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How do we start to move the needle on EDI in live events... in short, it starts with us.

We are big believers in being stronger together as an industry. Sharing best practices as a collective will be the quickest way to achieve change.

Last week we attended the EVCOM Clarion Awards Ceremony (did we mention we picked up a few Gold awards for our work with Shine Cancer Charity Our Work (tta.live)?).
As much as we enjoyed being laden with trophies, winning was not the highlight of our evening. We loved the insightful and inspiring EDI panel discussion (you can watch it here )

As a purpose-driven creative events agency we are committed to EDI both internally in our agency but also at our live events. Like many organisations we have a dedicated EDI team working to continue to develop our strategy and drive positive change. The challenge is to really push the needle on what EDI means in our agency but also in the industry at large.

We always begin live event planning by assessing the attendee experience. In order to understand all attendee experiences we need a diverse and inclusive team. In the words of Ghandi, "If you want to change the world start with yourself".

Inspired by this panel discussion we are focusing on these areas over the coming months:

- Review data
Our clients are diverse, their customers are diverse and our organisations will be more successful with diverse teams. We know this to be true but how to we actively pursue this? A good place to start is to consider analysing the EDI data that we already have. As discussed in the panel, a simple way to start is to look at the data from recruitment (we lean on our recruitment partners to help us too).   This helps with evidence-based decision-making and shines a light on where we could improve.

- Tell stories
We all know story-telling is powerful so using real experiences to feed into an agency strategy can help shape hearts and minds. Like what was mentioned in the panel discussion we are developing internal networks and allies by sharing lived experiences.

-  Invest
As a values-led organisation we want to actively listen to ensure we represent all. Creating a 'safe space' where the team can challenge freely is the key to pushing the needle on EDI. We challenge ourselves to be more comfortable giving and receiving feedback. We invest in coaches like Zoe Tuffs from TIMES x10 Coaching to help develop a culture of feedback and active listening across the agency.

We are always happy to hear more about what our industry peers are doing in this space… reach out to us here!