Good News: Events Reopening Guidelines unveiled by EEMA as Post-Pandemic SOPs in 2020

A series of actions have been taken by the apex Event Management body of India, EEMA in the last few months after the onset of COVID 19. The pandemic has adversely affected the event management industry across the globe.

Some of the major steps taken by EEMA are as follows:

1. The Events and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) recently conducted a member survey with 170 companies that were affected by COVID-19. The report highlights the loss of business, the revenue impacted, employers affected and the funds required in the long run to attain stability.
2. The findings of this report have been shared with “The Government of India” and the “Ernst & Young” team.
3. EEMA had filed a petition appealing to the Government of India to intervene with measures to support the lives of the 60 million Indians the event industry employs – directly and indirectly.
4. EEMA released a COVID 19 General Advisory for EEMA members to minimize the risk of spreading the coronavirus.
5. EEMA elected Roshan Abbas as the new president in EEMA Election 2020.
6. EEMA urged the government to save events through social media with trending hashtag #Opensafeeventstosaveevents
7. And finally,

EEMA unveiled Events Reopening Guidelines as Post-Pandemic SOPs for eight types of events.

As the new NEC took over the charge of EEMA leadership board on 27th June 2020 under the leadership of Roshan Abbas. It was much expected from EEMA and also it was a priority task for the newly elected committee to come up with Events Reopening Guidelines to bring the event industry to live on the ground.

The Event and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) has formed a COVID Task Force that was supposed to create SOPs for various kinds of events and experiential activities in India, which can be followed by the industry as events reopening guidelines.

On 20th August 2020, the new guidelines were announced through the webinar as a virtual medium. It helped them to connect all EEMA members on a single platform and ask them to take an “EEMA Safety Pledge”.

Siddhartha Chaturvedi, NEC General Secretary, EEMA headed the Task Force comprised of 15 subject matter experts. The task force comprehending the big names of the Indian Event Industry as core members.

1. Ankur Kalra- Vibgyor Brand Services
2. Arpita Gandhi- Wedding line
3. A Balarambabu- Violet Events
4. Chanchal Sanyal- QED Productions Pvt Ltd,
5. Gunjan Arya- OML Entertainment,
6. Khantil Mehta- Gobananas,
7. Nikhil Aggarwal- Lallooji and Sons,
8. Oum Pradutt- Phase 1 Events Pvt Ltd,
9. Pawan Bansal- Jagran Solutions,
10. Pramod Lunnawat- Millenium Events,
11. Raghav Roy Kapoor- Livewire Events,
12. Sanjay Kaul- Impact Communications,
13. Sumant Jaykrishnan- Sumant Jaykrishnan Design Pvt Ltd,
14. Vanessa Williams- Concept Conferences Pvt Ltd
15. Vijay Bokadia- Moksh Events Pvt Ltd.

“I thank all the members of the covid task force team for putting in so much hard work. The entire team brings in an experience of 300 plus years in the events domain and has come up with a bible to conduct safe events in these pandemic times”,  said Siddhartha Chaturvedi, General Secretary-NEC, EEMA.

Synopsis of Events Reopening Guidelines by EEMA for Post-Pandemic event management activities

• The guidelines are mainly based upon the 4 COVID Safety Checklist
  1. Pre- Production & Planning
  2. Pre- Event Communications & Setup
  3. Practices during the event
  4. Post Event
• The SOPs released by EEMA as events reopening guidelines are mainly focused on following 8 types of events
  1. Weddings / Social Events
  2. Corporate Events
  3. Corporate Activations
  4. Large Conferences
  5. Government / Large Scale Public / Political Event
  6. Rural Marketing
  7. Religious Events
  8. Music Festivals / Concerts

• Weddings / Social Events – SOP covers pre, during and post-event guidelines for the venue, production crew, F&B, Guests & Hosts, console & green room norms, backstage & miking precautions and miscellaneous vendors.
• Corporate Events – SOP covers guidelines for pre-production & planning, pre-event communication & set-up, practices during the event and post-event measures.
• Corporate Activations – SOP covers pre-activation, during activation and post-activation guidelines. It also comprises of activation checklist for mall activations, school/college activations, roadshows, corporate parks, RWA activations and retail activations.
• Large Conferences – SOP also covers guidelines for pre-production & planning, pre-event communication & set-up, practices during the event and post-event measures.
• Government / Large Scale Public / Political Event- SOP covers major guidelines for risk assessment exercise for mass gatherings from venue management to the responsibility of organizers.
• Rural Marketing- SOP covers guidelines for pre-event, intra-event and post-event phased approach to safety measures.
• Religious Events- SOP covers guidelines for pre-production & planning, pre-event communication & set-up, practices during the event and post-event measures and also consists attendee/devotees briefing & guidelines to ensure their safety during the event.
• Music Festivals / Concerts- SOP covers guidelines for attendee briefing, artist briefing, seating/standing arrangements and venue management consisting of all the other respective guidelines.
• Instead of all the guidelines, EEMA also formed a COVID Risk – Mitigation, Audit & Compliance Committee (CR-MACC) which is basically a team lead by a member of the Event Planner‟s Team comprising of: Event Planner representative, Venue representative, Client representative and EEMA representative.

Additionally, EEMA plans to conduct a series of workshops to ensure that these SOPs are followed by event companies, clients, and various other stakeholders.

Download the Event Reopening Guidelines by EEMA, Click Here

Disclaimer– This is not a law or guidelines released by any governing body. We are still not allowed to work with more than 50 people including event team, catering, photographers and other miscellaneous vendors. This is only a representation made to the government to allow us to do events by ensuring them that if we follow these SOPs, we can minimize the risk of spread of the virus and can do safe events.

Do you believe that these guidelines will be helpful in bringing back the normal days of live events? Let us know in the comment section

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Wiz Bunny

Wiz Bunny is a creative wizard who is an Event Enthusiast and a Passionate Blogger. A Hustler who always finds a way to gets what he believes in. He loves to guide people who are willing to start their career in event management. Through his blog posts, he always tries to mentor aspiring event professionals to achieve their goals in life.