About six months ago, when the reality of the long-term pandemic set in for us, we made the decision at Sequence to fully embrace virtual events. Much of our live event experience was rooted in technical production, and so we were fortunate to have a roadmap to success through virtual. The opportunity was there for us to continue to work with clients to bring brands and messages to life through digital experiences, and for the sake of the company and our team we had to take it. The ambitious decision to lean-in to virtual also came with the reality of putting our love for live events on the back burner. While it would have been easy to spend time waxing nostalgic on live events, our undivided attention needed to be focused on forging a path ahead with virtual.
While COVID-19 has had a significant impact on so many types of businesses, perhaps none have been harder hit than live events, a 1 trillion dollar industry that has essentially been shuttered. Hundreds of thousands have lost jobs, including colleagues, partners and good friends. We haven’t spent much time writing about it or talking about it over the past couple of months, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been constantly on our minds and hearts.
Yesterday’s news on the reopening of NYC indoor dining is not only critical progress for restaurants, but for the live events industry as well. Questions remain, of course, but it’s a small step in the direction of bringing people back together in a physical space to share in an experience, and that’s why we all got into the events business in the first place.
So while we’re continuing to proudly push forward with a focus on virtual for the time being, we stand in solidarity with our entire live event industry family around the world. We can’t wait to be reunited with our true passion and love for live.