CWA Blog Archive-What Do In-Person Events Look Like During The Pandemic Recovery

What Do In-Person Events Look Like During The Pandemic Recovery

Pdf Summary

This article summarizes a CWA Community Call where members discussed the problems and solutions around hosting in-person climbing competitions and events during pandemic recovery. It acknowledges that getting back to large group gatherings was far off in many areas, yet gyms still needed to provide a sense of community and fun for members, potential new customers, and athletes. The session's structure was to first describe the problems facing gyms trying to bring events back, then brainstorm solutions, examining in each phase the positive marketing and growth opportunities, technical solutions to social distancing and capacity issues, and creative solutions to replicate traditional event experiences. It closed by exploring alternative event types involving local partners, focusing on members, or engaging the entire community. On competitions specifically, the article notes the key problems are somewhat predictable: social distancing, capacity, and risk management are big headline challenges facing all areas of gym operations. But competitions carry unique considerations too, such as travel, sponsorship, judging, and isolation. The throughline is that hosting in-person events during pandemic recovery required creatively working around significant constraints, social distancing, capacity limits, risk management, plus event-specific challenges like competition travel, sponsorship, and judging, in order to preserve the community and fun that members, prospects, and athletes needed. Rather than abandoning events entirely while large gatherings remained impossible, the CWA Community Call approach was to systematically identify the obstacles and then brainstorm technical and creative solutions, always keeping an eye on the marketing and growth opportunities events provide. By considering alternative event formats, partnering with local organizations, centering members, or engaging the whole community, gyms could adapt the community-building function of events to pandemic realities. For competitions specifically, operators had to address both universal concerns (distancing, capacity, risk) and unique ones (travel, sponsorship, judging, isolation). For operators, the article offers a problem-solving framework and collective peer wisdom for keeping the vital community and engagement functions of events alive through creative adaptation during a period when traditional large gatherings weren't feasible.

Asset Caption

This piece summarizes a CWA Community Call on hosting in-person events during pandemic recovery. With large gatherings off the table but community still needed, members mapped the problems, social distancing, capacity, risk, plus competition-specific issues like travel, sponsorship, and judging, then brainstormed technical and creative solutions and alternative formats to preserve engagement.