Predictions for the Events Industry 2024
/My thoughts on key trends for the event and hospitality industry as we close out 2023
2024 is going to be an exciting year for events and a busy one for event and hospitality professionals. In-person events and the appetite for experiences and travel will grow to pre-2019 levels. Below are a few of my predictions for 2024:
AI is now ubiquitous - it’s hard to imagine that just a year ago we were explaining it to our Mom’s at Thanksgiving and now there are fewer companies that don’t have or promote some type of AI-washing or integration. It will become more rare to attend an event that doesn’t use AI than ones that do leverage it in some capacity (seen or unseen). With so many people now using AI, companies will need to be more discreet about how they arousing it and leverage it in interesting ways that are truly helpful, not generic. Using Chat GPT to write an event script or invite no longer cuts it. Best use cases will be data synthesis and analysis that will help save planners loads of time rather than “doing their job” for them, and helpful ways of enhancing the attendee experience so they get more personalization and meet more of the people they want to meet rather than wasting time at events listening to session or meeting with people that aren’t relevant to them.
Virtual event platforms will need to specialize and find their niche in order to thrive. Whether that’s focusing on becoming a webinar content-generating machine (like Hubilo), or focusing on community (like Gradual), marketing very specific use cases will help the winning platforms focus and rise to the top. There will be consolidation in the industry and some key players who will be able to be full-service platforms, and also succeed for planners who want to reduce their tech stack and onboarding time for vendors. Virtual events will be hyper-targeted to top of funnel events that are more about brand exposure and lead gen than deep middle and bottom of the funnel engagement and deal-making.
People crave in-person experiences and are willing to travel to them, especially if they are in a location that promotes other activities of leisure. “Bleisure” travel is surging and continues to motivate people to travel further to events that promise more experiences than just content. People who just want content will do that from their own homes or travel locally, but those who want experiences and to truly engage with others are willing to do so in unconventional formats and locations. Wellness is another key activity that is helping attendees maintain their health (or restore it) while traveling including everything from ice baths to meditation to healthier foods and group exercise programming. Many want to leverage events as a way to rejuvenize so we will see a lot more health-focused activities and inspiration and less of the unhealthy activities and food/beverages of former events.
People are craving more experiential activations rather than the standard corporate conference format in a ballroom or convention center. People have been starved of experiences during the pandemic and this combined with the explosion of social media has people craving experiences that they can remember, share, and revisit after they invest in attending them. Everyone is “press” at events now since there are so many influencers and social sharing is ubiquitous and must be built into the event experience before, during, and after the event.
ROI must be proven for everything we do. There is never an excuse these days to not have benchmarks in place for success. Planners must be able to justify every aspect of their event/experience and how it supports their business goals. Planners are getting smarter by reducing more of the “fluff” and focusing on fewer key experiences that will really drive the ROI they need to prove success and ensure marketing budgets are maintained. Teams are relying on consultants like myself and freelancers more and more to support their teams and help with everything from strategy to budgeting to execution. Many corporate planners have either left the market and turned to contracting or have lost their jobs due to downsizing so event teams are being tasked to do more with much smaller teams. Thus many are budgeting sizable amounts of for external event support. AI is helping, but event portfolios are exploding since events are proving more and more ROI, so teams can’t keep up. Events are finally starting to sell out again as companies are willing to host larger and larger events and in new regions.
