Atlantic also focused on sponsorship rather than ticketing.