We all suffered during the pandemic, in immeasurable and innumerable ways, and it isn’t over yet. The events industry took a massive hit alongside the hospitality industry, and it became evident as we saw our peers in the London events industry fold and disband throughout 2020.

Here at Powerhouse, we managed to remain strong, and keep the momentum we had gained in 2018 and 2019, and carried it over to July 19th, 2021, or as it became dubbed, Freedom Day. Here we’re going to explain what we did, and what helped us maintain our success despite the most devastating thing to happen to the events industry in history.

The Comeback

Coming back after a 16-month hiatus felt strange, the flight cases were unfamiliar, the locks, keys and codes for our warehouse had to be relearnt, but our furloughed staff were happy to be back.

A few weeks before the country reopened, we thankfully bought back our employees from furlough, whilst still making a loss, to go through our flight-cases, dust off the moving heads, PAT test equipment, and re-familiarise ourselves with everything. Without doing this, we may have been caught off guard, as unbeknownst to us, a flood of postponed events was coming our way.

Admittedly, the weeks leading up to and proceeding Freedom Day felt like a gamble, had we opened our doors up too soon? Did people want to have events? Would we be remembered? But surely enough, by the end of July, and the beginning of August 2021, the phones steadily got busier, the quotes and invoices started coming in-and-out of our mailboxes more and more.

The brides started to call us, excitedly telling us how their Mayfair wedding was back on, and that they wanted to go bigger and better than their quotes before lockdown, then the grooms called us asking us to reduce the quote, then the brides calling back-up to tell us to ignore the grooms, suddenly, the balance we’d lost over the pandemic came back.

Regardless of if they wanted a single light or a full technical production with stage, backdrop, sound systems and lighting rigs, we were just happy to help them fulfil their day. It’d been a feeling we’d missed over the lockdown, and to just hear how happy the client was made our day.

This is a key element in our business, we do not disregard a client based on budget, a client with a hundred-pound invoice, versus a client with ten times the amount gets the same treatment. A good review, verbal or online, can carry your business much further than monetary discrimination can. You never know who your client knows, or who your client will recommend you to, it is imperative that you maintain good business relationships with everybody you encounter, especially in the reputation-built events industry. Without this viewpoint, our return from the pandemic could have been lacklustre; luckily, we have built a positive reputation among our community, and among our peers, allowing us to persevere through truly turbulent times.

The Maintenance

We needed to first figure out if the surge of events after Freedom Day was an anomaly, or something sustainable, so we could allocate our resources appropriately to fit the most likely future scenario. To do this we measured a few variables:

1.     How many of the events were just one offs? You only have a Mitzvah once, you only have a birthday once a year, and you only get married once (well…)

2.     How many of our customers were new, and how many were with us before the pandemic?

3.     How are the public feeling? What is the zeitgeist? What is the cost of living, the rate of inflation, new taxes, or costs on everyday people?

Starting with number 1; we had to work out the ratio of events which were one off’s, versus, which events were recurring regularly. For instance, how many were weddings, versus how many were from a corporate client with which we were on their list of approved suppliers? We then took this information, and added another layer, which customers were new, and which were recurring? This was an important variable to add, as even though a wedding can be a one-off for a couple, the wedding organiser that booked us or recommended us can be seen as a recurring customer. And lastly, how was the public feeling?

Whilst this generally doesn’t affect our larger events which represent life events, it affected our smaller clientele, the DJ’s who need a financially stable public to party, the event organisers who need a community with an amount of disposable income, and the home-partygoers who need a COVID-free peer group to attend the party in their marquee.

We carefully weighed up all these variables to decide where best to allocate our resources. We ended up deciding that the outcome was positive, we had a lot of recurring clients, a wealth of word-of-mouth unique inquiries, and a public that was being vaccinated into the Autumn. Whilst we acknowledged some anomalous growth due to the unique situation the events industry was in, we understood the context of our clientele to make the decision to invest in two fronts.

Firstly, we decided to invest into new equipment. Whilst we had been doing so in 2018 and 2019 – it’s safe to say nobody made any investments in 2020, let alone a business that sits so heavily in the events industry. So, we spoke to our trade suppliers, and made an educated decision to invest in new sound systems, the latest moving heads, and ancillary equipment to support these items. Of course, we projected our ROI on these new investments and booked them in for a few jobs before we made the decision to acquire them. Whilst this investment has proven itself to be a sound financial decision, it also allowed us to bolster our reputation in the market sector which we reside in, in-turn, bringing in new inquiries and more work.



Secondly, we chose to invest just as much in our staff. After all, retaining staff is a two-way street, some companies make the mistake of treating staff as property, but we endeavoured to keep our staff as rested as possible, despite working in such a physically intensive and mentally stimulating industry. We did this in many ways, from small things such as reminding our staff to actually use their holiday days, making sure that employees who worked late night had enough rest to come back to work feeling like themselves - avoiding burnout was our main concern.

As well as this, we took our staff on trips, work-related trips, but fun trips nonetheless; PLASA 2021 comes to mind, which was a team-bonding experience as much as it was a trade show. Then we also took time out during the mid-week dulls to bring staff in, to train them on lighting desks, mixing desks and the ins-and-outs of radio mic logistics. This led our staff to become the most knowledgeable people on-site, allowing us to again add to the ineffable, the reputation which we strive to build. It is an immeasurable metric, but probably the most useful thing in the events industry.

The Continuation

Omicron was another jab to the events industry, as per usual, bringing the wave of 2021 crashing down in mid-December, UK politics aside, it was an inevitable occurrence in an uncertain world. You have to take things in your stride within the events industry, you have to keep moving, and continually keep up those social connections.

Whilst work has picked up already since the great return, we found the period between then and mid-December to do some much needed logistical realignment in the back of the house. We did our annual stock-take, we threw away old, unused and discontinued equipment, made space in the warehouse, deep cleaned and polished all of our fixtures, and re-organised our office and warehouse from top to bottom. We did things that you just can’t do when you have 3 weddings, 2 mitzvah and a corporate function to get ready for, along with 20 dry hires for the weekend. We have to take each step in our stride, constantly re-assessing, constantly re-aligning and consistently learning the lessons that the events industry wishes to teach us.

Contact us today if you’re having an event in the London or surrounding areas, and need technical support, in any context.