Jellybean Concept Events on lockdown
Amanda Rabinowitz is the founding owner of an experiential and immersive events company, Jellybean Concept Events. As an events company the team - as a collective - has more than 20 years experience in hosting many private and corporate events and they have learned a thing or two along the way. They specialise in concept design and creating experiences at said events as well as mall activations and corporate experiences, to make sure the host is the talk of the town!
Amanda Rabinowitz
Covid-19 has put a halt on all incoming work for the next months. Now what?
How has Covid-19 affected Jellybean?
To be frank - we were caught completely off guard. It has felt like a hurricane which concluded with our floor being ripped out from below us! We had been planning events for our March/April season since last year and having a jam-packed Easter season ahead the team was ready to take on our busiest year yet! Covid-19 completely derailed us and fast!
However, with every storm, there is a rainbow and we are back on our creative horses coming up with exciting strategies and new offerings.
What are the pros and cons of the aforementioned?
If you are in events you love being busy! Busy is the essence of events, early mornings, lack of sleep (if any sleep) and all of a sudden when the events come to a standstill you actually don’t know what to do with yourself.
The positive is it’s forced us to strategize, not take ourselves too seriously and also just take a chill pill. Every single industry has been affected in some way or another, it’s not just us. We can’t foresee what the future holds and when these “postponed” events will happen again.
This leads us to the cons of the unknown. We had a system which worked. An offering of immersive experiences is a tricky one to do without physical interaction. However, in saying this - we are using this time to experiment, learn and play!
What do you think the next 365 days will look for the events industry?
That’s a hard one as I don’t think anyone can give a direct answer. Many events companies have gone online to do virtual conferences. This is not our niche at the moment. For now, we are remaining engaged with our followers, staying in touch with our clients and seeing what our clients need from us to come out of this crisis.
How can clients help the events industry and its suppliers?
It's been amazing to watch the amount of support that is happening between all industries and who were once competitors are now working as an alliance. I think as an events industry we would need to join forces and support each other more than ever before to keep this industry alive. The same goes for clients. Giving event industry experts an opportunity to share new offerings or potential ideas going forward would be a starting point. Cash flow and keeping our businesses alive is a big one. Larger corporates to pay event suppliers within a shorter payment frame would really help.
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