“Take a risk, do something positive and don’t be afraid to fail,” was event planner Andy King’s parting message to event professionals attending his keynote speech at The Meetings Show today.
King, who built up a successful 30-year career as an event planner before working on the ill-fated Fyre Festival in the Bahamas, attracted an audience of over 700 as he spoke candidly to interviewer Holly Patrick of M&IT about the festival and his experience as an event planner in the final session of the three-day virtual show.
Since his involvement in the Fyre Festival in 2017 and the subsequent airing of a documentary on Netflix in 2019, King has been keen to use his new-found fame as a platform for good.
He said: “You can imagine, after a 30-year career of many, many, many successful events to be known now for one event – the failed Fyre Festival – is crazy.
“Was it my dream to be known as the ‘Blow Job King of the World’? No, I probably would have preferred to be known as one of the best event planners, but any PR is good PR these days and it’s actually given me an amazing platform.”
Event professionals heard how King successfully raised enough money to recompense workers in the Bahamas through Go Fund Me campaigns and how he is using his expertise to assist on virtual events as well as continuing work in driving more sustainable events.
King also gave the inside story on ‘that cheese sandwich’ which became the iconic image for Fyre Festival, shared his views on social media and gave his advice to event planners navigating their way through this challenging year.
He said: “Utilise this time to really push your mind and think out-of-the-box. It’s a time of opportunity and we need to try to do a lot of different things to get through this crazy world of Covid. A lot of it is going to be taking a risk. You might find you fail once-in-a-while, but I think you’ll see a lot more successes than failures.”
Andy King’s keynote was the final session of the three-day virtual The Meetings Show, which saw nearly 2,000 pre-qualified buyers attend meetings with 250 exhibitors from around the globe.
The show included hours of educational content, networking opportunities and interviews with industry leaders, exhibitors, speakers and emerging talent on TMS TV through the Swapcard platform.
SongDivision brought the 2020 show to a close with their virtual happy hour – a fast-paced, music-fuelled online networking party.
Jack Marczewski, The Meetings Show’s Event Director, said: “Like everyone in the meeting and events industry, The Meetings Show team has found this year immensely challenging. However, we were determined to bring the community together as we do every year, so did everything we could to make it happen on a virtual platform.
“And, it has really been an amazing three days. Our virtual platform has been awash with thousands of visitors, buyers and exhibitors making valuable connections and networking – and the feedback that we have received has been outstanding. We’d just like to thank the entire industry for getting behind and supporting this year’s show so well”
The educational content from the show will be available to registered attendees two weeks after the event. To register to catch up on any missed sessions, visit: http://www.themeetingsshow.com/register.
