Meetings and Events Industry News

Using event technology and artificial intelligence to build and customize community engagement is the biggest meetings trend heading into 2017.

When convention bureaus develop their own meetings industry research, it positions them as leaders in event tech and meeting design innovation, and it differentiates them from their competitors. It takes a lot of work, resources, and experimentation to do it effectively, though.

Germany has one of the most innovative business strategies and fresh content models to attract more international conferences by focusing on extensive research development and sector-specific industry expertise. But managing and delivering on those effectively and consistently comes with its growing pains.

While meetings and events are cross-pollinating more sectors in their programming, the industry at large needs to expand how it defines and measures the value of that convergence.

With Vista already owning Lanyon, the writing was on the wall for this merger.

The Meetings Mean Business Coalition has built a strong war chest of advocacy materials supporting the value of face-to-face meetings, but incoming co-chair Paul Van Deventer says industry organizations should work more closely together to drive global growth.

The executives behind the success of SXSW and Bonnaroo say they're developing more varied event programming bringing together as many creative elements as possible, so brands have more opportunities to engage attendees at different levels throughout the event experience.

Following recent terrorism attacks and acts of violence in high-profile locations popular for meetings and events, the convention industry is compelled to proactively develop a new set of security standards. This is going to be costly, but it's a different world in 2016, and that's something the industry needs to accept.

Meetings industry media, organizations, tech providers, and forward-thinking suppliers are all aggressively experimenting with event technology and digital content. But there are questions about how well the majority of meeting planners will be prepared for the upcoming onslaught of digital-native attendees.