A year that will surely go down as one of the worst for so many!  A year that has tested us and brought home the true meaning of the word resilience.  And, while we are on words, we’ll all be happy if we never hear ‘unprecedented’ ‘social distancing’ or ‘pivot’ again!

However, we are very proud to say we didn’t sit back in our tinfoil hats and expect live events to return as normal.  We threw ourselves head first into the world of virtual, and although we CANNOT WAIT for live events to return, we knew that we had to become experts in this new technology for the sake of our industry and our clients who still need to meet, engage, communicate and innovate.

And guess what? It wasn’t so bad! Our team has embraced learning new skills such as broadcasting, AV and virtual event strategy, and we see this as only further strengthening our client offering.

Upon reflection, there is actually a long list of positives and incredible achievements that we are very much grateful for: 

  • We won a Meetings & Events Australia award and were finalists in two categories in the Australian Event Awards!!
  • We moved on from Zoom and became OnAir (our fully interactive virtual event platform) experts. The training wheels were officially removed after the delivery of a fully virtual, 60 speaker, multi-stream event complete with exhibition in November (Virtual Cleantech Conference & Exhibition) – receiving a 4.7 out of 5 satisfaction rate!
  • Two of our team have become OnAIR certified virtual event producers
  • Our manager completed an international certification course in Digital Event Strategy 
  • We established our own inhouse broadcast studio –  Studio Nectar
  • We discovered our systems were already set up to allow for a quick pivot to remote, flexible and agile working for our team (thanks Google Workspace!)
  • Our incredible clients have worked with us and supported us over this difficult time.
  • Our suppliers have been in this with us, together, side-by-side supporting each other. 
  • We celebrated a team member’s marriage to her sweetheart 
  • Two new humans joined the Nectar family – welcome Max and Phoenix – our official Corona Kids!
  • Our ‘United Nations’ team (half of whom were not all eligible for jobkeeper) were all retained
  • Baked goods can solve a multitude of problems
  • Our two wellness officers certainly earned their keep 

     

So as we take a well-earned break over the Christmas season we are grateful for so many things, and optimistic that we have left the ‘Annus Horribilis’ for events behind us.  Bring on 2021 – we’re ready for you!