The summer of love is coming – those who don’t plan for life post-pandemic will miss out

When we look back on our most important memories, the ones we’ll cherish forever, we’d bet that a lot of them are centred around events. Events are where we had our first kisses, where we made lifelong friends and two summers ago we were able to witness a lot of the most important people in our lives tie the knot and have their first dance. Events are central to the human experience; they really matter.

We are naturally tribal, social creatures, born to make connections and some might say throwing parties is in our nature. There isn’t a culture we’ve discovered that doesn’t come together to celebrate and it’s no surprise that during the pandemic loneliness has risen around 70 per cent.

The great news is that not only are events on their way back, they’re coming back bigger, and better than ever before. It might have been delayed by a year, but it finally looks as though we’ll be entering a Roaring Twenties-style era, if the rise in event planning, by 250 per cent since the government launched the roadmap out of lockdown, is anything to go by.

The last 12 months has been the year from hell for my industry, which encompasses festivals, private parties and weddings, corporate events, conferences and large-scale events such as sports games or concerts. It’s a vast but wildly misunderstood and under-appreciated sector by both the government and the public. It’s worth around £90bn. That’s around £84bn larger than the UK’s film industry and £70bn larger than the UK’s hotel industry, both of which have received government support. The events sector employs around 700,000 people, but it has always struggled to maintain a coherent voice, and it no surprise that events have received little support from ministers throughout 2020.

Events supply company Feast It conducted a survey that showed 60 per cent of event suppliers, including caterers, venues, photographers, marquee companies, florists, bands and many more, believed they would be out of business by summer 2021, with 85 per cent believing they hadn’t received adequate government support. The sad reality is that a lot of suppliers who have put their heart and soul into their businesses aren’t going to be around to take advantage of the boom that’s on its way. But a lot more could have been saved if government support was more comprehensive, and an early decision to underwrite events insurance was made.

Throughout lockdown, our company saw thousands of event enquiries coming in per month, as people optimistically tried to plan for the future, but right now there’s a rush like we’ve never seen before. When the government announced its roadmap out of lockdown, we saw an instant explosion in demand, February was our record month for enquiries. More people booked events through our online platform in the first 48 hours of March than throughout the whole of January.

Many of us have had invitations to occasions already, and there’s a huge rush to book weddings for this summer. Of course, events going ahead are contingent on the road to recovery going as planned, but that hasn’t put brides and grooms off planning. The announcement led to an immediate 85 per cent rise in wedding enquiries, with the average date falling in mid-July. According to Hitched, the majority of these are postponed weddings from 2020, where 70 per cent of couples decided to hold off rather than go ahead with limited numbers. 

The sheer scale of the demand for weddings this summer and in 2022 means that we’re seeing events on all days of the week, so don’t be surprised if you’re getting invites for Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays for the next two or three years. Around 250,000 weddings normally take place every year, and with the delays, there are around 500,000 that are set to be jammed into the next 18 months. We will see back-to-back summers of love. 

On top of all the weddings, we’re also going to be seeing a lot of large parties too, there’s a staggering 630 per cent rise in people planning large scale-parties for birthdays, anniversaries, bah mitzvahs or just for the sake of it. It appears that people are desperate to make up for lost time and get loved ones together to celebrate. As a nation, we’re desperate to get our glad rags on and let go of the stress from the past year.

The UK’s population is estimated to have saved a combined £100bn, as previously noted by Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist. This disposable income is likely contributing to this rush, and the return of events will boost the country’s economic and social recovery.

What this means is that if you’re looking to throw an event this summer or next, it would be sensible to organise it as soon as you can. Venues and suppliers are getting booked up fast, and friends and family are filling up the dates in their diaries. Of course, lots of people will have trepidation around going back to events, but the sheer scale of the demand displays that this is superseded by the desire the celebrate.

This great industry is bouncing back hard, so get booking to avoid missing out on the summer of love.

Hugo Campbell and Digby Vollrath are co-founders of Feast It