‘We Organize Events, We Don’t Mass Gather’: UK Government Urged To Differentiate Between Events

The Business Visits & Events Partnership (BVEP), a UK umbrella organization for the business visits and events sector, has called on government to stop tarring all types of events as “mass gatherings.”

A briefing document from BVEP, sent to the UK’s department for digital, culture, media and sport, and first obtained by conference-news.co.uk, suggests, “that there should be a distinction between ‘organised events’, such as conferences, exhibitions and cultural events, from ‘mass gatherings’.”

PR agency davies tanner has been working a number of clients to promote this concept. Its managing director Rober Wright, provided Pollstar with the following comment:

“We organize events, we don’t mass gather. The term ‘mass gatherings’ is something that has been quoted by politicians since the lockdown began. But, for those working within the business events sector, it could cause problems further down the road as the government considers easing the current lockdown restrictions. 

“Mass gatherings generally relate to large scale occasions, such as sporting events, celebrations or parties. In these cases, it is very difficult to implement an efficient procedure for social distancing, which will almost certainly continue to be a requirement, or to ‘track and trace’ through contact information. 

“We have been working with The Business Visits and Events Partnership (BVEP) to advise the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to differentiate business events from the term ‘mass gatherings.’ 

We are advocating that there should be a distinction between ‘organized events,’ such as conferences, meetings, incentives and exhibitions from ‘mass gatherings,’ as when lockdown restrictions are eased, the exact words used will matter, and impact how quickly the events industry will recover.”