Veni | The events industry deserves to be a specialised profession to be treated fairly and respectfully
Veni has been working as an event organiser for about five to six years. She is one of the founding committee members of the Hong Kong Event Professionals Union (HKEPU). The coronavirus hit the economy hard while they were organising the union. As the industry faces unprecedented challenges, HKEPU bears the responsibility to immediately spring to action.
“You will never get bored working in our industry because we encounter new people and new things in every job. The immense satisfaction from a successful event is very meaningful for us. We give our all to each event because this is more than just a job.”
Journalist: Tea Leaf
Photographer: 行山之友
Event Professionals
Not a lot of people know who we are as “event professionals”. We are dispersed over different fields– in fact, many people have interacted with us “event professionals”. This industry includes many different roles – some are event organisers, some are designers or technicians, such as decorations, staging, sound, and lighting. Although our job nature differs significantly, we all share similar experiences, and have encountered similar problems. The establishment of HKEPU coincided with the coronavirus outbreak. As a result, the entire industry is plunged into deep ice. We received many requests for assistance each day, which prompted us to immediately set this up in order to ameliorate the challenges the industry was facing.
I am Veni, one of the executive board members of the Hong Kong Event Professionals Union. Originally, I was working in marketing. By serendipity, I moved into the exhibition industry and have worked in various Hong Kong and foreign corporations in different capacities since then– from large-scale exhibitions, in-house brandname events, to freelance projects. The longer I’ve worked in this industry, the more I see unfairness. Even so, despite switching jobs, I decided to stay in the field for my love of the event organising industry. As other industries are forming unions, I was wondering why is there no representative from our industry? Is it a problem of identity, or is it because of our personalities that nobody is willing to stick their neck out? Or are people hesitating because we think there are a lot more experienced professionals in our industry?
I opened a chat group on Telegram with all these doubts in mind. I asked other channels to help promote and share our chat group and slowly started to gather a group of interested and concerned colleagues. We are very lucky throughout the process of assembling our group from searching for allies among the vast sea of people, to the first time we took up the courage to meet in person without much shyness. We are taking great risks in founding a union - we could be labeled as the opposition. But if nobody steps up, nothing is going to change. This unyielding attitude binds us - a group of people who are usually working behind the scenes - together to serve and voice out for our industry.
A profession that makes us proud
While there are different kinds of jobs within our field, there are some similarities. For instance, regardless of our position, we all need to be agile, sensitive, and fast to respond because there are many unforeseen circumstances that demand immediate adaptability. We can often tell whether a newbie can last in the industry at a glance– it’s survival of the fittest. Those who are not suitable for the field often get naturally eliminated. The attraction of our industry is that you will never get bored, and you will be encountering new people and new things in every job. The immense satisfaction from a successful event is very meaningful for us. We give our all to each event because this is more than just a job.
While our industry may not be the most well known, we all respect our roles as professionals, and we are proud of our occupation. While the level of education differs among event professionals, we all learn by experience. Sometimes, we even need to work as an apprentice for a while. In order to find your footing in the field, you must establish your reputation. Often, clients are looking for people who have a good reputation, can help out, and have sufficient technical knowledge. We hope to standardise certain jobs within the profession so that people will not only rely on their experiences, but also formal certifications. We strongly believe that our industry should be recognised as a specialised profession, so that we will be treated fairly and respectfully.
Fighting for our rights in the midst of crisis
Since there are so many variables in our line of work, there are a wide range of issues. Some of us are full-time employees, but many are freelancers without much labour protection. Our work hours are never stable; we usually go to work when others are getting off. The venue for each event is different; we sometimes have to travel to faraway places early in the morning, and stay past midnight. We don’t, however, get compensated fairly for our overtime work. In addition, as our client is different every time, there is no standard for how much we get paid. Some employers would even hire people to work under the table. Not only does that exploit labour rights, it also threatens workplace safety. This is why we’d like to provide legal support and insurance assistance to people in our industry. We also want to create a network of event professionals so that we can collect and circulate information with each other, and to help each other find work.
The intention of our union isn’t very political. Although we met because of the Anti-ELAB Movement, we connected based on our shared vision in advancing labour rights. While other unions might have founded in order to organise strikes, we had already been put on strike due to event cancellations. The current situation, however, forces us to politicise. The government has become the target in our fight to secure rights for our colleagues.
Over the last few months, our industry has been tremendously impacted because of the Movement and the government’s incompetence. With the current coronavirus outbreak, we are experiencing even more challenges. Some colleagues who are the primary breadwinners of their household have been furloughed, or even laid off. A foreign company has disbanded its entire sound department. We are feeling very helpless. The latest government budget includes a subsidy scheme for industries most impacted by the outbreak. However, the scheme only supports certain organisations and corporations, namely those that are exhibiting or collaborating with the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and the AsiaWorld-Expo. Hong Kong is a cosmopolitan city and the centre of exhibitions. How could this have only affected such a narrow circle of people? There are many more affected and different needs in our industry that have all been neglected by the government. We are signing a petition to the government that includes not only individuals from the field, but also many local businesses. Unions are often involved in labour disputes between employees and employers. Technically, local businesses are our employers who should be on our opposite side. Yet, we share the same plight now. At this moment of life-and-death, they are taking the risk to voice their shared concerns with us.
Coming together, speak up for ourselves
Our next endeavour is to recruit more members in order to strengthen our bargaining power when we negotiate with the government and large corporations. For example, the American unions in film production are incredibly powerful and influential. We can consult their experiences when we engage in negotiations. For the longest time when workers in our industry experience any problem, they can only visit the Labour Department. Some more experienced colleagues have long believed that we ought to establish an organisation to be our mouthpiece. While there are subfields within our industry that can each develop its own union, we have decided to widen the scope of our membership so that we can build solidarity among people from different specialisations. However, due to the dispersed nature of our job, we must actively search for colleagues in our field outside of social media, hoping that they will join the union. It’s harder to organise the union during this period of financial hardship as many may worry that they won’t be able to afford the union dues. For those who are on the executive board and must disclose their names and personal information, they risk being persecuted later by the government. However, we are still hoping to recruit members from different subfields. They are eligible to join as long as they can show proof that they have worked in event planning over the last year. We hope our members will include other occupations, not just event planning, but also stage designers and technicians, regardless of their experiences. As each person faces a different situation, we hope to accommodate different voices and experiences to help all our colleagues.
We hope that we can establish an interactive and responsive union that can directly meet the demands of our colleagues. We are constantly adjusting our direction in response to opinions posted on platforms like International Waters [*1]. However, some people are like rocks– they are non-responsive despite our best attempts to reach out. We wish that our colleagues can freely tell us what they would like to see, so that we can fight for our interests collectively. At first, we wanted to organise a networking event for people in the field to gather and chat. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, we must unfortunately put that on halt. We hope that we can be the mouthpiece for colleagues in the industry, and to secure the rights we deserve. During this difficult time, we shall overcome challenges together.
“I am Veni, I am a HKer.”
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