The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Damaged the Events Industry. But Opportunities Arise from the Darkest Moments

There’s no denying the pandemic has wreaked havoc on the events industry — whether it be concert venues, conference centers, or sports arenas.

In fact, 96% of live event professionals have reported cancelling events due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A large portion even believe the pandemic will continue to negatively impact their business for years to come.

Indeed, COVID-19 has impacted almost all aspects of life. Yet even in a crisis, opportunity arises. In our personal lives, the pandemic may have motivated us to rethink what we want out of our lives, and to live more intently. It may have helped you make a career change you’ve always wanted, or go back to school.

Within the events industry, the pandemic has presented a similar opportunity. We now have an opportunity to rebuild the events ecosystem so that it drives innovations, distributes value fairly, protects content creators appropriately, and ensures everything from financing to ticketing is efficient.

This is why we created Backstage — the crypto revolution in the event industry. We aim to solve the challenges in the events industry with our blockchain ecosystem and fluid cryptocurrency.

Impact of Covid on the events industry

COVID-19 has had a deep impact on global events across different sectors, such as culture, trade, and sports. In 2020, the pandemic did the most economic damage, causing the world economy to shrink by 3.4% (or $2.87 trillion less in economic output).

Yet the most impacted sector has been the events and entertainment industries. The virus has especially impacted event owners, entrepreneurs and organizers, as well as performers and attendees. The restrictions imposed due to the pandemic have also impacted private events, like weddings, exhibitions, conferences and so on.

The pandemic continues, and we hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. The good news is we are returning to a new normal. People are once again attending shows, concerts, plays, sports games and more.

For us at Backstage, this presents a significant opportunity.

First, the events industry remains large — with plenty of room for growth post-pandemic. According to research, the event industry size was $1.135 trillion in 2019 and was expected to reach $1.553 trillion by 2028, a compound growth rate of 11.2%.

Note that events include conferences and exhibitions, corporate events and seminars, promotions and fundraisers, music and art performances, sports competitions, festivals, trade shows, and product launches.

A current issue is the lack of a unified ecosystem. Therefore, a solution like Backstage, which brings event finance, payments, intellectual property, ticketing and more onto the blockchain, has tremendous potential.

Second, after any recession, there’s the opportunity to build anew. Previously, the events industry had allowed too much control to large corporations, like Ticketmaster (darn those Ticketmaster fees!).

We need a solution that takes the industry towards a better future. Backstage can solve long-standing issues with the events industry, like ticketing fees and financing sources. With the generation of BKS tokens, Backstage founders will provide the event industry with technologies devoted to financing and digitizing the industry.

We’re happy to see that the events industry seems ready for a crypto solution. See our post on the arrival of crypto to sports.