Beecroft: Corporate Clients Now See Event Management as Effective Brand Marketing Tool

Managing Director of Eventful Limited, Mr. Fisayo Beecroft, in this interview shared his views on the challenges, developments and future prospects of the event industry in Nigeria. Dike Onwuamaeze brings the excerpts:

Can you give an overview of the event planning industry in Nigeria? 

The event planning industry in Nigeria contributes conservatively close to N100 billion to Nigeria’s GDP annually and has the potential to move to N1 trillion. I will say that one can only imagine the potential that is in this industry as the biggest entrepreneurial sector in the Nigerian workspace. To some extent, this sector has been tagged as one of the liveliest in the world; obviously, we all know what is driving this, top of which is that we love to celebrate as a people. And that again contributes to why we have this surge in terms of event planning firms in Nigeria. I will also say that the event space to an extent is an industry that has a huge value chain providing avenues for income to many; from an event planner it would trickle down to the videographer, the caterer, to drinks providers, branding, stage, multimedia, even to ushers, security outfits and so on and so forth. It has contributed at the end of the day to providing employment and an economic space for even students to work and earn some money.

Eventful Ltd has been in the market for two decades now. What is the experience like as a pioneer in the industry?  

For a brand that is 20 years old, the experience is huge in terms of human capital and in terms of returns on events and also the level of relationships we have able to build over the years. The experience has been a very phenomenal one. It has opened more doors for us to the extent that we have various cliental that ranges from corporate and government circles. What we provide is excellence services which we call excellent professional service with creativity and passion. Because of this we have been able to establish good relationships with high-net-worth clients. It has also allowed us the potential to expand our business to other spheres of event and some other sub-sectors of the event space like the opportunity to open our events to the millennials and even manage other venues for clients; also extend our reach with government in many instances to formulate policies, especially during the COVID era. As an industry pioneer, our ability to leverage the network of our founder, Mrs. Yewande Zaccheaus in business and government circle.

What are the challenges being faced in the industry? 

The major challenge we face in the industry is obviously the low entry barrier. This is the first critical challenge because any person can sleep in the night and wake up the next morning to say I am an event planner. It is as simple as that. So, obviously what that does is that it creates another problem around standardisation and quality and issues around professionalism. Someone is in the industry without any overhead cost can afford to charge ridiculous low rates. But clients that patronise these kinds of event planners tend to have their fingers burnt at the end of the day and they will still come back to the more established brands in the industry to get the job done. The other challenges are overhead cost and inflation generally.

Having been in the industry for 20 years what are the major contributions of Eventful to the development of the event planning industry in Nigeria? 

First of all, one of our contributions is our role in pioneering the industry 20 years ago which we are very proud of. Second, we have been able to mentor others into becoming event planners by establishing free training services in the past for potential people that want to start this business. Setting up venue management business in Nigeria is also an achievement. It is a field that other people are going into now that was not known in the past. We were very vocal during the COVID era when we organised webinars and the whole idea around the webinar was to gather all the event planners on this platform and just talk through how to survive the trying times. We were very critical in delivering a webinar that actually reshaped our mindset and the culture of people that listened in those webinars. We also worked with the Lagos State Government in formulating policies that also assisted with the COVID situation as at then. And more importantly of course is the volume of people that have gone through this industry in terms of employment. Am also proud to mention the fact that we are the first event management company to have a successful leadership transition, with the company doing well after the exit of the founder18 months ago.

You said that the hallmark of Eventful is excellence and professionalism. What truly defines excellence and professionalism in event management business?

Excellence is the ability to deliver excellent professional services without compromising on standards. It is having repeat clients, some who have been with our brand since the inception of our company. Excellence is the constant and regular testimonials from our fulfilled clients. Excellence is making the impossible happen at a short notice without any glitch as we were always called upon to plan events at short notices without having any level of compromise. Those are the things that determine what excellence is for an Eventful. But with regard to professionalism, what I will say is that the values that we hold as a brand in Eventful in dealing with our clients are very critical to us in determining our level professionalism. This level of professionalism is a reflection of our culture, which is defined by our values. These values are professionalism, resourcefulness, integrity, creativity, excellence, humility, passion and the fear of God. These are the values we exude and these are the things that bring out the level of professionalism in dealing with our corporate clients. These are the virtues that we dish out and that in a nutshell portray the level of our brand in dealing with corporate clients. I will just sum it up by saying that the values of the brand reflect the level of the professionalism that the brand portrays in dealing with its clients.  

The event planning industry in Nigeria seems to be enjoying a boom. What are the factors driving this boom? 

This is a very good question. The very first critical factor that I will mention is our social culture. We celebrate everything as a people. This is the overarching reason the industry continues to boom. I will also say that the non-active two years of COVID is also having positive effect on what we are seeing at the moment because a lot of the events that were cancelled during the lockdown to contain the spread of the pandemic disease are now resurfacing to drive the boom we are seeing now in the event space. More importantly, event these days is beyond partying, especially for our corporate clients because Eventful is more into the corporate space.  We have also been able to reshape the mindset of our corporate clients to the extent that they are now seeing events as a marketing tool and they are seeing the visibility that they are getting by planning event and the mileage for their brands. With these more corporate clients are bringing in events regularly for their product launch, award nights, etc. So, people are now actually seeing events as a marketing tool rather than just a social thing.

How is digitalisation in the form of virtual events impacting on event planning business? 

I’m happy to report that we have actually done virtual events in all spheres of the event space. We have done virtual exhibitions. We have done virtual conferences. We have done virtual weddings. We have done virtual meetings and AGMs. I will say that the edge that we have is the fact that we were able to organise virtual events prior to COVID, which helped us to quickly latch on to hybrid event space at the onset of COVID pandemic. And of course, we have had to train and retrain ourselves to embrace and latch on the emerging technologies in the virtual space because no man is an island. And in some cases, we have been able to do some sort of collaborations with firms in the technology space to be able to fit into this emerging profile. And I will say that we have perfectly fit into this profile over the years. We have accepted virtual events as a norm in the event space. It is just for every player to put in place the right facilities and technology to be able to annex the gains that are coming from this space.

Do you manage across the border event businesses in West Africa and beyond? 

The way event works is more of you being able to have that capacity in terms of manpower and logistics to move when the opportunity comes to plan these events. I will say gladly that we have hosted events in almost all parts of Nigeria. We have done events in Sokoto, Abuja, Cross River, Ekiti, Ondo, Edo, in virtually all the states in Nigeria with same level of precision and perfection. We have also done a couple of events outside Nigeria this year. We have worked in Mauritius and Dubai also. And hopefully we will be doing many more. So, we have the manpower and technical resources and the ability and the capacity to host these events and still be able to manage the cost. The challenge of handling events outside the country is being able to manage the cost for the client and still make it memorable and enjoyable for everyone that showed up for these events. 

Looking at the horizon, what does the future holds for the event industry in Nigeria? 

The event industry in Nigeria is huge and the future is very, very bright. Established corporate firms and affluent individuals are increasing. Because of these two major factors I imagine that in the years ahead the event management companies will continue to blossom and continue growing to new heights.  

What are you doing to give back to the Community as a brand?

We have taken a bold step to give back to our community by contributing our quota to youth entrepreneurship in Nigeria. To this end, we met with the Entrepreneurship and Skills Centre of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and the Entrepreneurial Development Centre of the Lagos Business School (LBS) to endow a prize for practical engagement in entrepreneurship and business management.

We will be supporting the annual business pitches in UNILAG from which outstanding business proposals get rewards and prize money for the next 5 years. Likewise, we will be supporting the National Entrepreneurial Challenge in LBS by providing the money for the prize winners, also for the next 5 years. We are an innovative company and as such we are delighted to be supporting these institutions.