Top Awards for SA Firm

Novatech Creative Event Technology were honoured to receive national recognition for Audio-Visual Services at the recent Meetings & Events Australia live-streamed 2020 National Awards Night. In the Audio-Visual Services category, the Novatech team received both the state (South Australia) and the national award which recognises Novatech’s excellence in providing audio-visual, staging, production and technical services to business events across Australia during 2020.

For the second time, the Awards were held virtually via livestream after being delayed several times due to COVID. The impact of COVID on the business & live events sector is well known; with the industry facing challenges for survival, as lockdowns and border closures continue to linger across Australia and indeed the globe.

Novatech is proudly South Australian & family owned, and is celebrating their 20th year in business in 2021. They employ close to 50 full time and 20 casual staff from their facility in Underdale, South Australia. Novatech usually delivers over 1,400 events annually around Australia where they bring technology, creativity, and technical solutions to the event industry. However, 2020 saw an abrupt halt and interruption to ‘business as usual’ with work coming to a grinding halt in March 2020.

Over the remaining months of 2020, Novatech’s focus was on their staff’s & client’s welfare, and how they could navigate the business to survive these unprecedented conditions. The business quickly put measures in place to support their staff even prior to Jobkeeper. That continued as the focus through 2020 to ensure their staff remained connected to the business in meaningful and engaging ways. This was also applied to their clients with constant contact being maintained, to ensure they were there to support and talk through the evolving situation.

Virtual events quickly became a method of ensuring events would still proceed, however Novatech’s passion has always been for live events, and this passion drove the direction in which Novatech would take for the rest of 2020. Darwin Festival became the first large festival to take place in August 2020 which set the bar in the return of live events, and enabled Novatech staff to put into place their new COVID safe measures. This flowed on throughout the year and culminated in the party pod concept, Summer Sounds, that re-thought how large live event concerts could be held whilst meeting all COVID safe requirements.

Novatech’s Managing Director, Leko Novakovic paid tribute to his team and thanked all for their commitment & support throughout 2020. “We are proud to be recognised not only as an audio-visual production business by our peers, but also in recognition of how we supported our staff, clients and the wider industry during such a tumultuous time for everyone,” Leko commented.

“We could’ve never imagined our 19th year in business would face such challenges but, with the support of our staff and clients, we pushed through to once again stage live events albeit under very different conditions. It definitely has meant a change in how we approach events & there are many large challenges facing our industry currently, but we are determined to continue to fight for the industry’s survival and re-emergence of the live events sector.”