As you must be aware of by now, the easing of the UK’s lockdown rules has been delayed by 4 weeks. This is due to the governments increasing concerns over variants and the rise in infection rates. To quote a recent BBC article, ‘Covid: Lockdown easing in England delayed to 19 July‘…
“Prime Minister Boris Johnson said there would be a review after two weeks and he was “confident” the delay would not need to be longer than four weeks. However, he told a Downing Street press conference he could not rule out the possibility the date could be pushed back further. Scientists advising the government had warned of a ‘significant resurgence’ in people needing hospital treatment for Covid-19 if stage four of easing the lockdown went ahead on 21 June.”
However, the delay is causing widespread and significant problems. Despite a relaxation in the number of wedding guest who can attend, there are remaining fears over the future of the wedding industry itself. Wedding planners are losing money, and many have gone out of business. The Derbyshire News website reports on a particular planners plight, ‘Derbyshire wedding planner’s ‘nightmare’ over lockdown delay‘…
“A Derbyshire wedding planner is concerned for her livelihood due to the delay in lockdown restrictions being eased. Shardlow-based wedding planner Sophie Stew recently faced losses of more than £60,000 over a two-week period due to last-minute changes to restrictions.“
In the latest statement from UK Alliance of Wedding Planners, their founder explains the ‘difficulties’ that their members have been going through. From ‘UK Weddings Update June 2021‘,
“Limiting weddings to just 30 was not only disrespectful it was incredibly damaging to our industry. Amongst the first sector to close and one of the last to reopen. To say we have been a forgotten sector of the economy is an understatement.“
The organisers of the Internation Confex show have announced that they are rescheduling from 22nd & 23rd of June to 1st & 2nd of September. This has been reported by many sites, including Conference & Meeting World, ‘International Confex statement: See you in September‘. From the full statement from the organisers Mash Media,
“While we are logistically ready to run in a variety of formats and we take our responsibility as being the first event out extremely seriously, we take our responsibility to all our stakeholders even more so, and as we cannot guarantee the event the exhibitors deserve and that all the visitors from the entire MICE industry wants, we have decided to delay the event by a few weeks more.“
Thought it’s not all gloom doom, there are one or two bright spots. For example, this from Exhibition Globe, ‘UK’s first post-lockdown conference arranged by ACC Liverpool‘,
“The inauguration event of the Good Business Festival’s, Change Business for Good, was the first in-person live business occasion to occur without Corona virus gauges set up. Since then, ACC Liverpool facilitated the UK’s first post-lockdown business summit. The meeting in co-operation with the Event Research Programme, focused on educating audiences on how to get back to where we were with the gradual uplifting of the restrictions set under the Covid safety protocol.”
To end on a lighter note…
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