The best part about events: they’re always evolving.
The worst part about events: they’re always evolving.
It can be equal parts inspiring and exhausting to stay on top of the latest and greatest in the event industry.
Instead of creating a running list of everything that’s changing, we rounded up the event industry trends that are making an impact.
Here’s our list of the top 10 event trends to keep on your radar:
There’s a time and a place for a great speaker panel or discussion, but if the goal of your event is to teach or build skills, your content should revolve around letting attendees practice those skills.
According to a Freeman study, 56% of attendees prefer hands-on interaction or participatory activities at in-person events. That’s nearly 60% of respondents asking for more interactive elements at events.
Lean into this by creating online handouts, making time for group work, or taking volunteers from the audience to participate in a real-time working session with help from the audience.
Or try splitting sessions between a talk in the first half and workshop in the second half so anyone who doesn’t want to participate can opt out. Any way you spin it, offer different ways to involve attendees who want the extra help.
The founder of TED, Richard Saul Wurman, was quoted saying, “I’m bored out of my head at conferences.” Hence the beginning of TED Talks.
The maximum length of a TED Talk is 18 minutes.
These talks are regarded as some of the best in the world, and the most popular ones have racked up over 77 million views.
This isn’t to say all of your speakers should squeeze a dozen agenda items into 18 minutes or that you should cue the Oscars’ play-off music when the timer hits 18:01.
It’s all about making sure your speakers are clear and concise about the topic they’re presenting, and that they present this information within a reasonable amount of time.
Conveniently, TED curator Chris Anderson shared what he considers the secret to great public speaking. Watch and send it to your speakers if it resonates. It’s only 7 minutes and 46 seconds long.
I dare you to find one person who likes icebreakers. *Shushes extroverts and looks around*
I certainly can’t.
In a recent webinar, we asked fellow event marketers: What’s the most overrated engagement tactic in your opinion?
Here were some of their answers:
If event marketers are exhausted by facilitating forced interactions, imagine how attendees feel.
The message here is clear: fabricated conversations result in inauthentic connections.
No one wants to be forced into a conversation or keep a running list of “fun facts” to share about themselves.
Instead, give attendees an activity to participate in and let them strike up conversation organically. If they need a list of conversation starters, offer them — don’t mandate them.
“The event was a huge success.”
You can tell this to everyone in your business, but you can’t prove it unless you show the numbers.
Nearly 80% of marketers report events are the most effective marketing channel for their company.
They’re able to do this by setting realistic ROI goals and focusing on the right metrics to measure their event success.
We’ll only continue to see the need to prove event ROI grow as more and more companies start turning to events as an authentic way to build relationships with their audience.
Events aren’t exactly known for being environmentally friendly. And more marketers than ever are wanting to make a change.
In fact, over 50% say sustainability is very or extremely important to their organization.
It’s going to take a concerted effort, but there are already signs sustainability is making its way across the industry — from green venues to virtual handouts to donation-based swag.
The tides are starting to change. And they’re a faint, but noticeable, hue of green.
If event marketing had superlatives, experiential and content marketing would win hottest new relationship.
Here’s why: events directly feed content strategies.
There’s been lots of chatter about repurposing event content, but the real goal is for content and experiential to identify key topics together and use the event as the centerpoint.
Content teams can build momentum up to the event by teasing the topic in different formats: blogs, videos, social posts, etc. This lead up helps both content and experiential understand what’s resonating most prior to the big day so that the content of the event (and content created after) lands with the audience.
Post-event, there’s a goldmine of content that can be repurposed across different channels. But there’s also all the survey data to dig into, along with comments, polls, Q&A, etc. if the event was virtual.
Based on these responses, there’s a ton of opportunities to create spin-off or adjacent content that attendees talked about or want to learn more about.
The cycle continues again with using that data to create the next event topic and surrounding content.
Bottom line: you have to want to attend your own events. If you don’t, why would your attendees?
Putting attendees at the center of everything you do isn’t a novel idea, but warrants a spot on the list for good reason.
New events are popping up every day, and the competition for attention is fiercer than ever.
If your event doesn’t cater to an attendee’s needs, solve a problem, teach them something new, or build up their network, chances are they’ll ditch your next event to find one that does.
We’re seeing this trend emerge in a number of ways, but here are some of our favorites:
We’re past the AI hype.
At this point, reality is setting in about what AI can and can’t do.
We sought out the expertise of Cathy McPhillips, Chief Growth Officer at the Marketing AI Institute, to ask her which AI tools she actually uses in her day-to-day. She shared this list and how she uses each of them throughout her event process.
Even Cathy shared that while AI can be a great assistant, it can’t do it all.
At Splash, we decided to invest in the road less traveled: predictive AI.
Our tool, Attendance Insights, analyzes past event performance to predict future turnout. Keeping it real: just like other AI tools, ours isn’t perfect and is constantly learning. But there’s huge promise for events in this lesser tapped market of AI and we’re excited to see where it leads.
Here’s the thing: small events can be mighty when you have the right audience in attendance.
The trend of “micro” events has been slowly making its rounds throughout the industry for the last few years. That’s not to say we should throw out the notion that big events don’t equal big revenue. But we are doing away with the idea that only big events can have big impact.
When used strategically, smaller events hold a powerful place in your event strategy. At Splash, we use them as a bottom-of-funnel tactic to close deals.
It’s one of our most successful programs for a reason. We’re not casting a wide net with general topics to see what lands. We’re curating small gatherings to hone in on the very specific pains and challenges our late-stage prospects are facing.
It’s a time for us to meet people in-person and have honest conversations about what they need and how we can help.
Fact: 93% of US-based companies that use event-led growth meet their revenue and/or pipeline goals.
That’s huge.
The concept of event-led growth (using events to acquire and retain business) isn’t really new, but the term is.
Both the term and the benefits of event-led growth are quickly gaining traction. Of the marketers who haven’t yet adopted event-led growth, around 45% of respondents to our Outlook on Events report said they plan to incorporate event-led growth strategies in the coming year.
To be honest, this is becoming less of a trend and more a go-to-market staple that companies across the world are finally adopting. But until ELG becomes more commonplace, it’ll hold its spot on the list.
Not every trend listed or unlisted here is going to work for your programs. Feel free to take what helps and leave what doesn’t.
Because the truth is there will always be new event industry trends to follow.
Your job is to figure out which of them actually benefit your audience and your business.
