We’ve always believed in bringing an equal mix of our heads and our hearts to our work. Every day we get to pour both sides of ourselves into doing what we love, and at every finish line we get the thrill of seeing it all come together in a live experience that connects a community of people. It’s hard to imagine anything more fulfilling than that.
Over the past several weeks, like all of you, we’ve personally and professionally undergone massive change, and made difficult decisions. We’ve felt anxiety and even fear for ourselves, our families, friends, and colleagues, and our local and global communities. All of that is very real, and very valid. But our heads and our hearts have been training for this, whether we knew it or not, and so have yours.
So while we won’t say it’s business as usual these days, we will say we’re definitely not going anywhere. We’ve planned, assessed, reassessed, and adjusted, and we’ll keep doing that as the situation continues to change and evolve. From the comfort of our home offices, we’ll continue to reach out – after all, we’ve got work to do. Today we’re putting the full strength of our heads and our hearts into working with our industry and community on opportunities to grow, adapt, create, and plan for the future.
As we move forward together, we want to use our platforms to explore the incredible resilience and united front that we’re seeing all around us. We want to take this chance to have conversations about what’s next. It’s time to get innovative and to reset; to reimagine the future of our industry, our city, our province. We all have an important and unique perspective, and we’d love to hear yours – What are you seeing? Who’s inspiring you? What opportunities are on the other side of this? What do you want to talk about as we move forward together?
Let’s stay active in our associations, using them as a hub for education, a channel for conversation, and a way to stay up-to-date. Let’s advocate for our industry, and actively map out our collective path forward.
But most importantly, let’s remember that what matters most, now and always, is people. So many individuals and families are dealing with extremely difficult realities, which in some cases includes the loss of someone they love. Let’s hold each other up. Let’s reach out. Let’s remember the most vulnerable among us who may not have a voice, and make sure that they are heard and supported. Let’s choose the long-term good of our community, and rally around one another. Whatever you have to give, give it, and whatever your support system is, lean on it. We’ll all need to do both from time to time in the weeks and months ahead.
In extreme circumstances, we each get to choose how we are going to react and who we are going to be. We have nothing but faith in you – our community of event professionals, friends, colleagues, and peers – to make that choice with integrity, optimism, and courage. Maybe we let our hearts take the lead on this one.
