Event companies big and small are under pressure as coronavirus precautions wrecks havoc across all industries. In the media sector the flourishing event space is being hit hard with closures impacting both the big and the boutique.
At the big end of town, Mumbrella announced midweek that it was postponing everything. Co-founder Tim Burrowes explained in a post this week:
We’re postponing Mumbrella360. And CommsCon. And Audioland. And pretty much everything else we’ve got planned for the next six months too.
Financially, Mumbrella’s business model is more than 50% based on our events portfolio.
If this had happened three or four years ago, it might have killed the company.
We’re about to have a very tough year.
But we’re fortunate, because it will still be much better for us than many will experience. Many of those who read Mumbrella are in industries in situations where their employers may well go out of business and many jobs will be lost. For the media and marketing. world, it’s a far more desperate situation the GFC felt a decade ago.
Mumbrella is fortunate to have been acquired by a privately owned family firm, Diversified Communications, back in late 2017.
Diversified takes a long-term view and is in a strong financial position.