Crisis Management #44: BTTS' John Brooks on events during the pandemic and undeterred expansion plans - Women Of Influence

John Brooks knows how to throw a party.

As managing partner of BTTS Holdings, he runs some of the city's biggest events venues that you've likely visited for work or leisure including The Estate at New Albany; Brookshire, in Delaware; and WatersEdge in Hillard. But the pandemic was a buzzkill – 120 of 130 weddings and other events were cancelled or rescheduled virtually overnight.

In this episode of Crisis Management, Brooks talks about how events-oriented businesses were forced to adapt to the nearly disastrous impacts of Covid-19, and how the biggest events and celebrations will be different when people can come back together.

"Some people were not comfortable having their event, which we certainly understood," Brooks said.

But the venues survived the outbreak, and now Brooks is expanding – during the pandemic it opened a smaller venue in the Short North called the Fig Room. This year it'll open another new one, the Edison, in Italian Village.

"A lot of empathy for our clients who maybe had planned a wedding for a year and then couldn't have it," Brooks said. "People still wanted to get married, right? Our focus really became ... what can you do? How can we do it safely, instead of what can't we do."