Transcript for "Mid-Year Event Trends: What's Tracking, What Surprised Us, and What to Watch": AI is a big part of Cvent IQ, but it's not the only part. Cvent IQ is a collection of powerful intelligence capabilities embedded across the Cvent platform. It helps you move faster and smarter, collaborate better, and deliver more engaging, high return experiences. Here's how it comes to life. For event professionals, you can create on brand event content in seconds, emails, speaker bios, and session descriptions, all without leaving your workflow. Enable attendees to use snapshots and make note taking effortless by turning moments into Seaben IQ powered takeaways that attendees can review later. Connect the right people, sessions, and exhibitors with smart recommendations that scale. Add a chatbot to your event site so attendees get instant answers without repeat work on your end. Turn session feedback into quick summaries that surface insights instantly. 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This year's Cvent Connect, you'll find new ideas, share stories, and feel that same energy that you pour into every event right here in Music City. We've designed four days where you'll be surrounded by creativity and possibilities, all built to bring that spark back. And you can bet we're gonna have fun along the way. So even if your events seem out of tune, come to Nashville, where you're gonna find harmony again. Join us and thousands of your peers for CMIT Connect twenty twenty six. Hello, everyone, and welcome, to today's webinar. Mid year event trends, what's tracking, what surprised us, and what to watch. So, excited to have, so many of you joining us today to have what will hopefully be a fun and insightful conversation as to where we are in the industry today and what's happening with events. My name is Victoria Akinchawan. I am a content strategist here on our marketing team at Cvent, and I will be your host and moderator for today. So, before we get started and, start our discussion, just a little bit of housekeeping. We are hosting this webinar in Goldcast, which is one of our webinar platforms, and we're really excited to do so. If you didn't know, we have recently acquired Goldcast, so we're hosting this webinar on the platform today. If you've not joined a Goldcast webinar before, on the right hand side of your screen is where you can join in the chat. I'm seeing, quite a few of you have already started to do that, which is wonderful. You can also submit q and a, using the tab there as well. So as we go through the webinar and if you have any questions that you want, our speakers to answer, please use that. And then you'll also see the docs tab where you can download some of the resources, related, to today's webinar. And, so we could just test out, that you you're all able to use the chat. Put in in the chat. I'd love to know, some of you have done this already. Where are you joining from, today? And I'd love to know as well, what are you looking to get from today's webinar? What made you join? I would be very curious to know. And as you are doing so, I'm gonna bring up our two fabulous speakers who will be joining me today. I will not speak for them. They can do that for themselves, and, tell them, tell you a little bit about this. So, Julie, why don't you get us started? Wonderful. Thank you, Victoria. Hello, everybody. I am Julie Haddix. I'm the senior director of industry and content marketing here for Cvent, and I have been at Cvent officially today, nineteen years. Today is actually my nineteen year anniversary at Cvent. And I just absolutely, as you might imagine, love, what I do working here at Cvent and especially getting to talk about meetings and events while working for a tech company while figuring out what it is that's top of your all's mind and bringing you content that answers those questions. And I know I already asked who's coming to meet us in Nashville, because I also manage the content strategy for Student Connect US program that's coming up a month from now in Nashville. So love to take a breath and talk with you guys today about the trends we're seeing, hear your reactions on what you're seeing. Hit me up in the chat or on LinkedIn with any last minute asks for Nashville, and, just really excited for today's conversation. Amazing. And you've got a lot of congrats in the chat, Julie, for your your. And I will add to that too. Congratulations. Jamie, tell us a little bit about yourself. Hi, everyone. Julie, congrats. That's crazy. I've not been here that long, just under five years. I'm Jamie Welch. I also do content strategy. But more specifically, my job is kind of to live inside of the data that really drives this industry forward. So I work on the Northstar Cvent meetings industry pulse survey, which I'm gonna tell you all about in a little bit. Also, the planner sourcing report, which is where a lot of the venue and sourcing data that you're gonna hear about today comes from. So when we talk about the research, I I'm really not citing it. Like, I helped put the questions together. I helped decide what what direction we were gonna go. So I really have live and breathe this stuff. And I've watched this data shift in real time. And honestly, in this particular moment, it's extremely interesting. One thing I will add, please don't send me any last minute requests for Nashville. I'm already stressed enough. I do not need last minute requests, but I can't wait to see everyone there. And I'm just so jealous that I'm not gonna be there. I know it's gonna be an amazing experience. But thank you both, and it's so great to see, such a wide variety of locations in the chat. I'm seeing UK. Yay. But I'm also seeing a lot of states in The US and Athens, Greece. I was recently there a couple weeks ago. So, great to to see so many of you. So let's get started then. We are here today to talk about, our event trends, and I wanted to give a little bit of of context as to, the discussion to today. So, if you if you didn't know, every year at Cvent, we work on, sharing and launching a set of predictions, that we believe are going to shape the industry in the year ahead. This is something I work very heavily on, alongside our team. And, these trends are are based on a range of sources. So we conduct a lot of research here at Cvent. And as Jamie mentioned, a lot of that, comes from the work the great work that she does, but we do a a whole range of research serving, people across the industry, marketers, event professionals, hospitality teams to really try to understand what's going on in the market. We also have a lot of great data that comes through our platform that we're able to, see trends there as well. And then, of course, there are third party analyst reports such as Forrester Gartner that really give, that perspective of where the, industry is going and where we are with events today. And so we use all of that great information and insights to try and distill a set of trends that we think, okay, in the next twelve months, these are the key themes to really think about. And for 2026, we identified nine key trends that we, believe, will be shaping the industry, and we released that at the start of every year, in our annual January webinar where we we go through, these findings in more detail. But because, we only have, so much time today, these these nine trends, can be found in our, ebook on on trends. But for day for today, we are going to be covering, four trends. So we're going to be looking at, the importance of trust and why trust is really the big differentiator today, and where we are with the reset some of the research we've done on that topic. We're gonna be diving into micro events and, that ongoing demand for smaller, more intimate formats. We'll be taking a look at the importance of event spaces and event design and what that means for how we, put on our our events. And then we're gonna take a look at, the importance of measurable outcomes and why, today is even more important than ever. So a quick sneak peek into what we're gonna be covering. But before we get into that, I wanted to make sure that we had some space to think about, what, the the industry is saying right now. And one of the the pieces of research that we we work on, and and Jamie is, the, a key, person behind this is our pulse report, which is really, a look at the sentiment, for our meetings and events today. So, Jamie, I'm gonna bring you on to just talk to us a little bit more about Pulse. But before we do, I would love for us to launch our first poll, and it's very much linked to, what we're gonna talk about. So how would you describe your confidence in your event program right now? Are you more optimistic than you were at the start of the year, about the same, you feeling less optimistic, or maybe you're not sure? I'd love to know. And whilst, answers are coming in, Jamie, maybe you can just give a a brief description of what the pulse survey is. Yeah. So the the name is a mouthful. It's the Northstar Cvent meetings industry pulse survey. From here on out, I'm just gonna say pulse survey just to make it easier for everyone. So we started Cvent started, actually right when I started. So I've been doing this for almost five years now, and we partnered with Northstar Meetings Group. This survey came actually out of the pandemic to kind of track recovery, to track what was going on. So we have data all the way from back then, about optimism and booking patterns and rebooking patterns. So it's really a wealth of knowledge. We now survey planners globally. It started in North America, but now we have surveys also in EMEA and APAC. And as I was saying, every month, we have started with asking a simple question to start, which is how has your outlook for meetings and events changed over the past two months? So we've been asking that since maybe 2020, and we're not just talking taking a snapshot. We're tracking that direction. So you can see here that North America, 18% more optimistic, 52% less optimistic, 30% no change. It gets a little different in EMEA where 34% are more optimistic. And as you can see in APAC, 40%. So these numbers are vastly different depending on what area you're in, which obviously makes sense. We I know that us in North America are dealing with very different things than people are dealing with in EMEA. The headline currently really is that the pessimists are outnumbering optimists globally for the first time. We are we do have some new data that will be coming out at Connect, so I'm excited to see how this transpires and how this changes. But what matters is that sentiment softening is not the same as demand softening. So meetings are still being booked, sourcing pipelines are active, the industry is adjusting, it's not retreating. So I just wanna make sure optimism is really how are you feeling. And I think if you ask any planner, they probably are not feeling great. Your jobs are super, super hard. I understand that. So take this always with a grain of salt. Where we start to see kind of more of where that optimism change pessimism is coming from is when we look globally and maybe kind of look into how global conflict is disrupting meetings. So, we know that 40 from our survey, 41% of planners say that the conflict, the military conflict in The Middle East is affecting the outlook, planning, or execution of their events. Some are still unsure of the OPEC, but that means at least 16% are unsure. So that means more than half are either disrupted or living in uncertainty. And this is kind of a dominant operating condition, not like a niche concern. 64% of EMEA planners say they're less likely to consider producing events in The US, and that's driven mostly by visa restrictions, social policies, concern about about trade costs. So destination decisions are being reassessed. They're not being abandoned permanently, but the near term impact is affecting where, you know, planners are sourcing. So the takeaway really is that planners are placing a premium on partners who help them navigate rather than add to it. Right? There's already enough. So destinations, areas that do not add to the workload that's already insane, those are the ones that that are going to be booked, and those are the ones that are are gonna see the the increase in, events. Oh, Victoria's coming back. Don't worry. You're not left with me. Hey. I'm back on stage. That was great. I was just saying thank you. That is a really good overview, and I wanted to pull the poll back up just to see, you know, how, what you've just shared kinda resonates with people watching today. So I can see that most people seem to be saying that they feel about the same when it comes to their confidence. Then it's, you know, more optimistic. That's about 2021% of the votes. Quite a few feeling less optimistic. So I I kinda wanted to gauge from you, Jamie, what what do you what do you make of these as the poll results are still still moving? Yeah. It's it's so subjective. Right? We I I don't know what day you took the survey. I don't know how your morning went or your evening went. Right? You could have just gotten really bad news about one event, or your whole event program, and that could change tomorrow. So that's why I always say take it with a grain of salt. It's not that those aren't real and that's not how the larger industry is feeling. It's more that, again, I think we have to make sure when we talk about the sentiment versus booking patterns, they're two different things. Optimism could be low. That doesn't mean events are stopping. It's just that they're getting harder to do. So, of course, we're not as optimistic as we used to be because I mean, I remember I was an event planner actually before I started this job, and then COVID happened. And I remember what it was like. It was so stressful. I cannot imagine doing that now. So it's they're they're two different things. But, again, just make sure when we're looking at optimism versus booking, they don't equate to the same. So pessimism isn't we're not we're not doing events. I think it's just events are super, super hard and more than ever now. Yeah. I think that's a really great point to to to raise there of the difference between what you might be feeling versus what's actually happening out in the market. That makes a lot of sense. And, you know, for those who did select less optimistic, it'd be great if you're willing to share what some of those things that you, are feeling less positive about, and maybe that's something we can address, as we go through today's, discussion. But thank you so much, Jamie. And, I have so many more questions for you. But before we we we do that, I wanted to go to our first trend then of today, which is all around trust. So, one of the key, trends that we, had set out was the importance of trust in a world where we are seeing more and more sort of AI generated content. And I don't know about you, but when I go online, sometimes these days, it's it's hard to know what's real and what's fake. You see a video and you're not sure if it's been created by a human or not. And it's in this landscape that our audiences are living in today. And so we really put a stake in the ground to say, brands and organizations that really focus on trust and on that authentic connection are the ones that will be able to differentiate themselves from, other other organizations. But it wasn't just a, fancy sort of, fanciful trend that we wanted to put together. We also did, research. So, at the start of the year, we conducted research with Censuswide, which is a independent research consultancy, to understand how marketing teams and event professionals are thinking about building audience trust today in a landscape where audiences are more skeptical, there's more noise online. And so we did a global survey of 901, marketing and event professionals across 12 countries and four industries. And so, what we did find was the majority, 97%, did say that, trust was very important to commercial outcomes. So I'm gonna dive we're gonna dive in, into the the findings and have a discussion around that, but I did want to bring up a question, another poll, before we do so just to gauge where we are, in the audience today. And the question is, how intentional are you about using events as a trust building strategy? Is it a deliberate defined part of your approach? Is it just something coincidental or byproduct, but it's not really the primary goal? Is it something that you think you should be more deliberate about, or something you're only just starting to think about? Love to to know. And getting some great to see some of the responses here. So I'm actually very encouraged by this. Most of you are saying that it's a deliberate part of your approach, which is wonderful to hear, which hopefully means that, you know, what we're gonna show to you then, is going to be of of great interest. So let's dive into some of the findings, shall we? One of the things that we really wanted to look at was how is AI impacting, trust today. And so this is perhaps no, surprise to many of you, but, most people said, 85%, say they believe that AI generated content makes trust harder to earn, and 27% consider generic or AI content to be the biggest risk to their audience's trust. And, when we really looked into some of the follow-up questions as to why AI makes trust harder or AI content, I should say, makes trust harder, some of the top reasons were, you you know, audiences not knowing whether the content is genuinely human created or not, concerns around compliance and regulatory, issues, and also, increased skepticism about the accuracy of information. So, Julie, I'm gonna bring you up, on just to have a chat about that because I love your perspective. Obviously, we are both we are all on here very content driven people. So what do you make of this finding that, you know, AI generated content seems to be making trust a little bit harder to earn, and yet we're all needing to use it? Yes. I love I love this because yes. And you've got three of myself and my content team here today. And as anyone can imagine, I'm sure you, just like us, is getting asked to figure out how to use AI to make yourself more productive, more efficient, show savings, adopt AI. So we are here producing AI generated content. And one of the things that, you know, I think that we're all learning is, especially those who produce AI generated content, can spot AI generated content. You definitely can see the trends. You can see where you know, I I was talking to our head of PR last week about the MDash that, you know, didn't used to always be used in copywriting, and now it shows up everywhere because the AI chatbots love to use an em dash. And so absolutely, not surprised, that we see these results coming in. But what I think that this means for events is that events are now set up to be that authentic connection. And you really need to understand how your event strategy is tied to your content strategy. Because as you are building work at you know, especially for, you know, my event marketers and field marketers and those who use events as a marketing channel, you know, you're you need to make sure that you are working with your demand, your SEO, your larger content teams, and marketing teams to understand where your event program is going to sit in relation to that buyer customer journey. And because you when you have garnered their visibility at the top of the funnel, when you have created that mind share with somebody, an event is in a next great place to pull them in and start to build that trust and pull them down the funnel to a close. Or you've closed a deal. They've leveraged leveraged your online teaching tools. They're, you know, getting into your business, but you want to retain them, event is a great opportunity to engage with them, have a customer event. You know, I was actually just when, Victoria pulled me back on stage looking at some of the, chats going on and was gonna, respond about, you know, the lack of pipeline at trade shows. And one of the things that we're seeing and doing is reevaluating the purpose of some of our trade shows. Is every trade show is every event that we attend need to be a lead driving activity, need to be a lead driving investment? If the you know, if we're at the point at a show that we have maybe maxed out on a net new, should we be changing the investment strategy for that show and actually shifting to more of a engagement dinner with our customers, rather than a trade show booth. You know, it's not necessarily about removing our presence, spending more adding, reevaluating how those dollars are spent, to really make sure we're we're building that trust. So long winded way of, yes, AI generated content, putting trust at risk, but providing such an opportunity for events to step in and partner within the larger marketing team to build that trust at the right point in time. I love everything that you stated there, Julie, and that kinda comes to our next point we're gonna talk about. But I did wanna bring up Suzanne's comment about not using m dashes anymore because of AI, and I'm an m dash lover so that makes me so sad. But it's true. Me too. But I think to wrap up the the AI point here because, obviously, all of us, are using it in some way, and so it's really, what we found in the survey was, the importance of being transparent as to when you're using it and how you're using it, but also what we should all know is, like, that human oversight, that human voice should never be lost even if you're using, AI to to assist. But to Julie's breakpoint around, you know, there's a lot of talk around AI, but that puts events in such a great, position, because what we can really show and, you know, Julie, you put this so eloquently and so greatly, is the importance of that authentic IRL in real life connection. And so when we did this survey, 85% of our, respondents said that their investment in in person events has actually increased, you know, as a channel to build trust. Almost all of them said that, in person events are important building credibility with their key audiences. 91% expect in person to become more central in the next couple of years, and all of that builds up to, you know, the the results that, these teams are seeing. So, you know, 81% saying that audiences that audience's trust in their brand increases after an in person event kind of goes to a lot of what Julie was saying around, how how that really helps as a touch point to really bring people together. And then the the job then becomes to decide what where do you put that investment? What formats make sense? So, we'd love to, hear from from chat. It's I'm actually trying to keep up with the comments. There's so many great, conversations happening, around around this, which is really great to hear. But the other thing that we wanted to talk explore in this research when we conducted it was, okay, how does how do venues and and vendors, how do they, work as part of that ecosystem of trust? Because, obviously, if we have events, they're not happening in a vacuum. We do need that partnership to be able to put these experiences together that build that loyalty and and trust and engagement. So one of the findings that we found was, you know, when evaluating a venue, the top, thing that that marketers and and event professionals are looking for are photos, videos, three d tours of the space, which, you know, makes sense. And then when we asked, you know, what factors build trust at events, we were really pleasantly surprised to see that the venue and physical environment came up third. So I'm gonna bring up Jamie and and Julie just to, you know, give me your perspective on this. Like, what is your thinking of what these findings mean and what that means for venues and and partners? Julie, I'm happy to hop right in. I think it it tells us the venue is not is no longer just a backdrop drop or just a place to to hold the event. It is part of that trust signal. The physical environment, it shapes how comfortable people are, how easily they can connect. And then, honestly, whether they can walk away feeling like they were the event delivered on what it promised. Right? I'm sure every single one of us have been to an event where we're like, why are we in this room? Or why would they put the food here? Why would they do this? Right? And sometimes it's just because that was the only option and we get that. But we've also all been to an incredible venue or a venue that has been transformed by that team, and it feels exactly like what the planners were trying to do. Right? Whether it's networking, whether it's having this really special experience that you can't get anywhere else, whether it's, you know, that Instagramable moment, TikTok if you're much younger than me. Whatever it is, if that's what the goal is, when you go to events that aren't giving you those things for that audience, you can feel it and then you trust them less. Right? You asked me to come here to do x, y, and z, but those are very hard to do in this environment. So the trust starts with selecting a venue that complements what you're trying to do. You know, I think that one aspect of trust in events that we haven't talked about as it relates to venues and vendors is that trust between the event organizer and the vendor venues and vendors. And I know all of us have worked with venues, vendors, partners that become an extension of your team, who you trust implicitly, who get your vision, who see your vision. And when you build that trust as you're going through your event execution, it makes it just so much easier for you when you know that the place that you're going is going to bring the vision that you had to life, that your vendors are going to nail it. And then the experience of those partners and vendors and venues that that don't see it, that you never get on the same page with, that you just have those conflicting views, and it ends up showing in the event experience. So the physical environment, the Instagramable moments are absolutely what builds that trust with your attendees as they walk in the door. But before they walk in that door, that trust with the extended team is what created that moment of trust with your attendees as well. Can you agree more? And I think that also then for the on the event organizer side, you know, it then builds that trust internally when you go back and ask for more budget for more events because you're able to show the outcomes. But that is really based on that partnership. And as you're saying, do you need that trust between the relationships you've built with your venues and your vendors? So it's full circle, really. And kind of to close on this topic then, I'd love and maybe this has been for you, Jamie, in terms of how can venues show up differently. Like, what can venues do? I see Claire, has put in the chat here, like, AI generated photos are damaging clients' expectations of venues. So, you know, here are some tips on the slide, but I'd love for you to just speak to any any tips you have. Yeah. I mean, so I'll just I'll I'll briefly touch what's on the slide first. So lead with what the as of any, lead with what the space enables, not just its features. Right? It it has this. It has the lights here. It has this. It's helping a planner envision more than what the space is just giving you. You are you have had so many events there. You've seen all of these visions come to life. Share that with the next person who comes in. That That way, they're not starting from scratch, and it helps. Anytime someone gives me just a kernel of an idea, it's so much easier to take that further than when you're starting from scratch and trying to figure it out, especially because you maybe have never been to this venue before. How are you gonna know if this is gonna work? And and just having them go that, like, little extra step is amazing. And then, obviously, flexibility. That shows up everywhere. Being flexible is on pulse, planner sourcing report, the trust. It's not about you need to be willing to accommodate all of my needs. It's things change. Live events are constant. I used to work in news. Like, things do not stay just exactly how we envisioned. I wish they did. But we you need a venue that understands that, that understands changes are not your fault or not things that we can just avoid. So being flexible is it goes so much deeper than just, you know, with rates or with attendees or with anything. It's it's understanding that this is a fluid live event, and things are gonna happen. And then as everyone's talking about the AI, your digital presence is the first trust moment. You know, when you're trying to find a venue and you go to whether it's their CSN profile or their website, the first thing you look at, at least I do, is photos. Right? And when those photos are not authentic, you it shows. It it really shows. It's not that anyone needs a fake photo. We I would rather the terrible, terrible, terrible photo because then I know how much work I have to do to make it exactly what I want. It doesn't mean I'm not gonna come. But if I see some really awesome photo and then I go to tour or I do a virtual tour or something and it does not live up to the expectations, I immediately have lost trust because you were trying to sell me a dream that does not exist. However, on the on the reverse, showing some crazy amazing layout and then the bare bones space that it actually is day to day, that is exactly how you build terms. This is leading with the what the space enables. Right? And then showing that from from, you know, the bare bones to a fully realized, event. So photos, video, three d tours, those are the trusted content types. That's what the planner sourcing report talks about. And it's it's really crucial in the evaluation process. I cannot have said that any better myself, and thank you, Jamie. I wanted to end on this topic with a really good comment from Joe. I just have to read it out. An ideal venue peels off the corporate facade, and attendees feel that they can bring their authentic selves. They will be more empowered to network, connect, and speak up. I I just love that. I had to read it out. But that takes us really nicely then, though, to, trend number two that we're gonna be covering, event spaces designed with intention. So love to bring up, another poll just to gauge where, you are all feeling about this topic. How would you describe your approach to event spaces right now? Are you actively exploring unique venues? And you'll see why we asked that as an answer. When are you mixing it up, both traditional and unique? Are you sticking with trusted host hotel partners? Or if you're on the menu side, are you rethinking your your offering? Let us know. Okay. So votes are coming in. Most are saying you're mixing it up, which is very interesting. So both traditional and unique, and I'd love to to learn more about that. But, let's dive into some of the findings then from the planet sourcing report that Jamie, mentioned and works extensively on. So, Jamie, I'm gonna bring you up again to talk through some of these findings and how that relates to event spaces, unique venues, all of the things. Yeah. So there was a 30 up there over 30 percentage point rise in special event venue sourcing since we started asking this. Since I I remember writing this question in, and I remember seeing the results going, oh, I guess it's I guess they're not that popular. And then the next year, it just kind of skyrocketed. So 48% of planners currently are sourcing non hotel, and that's that we specifically ask it that way to make sure that these are special event menus. And of those, 45% say that restaurants are the most popular choice here. So the things that are kind of, you know, driving that is flexibility. That is the top 41% said that flexibility is the reason that they're being driven. And I think that speaks to, you know, venues, I do not think are set up not all. So you're not do not do not call me on this. But they're not set up necessarily the same as hotels where they kind of have this traditional this is a we traditionally do weddings. We traditionally do this. We do conferences, whatever. They're kind of ready for different things, especially if you're going to, say, a winery, stuff like that. It's it's a different experience. And that lends into the second reason that people really are flocking to these types of venues, which is the attendee experience. So 35% say that attendee experience is one of the driving factors. And then following that is cost and unique amenities. Right? So it's all of those things of being a flexible partner of, making sure that you're delivering and giving something that you cannot get, whether that's you cannot get at home or you can't get from not attending at all. So it's more about program decisions. It's not just logistics. Nobody nobody is looking at a wine bar because it has better AV. Right? It's not no no one ever said that. The you're looking at a wine bar because of the people that you're bringing are wine people or it has the environment. It has whatever it is, it has to speak it speaks to your programs. It's more than just logistics. So the shift in why planners are choosing this these spaces is significant in what they're choosing. And then I I think the being like, designing with intention is really important. And then I believe, Victoria, we have another poll. I'm I'm happy to there's Julie. And We're back. We have a poll, a little later on. Yes. But we did do just now the poll with regards to how people are thinking about, event spaces, and what we did see is people are mixing up, so they're both traditional and unique. So is there anything that you think from that? Is that something that you're seeing in the conversation we're having, you know, a mix of unique, but also we want to keep the traditional aspect? Yeah. I mean, I think about Stevent Connect. Right? We have a mix right there. It's it's it's what are you trying to provide? I think if, you know, we our our evening events, if we had them in a hotel lobby, I think there would be for those who have attended, it would be such a different experience. The our planners do such an amazing job. I know I've I've gone for the last four years, so I'll talk about kind of like last year in San Antonio. Everywhere you turn, there was like, you know, you could get your picture drawn. You could get this. It's it's it's creating these little unique experiences. There were so many photograph moments for people, and that is something that a unique venue that a, a music venue. Right? We had some people play we had a band. We had a bar. You can't have that same at a hotel. Right? But also, we have staff. We have to put them somewhere. We have to so it's it's it's a mix. It's just what you wanna get out of it. It's not that a hotel can't give you what a special event venue can. It's that certain spaces just can't be more than what bar. You can't again, the whole wine bar a v. Like, you can't make something something it's not. And so I I do think that a mix is that that truly I sense to me. I think putting on a well rounded event, especially larger events, requires a mix. And I would guess it depends on on your objectives. Judy, what were you gonna say? was gonna go exactly there, Victoria, on event objectives being such a good guide for, your event space. You know? And and at Cvent, our event program definitely has a mix. I mean, we're going to Jamie talked about Cvent Connect where, you know, that that's a citywide takeover. We've got hotel. We've got convention center. We've got dinners at different venues. We're shutting down Broadway one night for an outdoor entertainment experience. But even if you just think about, all of the different programs we do, when we have a seminar, we definitely need a space that is going to have the availability for that screen, that presentation. And so, you know, you need to think about what you're trying to accomplish in that room. And and we may look for restaurants and as well as smaller space hotels, but, you know, you knew you know you have to have a certain kind of format when you're doing a seminar with some type of presentation versus when we're doing a off-site activation at a trade show. We've been trialing some things at bowling alleys, for example, where instead of just a traditional networking event, even in, like, the takeover of the bar area of a restaurant, we're getting people together for an activity or a Topgolf experience. So there's such a great way to think about what am I trying to accomplish when you're thinking about your venue selection process. I love that. And that kind of goes to the slide that I I'm a very visual person. So when putting this together, I wanted some examples of some of those activations. And, you know, you've got an owl there in the right on the right hand side and a Lifesize Monopoly thing, but we're doing a networking event in London, for example, and the Lifesize Monopoly is part of that, trying to get people engaged and, having fun at this networking event whilst, you know, we've recently done a customer retreat, which is, for a select number of our customers in Europe. And as part of that, the venue offered, I think it's falconry, which I've never done before, but I'd love to. And I think this year, they did duck herding, which is a thing. So it's also about thinking about what are some of those experiences that you can that your venue can offer that the attendees probably wouldn't be able to get elsewhere, which takes us very nicely to our next trend, which is all around micro events. So these smaller, more intimate formats. And, Judy, I'd love to chat to you about some of the findings from another one of our reports, our event led growth report, Ask Julie's coming back on. We'd love to hear what you're thinking about the different formats that we're seeing, and and what do you think is driving this desire for more smaller intimate event formats? Yeah. So I know way in the chat earlier, we were talking a little bit about the need to prove the value of your event to drive revenue from events. And, you know, when I think about, Victoria alluded to this is from our event led growth report. For those not familiar with the term event led growth, it it's really that purposeful thinking of events within your strategy to drive your business forward and how are you using, your events for business and performance outcomes. That might mean tying, your event strategy back to specifically leads and revenue and funnel metrics or, especially if you live in a corporate world, or maybe it's about how are you tying your event to members and membership renewals or donors and donations. Or if you're in a university setting, how are you tying your events to your training and learn learning or student outcomes, or faculty outcomes. But so that's a purposeful, point in time. And so when you think about if you're thinking about how your events are driving your business outcomes, you then need to think about what event format is going to help you achieve the business objective, that you have in mind. And every event type has a different, business objective, and this is, you know, the conversation that we need to educate and have with our stakeholders. Size is not the most important thing at your event. Maybe it is if you're trying to, you know, grow a membership base or engage a large membership base. Our annual conference size is definitely something we look at. But you also have engagement. I also always say engagement for engagement's sake is not a measurable outcome. What are you trying to engage? What is that engagement purpose for? Is it prospect engagement that you're trying to create mindshare, create relationships, and ultimately have somebody, not maybe after the first engagement, but after a second or third consider you as a vendor? Are they already a customer and you want to build a relationship, maybe create an advocate out of somebody? All of these different nuances are so crucial, and we know this as meaning and event marketing owners of these events. We know this. It's how we talk about this with our executive stakeholders and our business leaders that are so crucial to helping them understand the event format that is going to drive event ROI, to get them the that revenue, to get them that outcome that they're looking for. So we need to learn how to say, okay. You want to have an executive roundtable. Well, in order for an executive roundtable to drive ROI, that means you need the right customers in the room. So size might be not the right factor. We need to define which stage of the buying cycle those executives are from, what type of accounts are they coming from. Or you see on the flip side, that's you know, apparently, executive roundtables are becoming less and less, important probably because those are really hard to tie to ROI. So we're probably doing them less because they are just conversational events. But workshops workshops are an event type where you can really get in and say, we're gonna workshop x y z problem. And because we're gonna workshop x y z problem, we have a solution to that problem. And even though this might not be a sales presentation, simply by participating in this workshop, we're hoping that you're gonna want to look into our solutions. And then there is that direct corollary. Or with a workshop, if you're, you know, and an association or even education, maybe you're charging direct revenue for that workshop. So thereby, by hosting that workshop, you can increase your direct revenue for your event. I know I'm talking really fast, but I also know that we've been talking a lot. We had a lot of content to cover. But, you know, that's really just some of those different things to think about. I hate just using the word ROI because ROI means so many things to the leaders you're talking to. So for me, it's about starting with what does ROI mean in the context of the conversation, how are you using that event to drive a business outcome, that business outcome as your ROI, and then what does that mean for who should be there and the KPIs of your event. And what I I love about what you have just said, Judy, is, you know, who do you want in the room? I think, you know, understanding what's that ICP. Who's that ideal profile that you want in the room, and it's not always a case of more, more, more. It's, like, quality of who is in the room. Yeah. And I'd love to hear, from any of you. Are you doing more micro events, smaller formats? Is this something that is, part and parcel of your event strategy for this year? We'd love to to hear how you're thinking about, these these smaller formats. But as we are nearing the end, of this, of today's session, wanted to get us to our final trend, of today, which is around measurable outcomes. And, of course, we all know that being able to show impacts, that's not new. That's something that we always needed to do. But, you know, in today's kinda landscape where, increasingly, you know, digital is is harder digital attribution is harder to come by. I I I believe that it it does put events in, like, a very great space to be able to prove as we've seen with the the trust trend that we talked through to show some of the impact that that events have. And, from the same event led growth report, these are some of the the stats. So it surveyed over a thousand marketers across The US and The UK, and a good majority say that events generate a steady flow of revenue, that deals close faster when prospects attend events, and that your people do attribute attribute a significant portion of of pipeline to event activity. Of course, this is a very, revenue driven, look, but I think it does show a lot around, the importance of events. But, the flip side of that, and, Julie, you did such a great job in teeing this up, so I'm bringing you back on to finish finish the job, is that imminent gap and event led growth? I just want to get your brain for everyone here on the call just to understand what do you make of this gap between, okay, instinctively, we know events work, but we're finding it hard to really prove it. Yeah. So definitely. And, you know, we didn't ever do a poll of exactly who else in the room, but I'd love for those of you who are here, especially if you, align yourself more as an event planner, Talk to me about your relationship with your marketing department holistically, and especially your marketing operations department because one of the most crucial, parts of really understanding the impact of your events is making sure that you know how your business, how your organization measures success in other areas. How do you let's say you work in more of a traditional tech company, you're very corporate tech, corporate financial systems, you we speak a language of funnels, leads, webinars, funnel metrics, deals closed, deal velocity. That's a very, you know, standard language we speak in. If that's the language that your marketing department is using when talking to your CEO and your CFO about the success of the business, you need to be partnering with that marketing operations team to make sure events are speaking that same language, because that is the language your executives will understand. If you work in a noncorporate setting and your language is around number of members, number of students, number of engagements, whatever that language of business success is is so crucial, to first know who those people are and what is that language that they're talking in. Then the next key piece is that integration with the tech stack. You see here that right now in our survey, 75% of respondents don't integrate their Event Tech platform with their MarTech stack. MarTech stack, means CRM system, something like Salesforce, maybe your marketing automation, like your Marketo, for associations, absolutely would include your association management system system in that conversation. That integration of your event technology into those corporate business systems is going to help accelerate the ability to show improve the impact of your event on your business performance. That's a crucial gap that starting those conversations of who is even in marketing operations, will help with. Then we see saw 41% can't accurately track pipeline for events. Again, if you're not speaking the language, you're not gonna be able to track pipeline. 35% saying a lack of attribution undermines their credibility. This goes so back to a very early today conversation in the chat about that proving and drive of ROI and revenue to your stakeholders. Stakeholders are not looking for events to fill butts in seats. If you tell me that when I have, you know, somebody come to me and say that there are 100 people at my event, that means nothing to me. Means nothing to me because I don't know, was your goal 50 people? Was your goal 200 people? Was your goal 300 people? Why'd you do that event? Were was it a 100 customers? Was it a 100 prospects? Why were what were we doing? And so if we go into these conversations with just very I I call them metrics about my event, show rates, number of people who were there, and number of people who watched something online, number of people who made it might have engaged with us on, social media. I don't have context, and so I don't know exactly what you're telling me. And is that success? Is that good? 56% struggle with data quality post event. So, you know, we only have five minutes, and I could go on an entire tangent and presentation about data. One of the things that is so important as we talk about, you know, this conversation about integrating your event tech, speaking with credibility, talking to the language of the of the business is also your event data, standardizing your event data. The importance of having your events on a standard system so that your data is consistent for every event, so that your data can consistently be mapped back into other tech platforms is so important because one of the biggest struggles with event data is if it is different because it's in a different system every event. My virtual event's over here. My field marketing's over here. My trade show's over here. My user conference is over here. Those reports look different for every event because it's a different tech platform. It's different data fields. It's different, and you can't tell a consistent story. But if I have a standardized event technology system that's going to standardize the data we collect so that our reporting is consistent, so that's consistently passed into other tech systems, that's gonna start to help solve that post event data quality issue. Because I hear so often that people are looking for a report that tells me how many of x y z type of person came to my event. Well, we don't have a field anywhere in our event registration that tells me about x y z person. So you actually need to start your event with understanding what's the data I need on the flip side to make business decisions. But then now we have AI technology. And my absolute favorite use of AI right now is to run my reports in Cvent and ask AI to help me do an analysis on it. I have so many insights about our upcoming connect conference in Nashville that used to take me a week, and I hoped I could do it once before going into the event just so I could level set. That now I'm able to pull these reports weekly, run it through my AI analysis, and tell me the trends. Favorite right now is what are my most popular topics. Event Connect US has 300 different agenda items on it. So the quick AI analysis of what's going on with all 300 different agenda items is just increasing my credibility as the content strategist where I deeply know what's going on at my event. I watch those reports, but that ability to produce for my CMO and my executive team exactly what's happening, what are the trends we're seeing, where are we nailing what we set out to, where are the gaps that now I here I am a month before the event, and we're still being able to make those real time changes going in in a way that we never could before. So that's my very quick I could do an entire webinar on this slide alone. I know it's just gonna say to this, when we. do a whole deep dive on data and measurement alone. I'm sure it's gonna be covered extensively at Cvent Connect, but we should definitely do an a follow-up because it is such an important topic. So I I love that you talked about integration. That's so important, but I will also love that you ended on where AI can help do that heavy lifting. So and speaking of connect, I am so jealous that I won't be there, but, a plug for Cvent Connect Europe. I'm thinking of Cvent Connect Europe in October, but I'm planning on my side. Cvent Connect in The US is happening, next month, and Julie, Jamie, and the rest of the team have been working very, very hard on that programming. So it's gonna be one, two, one. Our final poll, though, of today, I we've shared so much information with you all. So I would just want to know what is your next action. So, what are you gonna do with these insights? Hopefully, we can open up that poll if it's not already. Are you going to be sharing this with your team? Are you gonna revisit how you're thinking about event impact? Do you want to know how Cvent can help? Our we can connect you with our team if so. But, Julie, Jamie, one final question to you both then. If there's one piece of advice that you'd give to people who watched today, what should they be going away with? What this what should what should they be thinking about come Monday morning next week? I'm gonna go with come Monday morning next week. Even if you can't be joining us in Nashville, you should be joining us virtually because we are streaming 14 amazing sessions that will dive into deeper so many of these topics, including one where Jamie and her crew will go even deeper on some of our source and pulse data. So, absolutely, like, if this was meant to be a quick hit on a lot of the things we're seeing, but definitely join us for Cvent Connect because every single one of these trends, topics, etcetera, will be giving you so much more content on. We'd love to have you. Well, Jewel I mean, I can't be what Julie said, but I would say decide what you're measuring on and against. Right? We're all in content. The decision to say, oh, this got this many downloads or this many attendees is great. But if you didn't go into it thinking that was going to be the metric, right, we all have different leaders who want different things. Figure out what your leadership wants, what you want, what are the metrics that you're looking at, and what is what is good to you at the end of the day. And if you know what good is at the end of the day, then going into it, you can make sure those elements are actually included. What's that? Insights with your team. Most of you said that you're gonna share these insights with your team, which is great. We do have resources. So a couple of the reports that we've been referencing today are available for you if you click the the docs tab. And then to close, my final thing for today is if you do want to have, a a demo or if you're interested in learning about any of, our solutions, you are able to sign up with a personalized demo with us. So there should be a link picked up top. If you would like that, just click that button, and, we can arrange that for you. But thank you again so much for joining. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you, Jamie and Julie, for all of your wonderful insights. Always great to chat with you. And but, everyone watching, thank you again. And we have a survey at the end. We take the surveys very seriously. So, if you are able to fill that out, it helps us to improve, our content. So thank you all so much.