Event Management Communication Strategies: Experiences in Public Relations from a Chinese Media Company in an Emergent Incident of Film Distribution

The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 had a huge impact on the film industry, especially on the films released during the Spring Festival of that year.Many films were urgently withdrawn but Huanxi Media Group Limited announced to release of their film Lost in Russia (Xu, 2020) in advance.After suffering great resistance from the audience and industry practitioners, they premiered and released this film online through business cooperation with a famous Chinese Internet company Douyin Co., Ltd.(Former Name: ByteDance Company).Based on this emergent incident of film distribution by the media company as a case, this research analyzed the company's response to this incident, combining the SWOT Analysis and proposed feasible event management communication strategies from this case based on the RACE model.It found that follow-up communication or interaction with the public and different parties is also necessary after such an emergency and the company's decision-making.This case study aims to offer a reference in event management communication strategies for future emergencies of film distribution related to the public relations of organizations, expecting better responses and long-term development of media company or relevant organization.