Respondents from across the UK answered questions on anticipated timescales for the return of specific types of events, the triggers for a return of events, and their views on the importance of video and telephone conferencing in the coming months.
A summary of the questions and the most popular answer given by respondents follows:
| Survey question | Most popular answer(s) | % giving most popular answer(s) |
| Thinking about your own role, what changes have you seen to the amount of time you’re spending on event booking / planning (including managing cancellation and rescheduling of events) since 1 March 2020 | Less of my time is spent on event booking / planning | 78% |
| When would you next expect to plan and book corporate events of any type | In 4-6 months |
30% |
| When would you next expect to hold training events | In 4 – 6 months
|
28% (of those with responsibility for this type of event) |
| When would you next expect to hold conferences | I don’t expect to be doing this for the foreseeable future
|
28% (of those with responsibility for this type of event) |
| When would you next expect to hold team building events | In 9-12 months
|
33% (of those with responsibility for this type of event) |
| When would you next expect to hold events for under 10 people | In 4 – 6 months
|
32% (of those with responsibility for this type of event) |
| When would you next expect to hold events for 11-100 people | In 6-9 months
|
24% (of those with responsibility for this type of event) |
| I don’t expect to be doing this for the foreseeable future
|
24% (of those with responsibility for this type of event) | |
| When would you next expect to hold events over 100 people | I don’t expect to be doing this for the foreseeable future
|
31% (of those with responsibility for this type of event) |
| What do you think will be the main factors triggering you to next book an event (select as many as applicable) * | A reduction of the lockdown restrictions imposed by government
|
80% |
| What role will video conferencing / telephone conferencing play in your event plans in the next 12 months | It will form the majority of our activity with a small amount of face to face events
|
44% |
| What is the most important thing venues can do to help you in the coming months (select as many as applicable)
|
Offering flexibility of policies and T&Cs including around cancellation | 64% |
| Social distancing transparency and reassurances | 62% | |
| Hygiene and cleanliness transparency and reassurances | 60% |
* other factors suggested by respondents were: government giving assurance, a vaccine, very low infection rates, availability of hotel accommodation, individual concerns of attendees / delegates, return to other services of the business, weariness with Zoom webinars, a need to network and meet
Claire Leonard, Regional Head of Sales, North West at The Jockey Club said “with all the changes and uncertainty we’ve seen we wanted to find out from our event booker customers how they saw the next months developing so we can be best placed to help them. The survey results were really interesting and although I wasn’t surprised to learn that bookers were more concerned with flexibility than price, I hadn’t expected the percentage who were looking for flexibility to be quite so high.
“We think the survey results will be helpful to the C&E industry as we work together to resume holding and hosting events safely. The findings have also helped us shaping our flexible offering and in creating our C&E Assurance Document for our event bookers, to give them confidence in booking their next event with us”
Jockey Club Venues offer conference and events facilities at the best known and most esteemed group of racecourses in the UK including Cheltenham, Newmarket, Epsom Downs, Aintree and Kempton Park. As one of the first industries to open up after the Covid-19 lockdown and the first sporting industry in the UK to resume competing, teams at The Jockey Club had early and extensive experience of managing the new, stringent hygiene, social distancing and testing regulations.