Events are dead. Long live events!

As South Africa marks the anniversary of the first lockdown implemented as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, CN&CO Events reflects on a year that changed the events industry completely.

At the start of 2020 our events team had a full year planned with large-scale conferences, corporate launches, music concerts with large international stars that we were bringing to South Africa and training events that spanned many industries. Our events team returned from Cape Town as the first wave of Covid-19 hit South Africa and two weeks later our country was placed under lockdown. 

For a business that was just hitting its major milestones and which had massive ambitions to change the events industry, the timing was disastrous. Our future was uncertain as all of our live events had to be cancelled and the calendar was suddenly cleared. Only essential staff were allowed to work. The CN&CO team hosted one final “braai” for the team before the lockdown commenced and this is where our digital journey started! Often the best ideas are unplanned, after all ….

Our creative designer, Francois Joubert, and CN&CO founding partner, Carel Nolte, came up with the name “InsureTalk” for our very own virtual insurance conference which we were planning to host and keep the industry connected.

We launched the first edition within two weeks of lockdown and the event took place on 14 April, nearly a year ago to the day. This paved the way for our new journey, not only as live event specialists but also an events team who could help our clients take on the unknown world of virtual events. 

Our country did not make much use of virtual event platforms before the pandemic and this was a completely new way of connecting for all our clients and their respective target markets. The CN&CO Events team worked hard to offer cost-effective ways for various companies to connect with their clients that enabled them to ensure that their brands stayed top of mind while the world took a bit of a break.

We still remember the stress of that very first InsureTalk sponsored by ITOO. We were not sure if people in South Africa would support such a new concept, but we knew we had to just do it. Today this series is one of the country’s top virtual events taking place monthly, with more than 2000 registrations at each event. 

The CN&CO Events team has hosted more than 500 virtual, hybrid and live events in the past year, but let’s take a moment to reflect on some of the highlights of 2020.

InsureTalk has shown continuous growth and is now seen as one of the leading online insurance conferences in South Africa. This series will also celebrate its first birthday in April. Make sure you register for InsureTalk11 free here – cnandcoevents.com/insuretalk

Our events team has worked with various law firms and financial institutions over the past year to help them connect with their clients and give an update on various financial matters.

CN&CO Events ran the very first JSE virtual listing for SATRIX. It was great being part of this milestone for both SATRIX and the JSE.

Bianca Le Grange is well known in South Africa and performs at many of our events. We collaborated with Bianca on this project where she wanted to connect with her loyal fans from across the world

If there is one thing our creative team can pull off it is making a webinar way more exciting than just another Zoom meeting. These cool sessions were done for our client EasyEquities. We ensured that their staff members enjoyed laid back Friday party sessions virtually.

As an initiative to support the local LGBTQ+ community, we created the Boots The House Down Party event, where all proceeds went to the artists who performed at each edition.

Many of the CN&CO clients are from the investment industry and we hosted quite a number of webinars relating to topics from this industry in South Africa. One of these successful series was hosted by Anthea Gardner from Cartesian Talks. This series consisted of eight episodes and helped thousands of attendees find out more about the investment market.

Our events team hosted many webinars and virtual events relating to the insurance industry and helping some of the country’s top insurance companies stay connected with their clients and brokers. This helped them give industry updates, train staff members and give virtual information to clients.

Staff wellness became a massive priority during the pandemic as companies realised the need to find creative ways for staff members to interact with each other on a personal level even though they are working remotely. We hosted many motivational and interactive sessions for clients over the past year.

Our creative team can create pre-recorded content for our clients as well which can be used as promotional material on their YouTube channels, WhatsApp messages or marketing mailers.

As the lockdown regulations eased, our creative team also worked on amazing hybrid events. These events allowed for a certain amount of attendees to attend the events live at a venue as well as virtually from the comfort of their homes.

The CN&CO Events team can assist our clients with complete conference management, infrastructure, sound & AV, design, virtual streams and pop-up studios that will ensure that any event, no matter how big or small can be executed with precision. 

Contact our team today to find out how we can help you with your next event …. visit www.cnandcoevents.com or send us an email on Llewellyn@cnandco.com

A year on and Carel says: “I am extremely proud of what the head of CN&CO Events, Llewellyn du Plessis, and his team have achieved. Their grit, determination, passion, creative smarts, tenacity and desire to always do the best for clients, enabled them to weather the Covid storm.

“I am even more proud of the fact that during this year we have provided work to suppliers who otherwise would have been dependent on handouts.

“Thank you to each and every client and person who supported our events. And here’s to a real life drink when next we meet!”