What’s actually happening in the event industry?
It’s the question on every marketer's mind each year.
This year, we turned to the latest research from The 2026 Event-Led Growth Report to find out. Cvent surveyed 1,000+ marketers to understand what’s working, what’s not, and what’s next for events.
Here are the top event trends from the report and more.
Marketers are stuck in Groundhog Day.
They once again ranked tight budgets and rising costs as their top two event challenges in 2026.
It's why so many are choosing to split costs to save money.
Based on Cvent's report, 43% of marketers are planning to host more partner events this year.
When resources are limited, partner events become the ultimate growth hack. They create double the reach at half the price.
Plus, as more companies turn to events to break through the endless stream of AI-generated content, partner events become one of the most strategic ways to stand out.
Think of some of the biggest collaborations over recent years: Doritos x Taco Bell, Apple x Nike, Dunkin’ x Barbie. All big names that could easily stand on their own, teaming up to double their reach through share-worthy campaigns.
The best part is partner events can take on many formats. They can look like co-hosted dinners, joint webinars, wraparounds at conferences, or field events with a complementary brand. Wherever your audience already is, there's room to team up.
But, like anything, partner events aren’t some miracle solution without challenges. Finding the right company to join forces with isn’t always easy.
To learn how to find the perfect match, we consulted the experts at Reveal.
Here’s a list of the questions they ask when evaluating a new partnership:
If your answers for 1-3 are mostly yes, it’s worth exploring the partnership. If they’re mostly no, RUN. Kidding, but you're likely not going to be equally as invested so it’s worth pursuing other options.
-> Tune into our full convo with the Reveal team to learn all their best practices for hosting partner events.
Rumor has it 2026 is the return of analog.
In other words, people are spending more time offline enjoying hobbies like painting, hiking, and photography.
Limiting screen time is finding its way into the workplace, too, as virtual event fatigue is hitting audiences once again.
41% of marketers said they experienced declining virtual attendance and engagement just last year.
While this poses challenges for online events, it presents in-person events with a huge opportunity.
Marketers are in a unique position to create hands-on, experiential activations that give attendees the digital break they’re desperately seeking.
Take our booth at UNBOUND last year, for example. We transformed our space into a crafting station and handed out tote bags that visitors could customize with buttons, markers, pins, patches, and stickers.
The experience gave attendees a moment to slow down and be present on the busy floor, creating an environment for candid conversations.
It was a huge hit. People later shared that it was their favorite activation and allowed them to flex their creativity.
Some other fun activations and event trends we're loving:
1. Dirty soda stations. Who doesn’t love a build your own situation with sugar-free options?
2. Oxygen bars. It literally gives attendees a chance to relax and catch their breath.
-> Learn how to connect with attendees and maximize engagement during your events.
To understand this year’s event trends, we need to rewind for a minute.
Let's go back to 2024.
Scale was the name of the game back then, with companies hosting an average of 29 events per year. But maintaining that level of production came at a cost. Budgets were strained, team bandwidth was stunted, and program management was in a frenzy.
Last year, that changed. Teams started to scale back, hosting an average of 16 events in 2025.
Here's the kicker: even with the decrease in events, 83% of marketers said their teams still met revenue goals.
This year? Marketers are hitting replay. They’re investing in sustainable programs that perform, once again choosing strategy over scale.
When it comes it comes to events that help hit numbers, small, repeatable experiences are proving to be the golden ticket.
58% of event professionals say their organization plans to host more small in-person events.
Small events provide audience engagement and one-on-one time that bigger formats lack. It’s why 51% of marketers say workshops deliver the highest ROI, while 43% say dinners are their top-performing format.
The lowest ROI-generating events? Panels and roundtables.
Attendees want to be involved in the conversation. If you give them at seat at a highly curated table with a group of colleagues they can connect with and trust, you’ll see the benefits.
-> Get the blueprint for creating smaller, repeatable events in our six-week email series.
One of the most interesting event trends this year? How marketers are investing in third-party events.
The question isn’t whether to show up, but how.
If teams have budget to sponsor, conferences remain a great opportunity for exposure.
But if funds are tight, hosting a wraparound or meetup is a smart alternative. It’s the same audience in the same city on the same dates, just on your own terms and with a lower price tag.
Here’s how investments shook out last year:
While booths still hold the prime spot, we expect to see investments in wraparounds continue to grow.
Pro tip: Host your wraparound the day before the conference starts. Guests will actually have energy, and you won’t have to compete with the event’s scheduled entertainment.
Hosting wraprounds makes sense when marketers are under a microscope to prove ROI.
Not only do they give teams much needed quality time with their audience during conference madness, but it also gives them the ability to own their own guest list, data, and tracking directly. When exec starts asking about actual impact instead of number of badge scans, they have the data to back it up.
It’s one of the ongoing challenges when it comes to understanding traditional sponsorship impact.
Marketers often struggle to measure results from the floor.
->Use this step-by-step framework to decide how to choose and justify event sponsorships.
We’ve all collected a branded pen or stress ball at a conference and then promptly ditched it as we packed up our suitcase.
The right gift can make an impact, but if it’s handed out just to check a box, it’ll end up in a landfill instead of a home.
Audiences are chomping at the bit for personalized content, interactions, and sales convos.
Why wouldn't the same apply to gifting?
In Reachdesk’s State of Corporate Gifting & Swag report, the argument for intentional gifting is clear.
“The most successful teams in 2025 aren’t sending more gifts, they’re sending smarter gifts.” -Ben Smith, Marketing Director at Reachdesk.
When buyers receive a thoughtful gift at the right time in their journey, the conversation builds and the relationship deepens. It creates a “you get me” moment that can't be replicated with generic bulk swag.
The impact speaks for itself. Just check out these numbers.
Teams that used gifting in their event strategy saw:
Gifting works so well because it taps into the concept of reciprocity. In other words, it creates a situation that benefits both parties. Attendees receive a gift and in return they gift you their time.
-> Gift giving is just one of the five attendee love languages, learn how to speak all of them.
If you’re a fan of Million Dollar Listing New York, you’ll know Ryan Serhant’s famous motto: “Expansion in all ways, always.”
For a long time, that expansion looked like going after new business.
More events. More leads. More growth.
Last year, the industry shifted and focus moved from prospects to customers.
Retention is the unsung hero when it comes to revenue, even though we all know that it costs less to keep a customer than it does to gain a new one. Some studies show it actually costs a whopping five to seven times more to onboard a new customer than it does to retain a current one.
With budgets failing to keep up with rising event costs, it makes sense that customer retention and expansion is the new priority. Marketers aren’t suddenly throwing out their prospect playbooks, but they are reevaluating who’s primarily in the room.
Strategy is shifting away from constantly growing communities to nurturing the ones that already exist. It’s about investing in the longtime loyalists, the brand advocates, the contacts that come in clutch to move forward a multi-year renewal in the eleventh hour.
This signals a shift to community-driven growth.
More than half (55%) of marketers say they prioritize community-building elements, like peer groups and meetups, when designing their events.
In fact, marketers agreed building community was one of their top goals across all main event types:
• 37% of marketers say flagship events are built primarily to build community
• 32% of marketers say the same about trade shows + conferences
• 32% of marketers say the same about webinars + digital events
• 32% of marketers say the same about field marketing events
Events are a key touchpoint in building community, but there’s a ton more that goes into creating an end-to-end strategy.
-> If you want to dig into what it takes to build a world-class community, check out this podcast episode with Daniel Cmejla.
Nearly 76% of event teams now operate as cross‑functional GTM groups.
Those seeing the biggest benefit are adopting an event-led growth as their GTM strategy ––using events as their primary channel to acquire and keep business.
It makes sense why events are quickly becoming every company's favorite tactic. AI fatigue is real and as lines blur between artificial and genuine sentiment, people are questioning what to believe anymore.
Face-to-face experiences naturally bridge that gap. They create relationships and long-term trust that take much longer to develop through digital channels alone.
When companies strategically deploy events at the right time to reach the right audience, they see major results.
• Teams using ELG were 47% more likely to rank events as their most effective marketing channel
• 88% of ELG teams say events generate steady revenue for their business
• 46% of ELG teams say events drove 40%+ of their closed-won deals in 2025 (up year over year)
More than half over the marketers surveyed in Cvent’s 2026 Event-Led Growth Report are using ELG and outperforming their peers.
-> If you’re new to ELG or just want to sharpen your skillset, enroll in the Event-Led Growth Masterclass to become certified.
The event trends this year point to a clear shift from quantity to quality.
With budgets unable to meet rising costs, marketers are rewriting their strategies to create smaller, intentional events focused on building community and proving value.
The most successful teams seeing results are using event-led growth as their GTM strategy, unifying teams around the shared vision that when executed correctly, events are the most effective channel for attracting and retaining business.
