The events industry is extremely diverse as it encompasses sporting, cultural, fundraising, corporate and private celebrations. Yet one thing all events have in common is that audiences are typically using their discretionary income to attend them.

This can be challenging for events when happening in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.

SCEIA brought together a panel of experts from across the events sectors at Solbar in Maroochydore to discuss the challenges of, and successful tactics for, operating in these economically challenging times.

The panel featured:

•       Festivals – Marc Pico, Big Pineapple

•       Venues – Melissa O’Bryan, Solbar; Bronwyn Edinger, Events Centre Caloundra

•       Sports – Daniel Cullinan, Melbourne Storm & SC Lightning; Mel West, Atlas Events, Sunshine Coast Marathon

•       Weddings - Julie-Ann Brown, Cloud Nine Weddings

For the 83 industry peeps in attendance there was plenty of insights to digest and questions raised from the floor (see below) with many also enjoying the great Solbar food and beverages afterwards for lively networking and further discussion.

We were wowed by a stunning presentation from the Australian Wearable Arts Festival and a big shout out also to up and coming UniSC music student Ella Mathison who kept us entertained with great guitar and vocals for background vibe during the networking.

Comments raised by our audience for further discussion included:

Thank you panel. Awesome. What trends are you seeing in events on the SC? Is a lack of F&B consumption part of it, if so how does this impact you?

I’m interested in what events businesses expect from young employees and expect them to know.

Regarding your individual event, how do you weight your value on engagement between local and out of market visitors?

How important are grant’s and funding to you? Are you aware there is an Emerging Events Fund at council?

How do event organisers apply for support and sponsorship through Council and what are the basic guidelines and what sorts of events because it seems like nearly all of it are sports events

How can digital agencies and marketing freelancers break the barrier of marketing investment for small and large event organizations, given that marketing is often the least invested area, typically reserved for larger organizations that can afford and measure their marketing efforts?

Keep an eye out for SCEIA posts on our socials and blogs on this site regarding these topics and the inclusion of many of them in our future industry forums.