Camosun Hospitality Management instructor Brad Boisvert’s approach to teaching business management has changed a lot since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. His Event Management 286 class has changed entirely. For example, an event on December 5 is going to be held entirely online.
The event, A Day In Santa’s Workshop, will consist of Christmas baking, live music, and a silent auction; all proceeds will go towards Providence Farm in the Cowichan Valley. Boisvert predicts that about 35 percent of events will continue be held virtually once we get out of the pandemic.
“When you start to look at the costs of room rentals, venues, there’s a lot of costs involved,” says Boisvert. “We’re still able to do events and actually keep the cost down significantly.”
With virtual events, the clients that students deal with as part of their program can be located anywhere.
“Usually our event clients are stuck right here in Victoria because that’s where we are,” says Boisvert. “They are able to be a little bit, I don’t want to say thinking globally, but they could be.”
From a project-management point of view, virtual events require both clients and students to have even tighter communication skills because they can’t see each other in person, says Boisvert.
“We train them a lot in the days leading up to scheduling—who’s doing what when? When’s this person coming in? That’s even more critical now,” he says.
As strange as it might sound, there are certain aspects of the students’ training that have had to become even more rigorous as a result of the pandemic, but there are also aspects, like food and beverage, that are gone. This would have been Boisvert’s third year doing an event revolving around food and reconciliation as part of this project.
“It’s a dinner where you’re putting everybody in the same room and they’re sitting there, and they’re sharing very traditionally prepared Aboriginal food,” says Boisvert. “An event like that we cannot do. That’s the part of event management that’s missing.”
Boisvert hopes there’s something that can be done virtually in place of the dinner. But sitting down and talking face to face, for now, is gone—as is face-to-face interaction with a client. For the event on Saturday, the food and beverage aspect had to be cancelled, but not without strenuous effort on everyone’s part.
“They were trying to figure out, ‘Can we get a caterer in Victoria? Are they going to deliver all the meals to everybody’s home?’ And then there has got to be one in the Cowichan Valley delivering all the meals… There’s a lot of logistics, and they just got a little bit concerned, logistically, how to get everybody the same food and the same glass of wine.”
Boisvert was teaching this class in March when venues started shutting down. Students came to him and asked what to do.
“I just looked at them and said, ‘Wow… I can’t write this stuff for you. This is an absolute amazing learning time for you.’ You put the positive spin on it, you coach them through.”
A Day In Santa’s Workshop
11 am to 2 pm Saturday, December 5
$25 to $65, online
eventbrite.com/e/a-day-in-santas-workshop-tickets-127474635065