Understanding the current state of the events industry with Julie Haddix and Jaimi Welch

Jaimi Welch [00:00:00]:

Many are saying that they've been impacted by political, economic, or social policy changes. I would say that's kind of the main thing is that people don't know what's necessarily happening or where we're headed, and I think that makes them nervous. So 61% cited that those changes have been impacting their events. We've never seen a response kind of this strong.

Alyssa Peltier [00:00:12]:

Great events create great brands, but pulling off an event that engages, excites, and connects audiences? Well, that takes a village. And we're that village. My name is Alyssa.

Rachel Andrews [00:00:36]:

I'm Rachel.

Felicia Asiedu [00:00:37]:

And I'm Felicia.

Alyssa Peltier[00:00:38]:

And you're listening to Great Events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators, and innovators in the world of events and marketing.

Hello, everyone. What has been going on in this wide, wide world of events? Welcome back to the Great Events podcast, a podcast by Cvent. I'll be this week's host. My name is Alyssa. Most of you know me at this point, and I have to say, holy crap, what a time it is to be in events once again. If you're feeling a little bit of the whiplash from the current state of the world, you are certainly not alone in this regard. Between the global uncertainty, the shifting budgets, the economic headwinds, it's fair to say that the vibe in our industry has shifted a little bit. And the latest Pulse data from North Star and Cvent confirms it. We're seeing that confidence has dipped, attendance and travel projections are a little bit lower than we anticipated at the beginning of the year, but, here's a big but, sourcing volume, DEI, and the belief in the power of in-person, still very much going strong.

So what does that mean for you? You, the event professional, the event marketer, the supplier to all of these professionals? What are people really feeling out there? And more importantly, how do we move forward in these times of uncertainty, like I said, once again?

Today I have got two of my favorite and most brilliant Cventures joining me, people who live and breathe this stuff, these conversations and these insights every single day. And they are here to break it all down. We're going to talk about some of these trends, some real customer sentiment, and how event professionals and suppliers can keep delivering, keep executing even in a down market.

So first, let me introduce my two fellow interviewees today, Julie and Jaimi. Say hi and introduce yourself. I'll start with you, Julie.

Julie Haddix [00:02:21]:

Hi, everybody. I am Julie Haddix. I am the Senior Director of Solutions and Customer Marketing here at Cvent. And what that means is it is my job to translate all of these Cvent products that we have, package, and position into our different industry verticals and different go-to-market segments. I say it's my job to be paying attention to what's going on out there in the industry and really think about how that translates to our products. And then I own our customer marketing channels as well, so how we engage and create advocacy and get our customers to adopt our technology. So again, all about understanding the larger context of the world and how it relates to our technology.

This topic is one that I've been really keeping my pulse on of course and really excited to have this conversation today.

Alyssa Peltier [00:03:18]:

And Jaimi?

Jaimi Welch [00:03:20]:

Hi. So I am the Manager of Content Marketing, but what I really do is I run a series or work on a series of different surveys where we ask planners or travel managers questions from anything from sentiment to sourcing behavior. That is almost entirely what I do is I ask event planners, I ask travel managers, "What are you seeing? What are you feeling? What is happening in the industry?" And then I take that information, which it's the survey questions we ask, it's long, it's vast, it's a lot, and I take that and I package it up for planners and for our supplier audience so that they know what's going on in the industry but also how they can take those industry trends and use Cvent as a partner to combat them, overcome them, to just lean into all of the things that are kind of meh, but we got your back. We have a million tips for you.

So just like Julie said, this is all I do day in and day out. And specifically the Pulse, I've been working on it since the Cvent partnered three years ago, so I've been doing it six times a year is how often we do it in North America. So yeah, Julie and I, we live and breathe this.

Alyssa Peltier [00:04:28]:

I think that's takeaway one for the audience is that this Pulse survey even exists. So if you're looking to keep a pulse of the industry, come to cvent.com, check out the latest and greatest. We're always publishing new content in that survey, six times a year, as Jaimi just said. All right, Jaimi, so this moment, right now, what is the data telling us in the Pulse survey?

Jaimi Welch [00:04:47]:

Optimism was always a question that they've asked, and optimism is down. So 52% of planners are saying that they are less confident than they were the last time we surveyed two months ago. It's a downturn, and it's not necessarily awesome. The last time I ever saw it this low was 49% back in January of 2022, and the lowest it's ever been was when it was at 70% back in August 2021, and that was when Delta kind of was surging. So yeah, planner sentiment is down a little bit, but again, that is not to say that anything bad is happening, it's just that people are a little worried right now.

Alyssa Peltier [00:05:24]:

I'm seeing that sourcing volume is still pretty steady. Is that true in this data?

Jaimi Welch [00:05:29]:

This is exactly right. 68% of planners are actually still actively booking or sourcing new events, and I'll be honest, that data is pretty consistent for the last three years. So I want to say for at least the last two and a half years, that number has gone from around 60% to 75%. So we're still seeing really great booking and sourcing activity.

Alyssa Peltier [00:05:52]:

Let me ask, Julie, you a question. Does this support what you're hearing from actual customers?

Julie Haddix [00:05:54]:

It's interesting. We had an event in our office last week for some of our association and nonprofit customers, and this was the topic that we wanted to talk about with them. What are you seeing? What are you feeling? What are you hearing?

And when we asked them about the attendance numbers, it's really funny because that word, we anticipate, was the reaction and the word that was in so many of the quotes from our customers, it was anticipation, anticipation, anticipation. People are having a feeling that attendance is going to be down. People are having a feeling that international attendance is going to be impacted. Handful of events are definitely starting to see that maybe we're even to slightly down year-over-year on events where we may be expected to see a 10% increase in events year-over-year. Actually that's even where we are right now with our own Cvent Connect conference that we're like, "Oh, are we going to be slightly down? Are we going to be right at?" Maybe still could hit that 5 to 10% year-over-year. Questionable. Anticipation is somewhere in that range. So I would say that yes, everything I'm hearing, seeing directly reflects exactly what our Pulse survey is saying, and this anticipation thing, time is going to tell. So there's a lot of that planning that needs to be happening for multiple things to happen.

Alyssa Peltier [00:07:28]:

Yeah, it sounds like there's very much a perception and a reality situation. The reality is a lot hasn't really changed, but the perception has changed. It's a sentiment analysis at the end of it all. Is that fair?

Jaimi Welch [00:07:38]:

Absolutely. So we're asking people what do you expect? What do you foresee? We're not asking what is actually happening. So for example, Julie talked about attendance. We ask, "How do you expect attendance to change from last year to this year?" And when we asked this question back in October, 39% expected more attendance versus last year. When we asked this question for the last survey that came out in March, only 29% report the same, so it's down 10%. But again, that's expected, right? It's not actual, they're not saying that things are down, they're saying they just assume or have a feeling that it might be, and to Julie's other point, 63% of planners in EMEA say they might be less likely to bring groups to the US, but that's less likely, right? That's not saying they're not going to. So this is all kind of just what's going on in the industry, it's how people are feeling, so I just want to very much say this is sentiment, this is not hard data of actual events having low attendance.

Alyssa Peltier [00:08:37]:

Got it. So what's truly changed the most in the last six months when it comes to the data that's telling this story?

Jaimi Welch [00:08:44]:

Honestly, it's what is impacting their events. Many are saying that they've been impacted by political, economic, or social policy changes. I would say that's kind of the main thing is that people don't know what's necessarily happening or where we're headed, and I think that makes them nervous. So 61% cited that those changes have been impacting their events, and I think that's the major thing is we never really asked those kind of questions before, and we have hinted on, "Are you not doing X, Y, or Z because of political or social things?" But we've never seen a response kind of this strong about how it's impacting their events.

Alyssa Peltier [00:09:23]:

And where have we seen no change? Where is their continuity from survey to survey?

Jaimi Welch [00:09:28]:

Yeah, so like I said, sourcing volume, so I think we're at 68%. The last report, it was 70%, right? So that is a 2% change, and that fluctuates obviously. But back in August 2024, 68%, the exact same thing, were actively sourcing or booking new events. I think the other thing that we need to really remember is the value of in-person events. So in this latest survey, 63% of planners see it as significantly or somewhat more valuable than before the pandemic, and that has been strong. Back in March of 2024, that number was 65%, right? So we're a year out, and it's almost exactly the same value to planners, and that has not changed.

Alyssa Peltier [00:10:15]:

Julie, what are you hearing from the voice of the customer, just that inherent value of events in these times?

Julie Haddix [00:10:20]:

These are all things that we've been talking about, Alyssa, for the last three years. Things that you've talked about on the podcast many, many times of being able to know all of the events that are happening in your organization, what is the value and purpose of each of those events, and what are they delivering? What are the results they're bringing to your organization? That's not changing? So you asked Jaimi what hasn't changed, and that's what's not changing is this concept of thinking about your event strategy, your event strategy as part of a marketing program, and being ready to show the value of that event so that then you can really focus on delivering an experience, getting the right people in the room, the same way you always have.

Alyssa Peltier [00:11:03]:

Trust really is that currency, right? And events have the power to do that. So let's kind of shift the conversation to the impact on your customers and albeit your attendees, the attendees who are coming to your events. How should we start to communicate with customers and stakeholders right now about some of what we're talking about, about some of the sentiment, whether it's perception or reality? Is there a tone that we should lead with?

Julie Haddix [00:11:25]:

First and foremost is leading with the tone of your event is your event, and it's going to be delivering the results that it always has and it always will. Like you are hosting this event for a reason, and aside from a handful of cases, that reason is not going to change. For the most part, we're still going to be holding those events for a specific reason. So continue that communication with your attendees.

But also you might start to think about, "Okay, what percentage of my audience is international? How many people have a reluctant to travel right now to our location, to our venue? If I haven't yet sourced my venue for the year, do I maybe need to rethink my location?" I was actually reading an article yesterday, I think it was, from MPI on a similar survey that they had conducted, and they had some CVB and property owners from Canada saying that they're actually seeing some positive benefits because now some of the meetings that were hosted in the US are increasing their sourcing into Canada. So maybe if you do have that larger international population and you want to stay in North America, Canada's clearly an option. I was like, "Oh, well that's an interesting one."

It's thinking about what it is or if you don't have the ability to change your event location, I'm going to bring one of my other favorite words back into the mix and that is hybrid events. Do you have a hybrid strategy? I know one of the things that we're even thinking about with our Cvent Connect US strategy, those who don't know Cvent Connect, I know we've talked about it many times on this podcast, but our annual customer conference coming up here at the beginning of June in San Antonio, we had when we started this year pulled back a little bit on our virtual strategy, always will be a hybrid event, but now we're thinking about adding a few more virtual only sessions just because we know that our attendance might hover flat year over year, that there's some members of our audience base that might not be traveling this year, harder to get them to come just because they're so busy.

So we might add one or two additional virtual only sessions. We've always been set up as a hybrid event, so that just gives us the flexibility to push and pull on that strategy and react.

So that's another thing that I would encourage everybody to think about is how do you lean in, lean out on that hybrid strategy where it makes sense to prepare for some people not being able to attend in person.

Alyssa Peltier [00:14:06]:

Well, and I feel like it's a little bit of Groundhog Day for me right now too, Julie, because I know so often we've talked about the power of technology in times of uncertainty, in times of chaos or where you need to be able to flip or pivot or all of those words that come to mind, right? Sounds like we're in another kind of those scenarios, albeit we're not really sure what it is that we need to switch yet, but the preparedness, the sentiment of being ready, I think the events industry has been no better poised to tackle that than having been through a pandemic. Is that fair?

Julie Haddix [00:14:36]:

Exactly. And if everybody just dusts off that playbook or just keeps probably rolling with the playbook you've put together in the last four or five years, you should be in really great shape. There's no need to panic right now. And I think that's what Jaimi was stressing in her sentiment analysis and what we're seeing is like let's just be prepared. Let's not panic.

Alyssa Peltier [00:15:00]:

Is there a way we can articulate this to the boardroom as well? I've talked about how we drive value for the customers and attendees, but certainly one of our major stakeholders is the executives for whom we're driving business objectives through our event program. So how should we be communicating to them as well?

Julie Haddix [00:15:17]:

We've been talking a lot this year about the data behind events and how events are such a great source of data to show value, to show business intent, to show buying and engagement. Lean in on those data driven decisions with your executives, whether that's a cost analysis and using your budget analysis to say this is what the impact of not hitting our numbers are going to be. Make sure you know what your contract clauses are and that you can really speak to them about what are the liabilities and contract risk that you have by not hitting your numbers.

But more than anything, lean into understanding the data and the impact your event has on your business. For example, you should be able to tell your executive team that if we cancel this event, we are going to be missing out on a certain number of leads because this event or this event series drives X volume of leads to our sales team on an annual basis. If we don't have those leads, that's going to result in a loss of XYZ pipeline and ultimately could actually reduce our revenue by a certain amount based on tracking those leads through your sales funnel.

You also could say this is a closing event, an event that accelerates our deal velocity, and we know that anybody who comes to this event is likely to increase their close rate by 20, 30% and get those deals in earlier. If those deals take longer to close, again, that's an impact on revenue. So really making those data-driven conversations that talk about your event's impact on the business is so important. So if you haven't yet started those conversations with your marketing team, with your marketing automation team, to tie your event data with your marketing and sales data, now is the time to get on that because you are going to need that data to have these higher level business conversations that make events a must have and not a nice to have.

Alyssa Peltier [00:17:22]:

Jaimi, are there any survey sentiments that showcase planners and marketers focusing on data or even technology in this time? Is there anything that's covered in the survey around that?

Jaimi Welch [00:17:32]:

Yeah, actually I do want to say that Julie's so right though. We know back in December that planners are already shifting to more regional local events to cut costs, so they know what they're doing. You guys are rock stars, so this has already been in the works. So I think that's why there's less to fear about. But back in February, so the last report we did, it was in February of 2025, 45% of planners said that they were going to increase their tech investment, and I know that back in October that 41% of planners said that they're sourcing their meetings through supplier networks like Cvent, so they really do heavily rely on technology to get this stuff done and to really save costs.

And honestly, I think that's one of the other things that has not changed. This last survey, planners are ranking higher costs 4.3, out of a scale of 1 to 5, as their number one concern. But when we look back at the data, that's actually really not that high because in August 2023 they rated it a 4.4. So that has been a continuing trend, and I think in learning how to cope with that, in learning how to overcome that, we know that budgets have been rising steadily to match what the market cost increases have been. So I understand that there's a lot of fear, but I think we have been so well prepped for this as an industry that there's nothing that they can't overcome.

Alyssa Peltier [00:19:02]:

I love that. Okay, let's drill into that 41% of individuals who are actually looking at tech investments right now. Julie, how can you jockey for budget when we know the budgets are tight, right? How can we ensure that you're able to get the tools that you need to be successful in these types of times?

Julie Haddix [00:19:19]:

That's a great question, Alyssa. One of the things I would say is if you feel like you don't have the right technology tools in place or you're getting asked about the value of your event technology, again, go back to the data and really showcase the value of events and showcase that you cannot understand the value of events without the data.

Your event technology should not be about the ease of collecting registration or the ease of capturing a lead on site. Yes, those are absolutely operational value propositions, but in today's data-driven world, you have to have all of that event data centralized to know what to do with it, to show the impact.

So the true value of your event technology is as a data tool. It should be as integral to your organization as your CRM, as your marketing automation system. Your event management platform is the solution that centralizes everything about your events, brings in those requests, distributes them, makes it easy for the team to operate, but more importantly, shows you all the data about what's going on. It should house every event so that you can quickly say, these are the 10, 20, 10,000 events we have happening in the next 12 months, where they are, what their budget is, why we're doing them, what the current registration numbers are, and then all of that should be integrated into your CRM to say, this is the impact for all of them that we've just had in the last six months. And without that centralized event management technology, you can't have that executive conversation about your event.

Alyssa Peltier [00:21:05]:

What I'm hearing is quantify everything but in a streamlined, standardized, and centralized way, which is literally only possible with technology. Otherwise, you're in, what, spreadsheets, Outlook, where else? Google Sheets, like all the other myriad of things that you could.

Julie Haddix [00:21:20]:

I mean whenever people are like, "We may not renew our event technology contract." I'm like, "How? What is the actual alternative option for handling your events?" Because you are just going to take a step backwards if you are not renewing your event tech investment. And if you're trying to get that buy-in for a new event tech investment, it is such a step forward in your strategic operations as a business and a part of your corporate strategy, your marketing strategy. If you're here trying to prove the value of event tech, and you are not talking to your operations team, get them involved. Get them to understand why event technology is an operations technology, whether it's marketing operations or corporate operations, depends on your organization, but operations is absolutely essential partner in your event tech.

Alyssa Peltier [00:22:16]:

That is so spot on. All right, Jaimi, I have my last question for you as well. Clearly resident data nerd here, but you're also our resident content marketer on this podcast today. Do you have any tips for a content marketing strategy that kind of makes the most of all of that myriad, tons of content that you capture from your event programs?

Jaimi Welch [00:22:33]:

Yeah. First I do actually want to share some, so we've talked a lot about the Pulse. As I said, I do other surveys, so if you have not heard of the Planner Sourcing Report, it is just about sourcing. And so we ask a lot of tech questions and so if you are going to the board and you want to say, "Hey, this is what's happening in the industry," this is super powerful. 82% of other planners are working with event technology teams to get their events in order. 49% say they're spending more time using tech to review space with diagrams and specifications and floor plans, and 36% say that they're using it to streamline their sourcing process. Your peers are saying that this is so awesome and valuable in helping them, so that is awesome to take to leadership to say, "Hey, it's worth looking into." Right?

From a content strategy, this is where tech comes in, is knowing what all the data is saying, right? So as Julie said, we need to streamline. I work on various things, right? We have data sets in all different forms and going between a Word Doc, an Excel, a file that a vendor put together, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, it can get very overwhelming and confusing. So finding a way to centralize all of that data, and data isn't just numbers and stats, right? Data is information, data is your list of attendees, your feedback surveys, anything like that, even your presentations, your decks, your list of speakers. I think it gets very hard to manage. I actually used to plan events, and it gets hard to keep track of every little thing. So having one source of truth is honestly for me, that is the most valuable thing.

Alyssa Peltier [00:24:15]:

I love that. Julie, anything to add as you're planning content strategy?

Julie Haddix [00:24:19]:

You know that I have input on content strategy, and one of the things that we are really trying to focus even more on this year than we have in the past is that integration of our event content strategy with our demand gen marketing content strategy. Because again, hate the buzzwords, but doing more with less, we're all doing it, and content can be bulky to produce, but you have one event session, one survey that you run that becomes a session at your event, it becomes a white paper, it becomes an infographic, it becomes a podcast, it becomes three podcasts maybe. Take that one asset and use it, use it, use it, use it.

We are in a world where there are so many different channels, and every person engages differently in different channels. Me personally, I get my content almost always through LinkedIn. If you've got something that you want me to see, LinkedIn is the best place for me. I'm not going to find it on my email. It's probably going into my clutter, probably don't even realize you sent me an email about this piece of content. Also, probably not going to find it in other social or digital channels because I'm the type of person that blocks cookies, so I might miss it there. LinkedIn? Going to find it.

I know other marketers who are all about the digital marketing. They can say, "Give me all my cookies, spam me with things you think I'm interested in." Great, perfect. So it's about taking your content and putting it the same piece everywhere. You don't need to worry that one message is going to get stale because you're putting it in multiple different channels. Most likely the same person is going to see it only once, maybe twice. And that's fine because when you think about adult learning, you have to reiterate a message 6, 10, 12 times for adult learning to happen. So just keep using the content, keep leveraging it, keep repurposing it.

And that's another great value of events because when you're doing an event, that's probably when you're generating the net new content because you want to have something new and interesting to say, or even if it's just a conversational event, you're going to get new and interesting nuggets from your customers and whoever you're engaging with to bring home and turn into a new content piece. So think about your events as a content generation engine and tie them into your demand strategy and your marketing strategy, not just for the results of the event and the lead driving impact of your event, but the content generation to fuel your marketing strategy for the rest of the year.

Alyssa Peltier [00:27:04]:

These tips are so great. I think they're so timely for this era that we're in, which we're having to do more with less, which I feel like we're always saying, but really right now, I think there's intense pressure. Less and less and less, right? The pie keeps getting bigger, and yet we only have this much budget to do it all with.

So, okay, last thing because we're going to do another Pulse survey in the next two months. What is one trend, I want one trend from each of you that you're particularly honed in on and you're monitoring to see how that changes over time this year? I'll start with you, Jaimi.

Jaimi Welch [00:27:36]:

I think for me it's sourcing. So when I first started on this report, it was January 2022, that's when things were finally getting back into gear. That's when I went to my first Connect in April 2022, and that number has just steadily rose and then stayed very steady. So I think that is the true indicator for me of where things are in the industry. Sentiment, we have bad days, we have bad news, we have things that impact us that don't necessarily have a standing on what are we actually seeing. So I think for me, if sourcing volume is down, that is definitely a prediction of predicting trend of where we're headed. So for me, that's my number one.

Alyssa Peltier [00:28:19]:

The solid metrics. That's more solid and based in reality of things.

Jaimi Welch [00:28:23]:

Correct. Because sourcing means booking, means events, right? Whereas expected something is not the same. If I'm sourcing for a hundred events and suddenly I'm sourcing for zero, that is a very much more strong indicator of something than, "Hey, I expect 10 more attendees and now I expect only four more attendees." So for me, that's definitely the strongest stat that I'm keeping an eye on.

Alyssa Peltier [00:28:46]:

I love that. Okay, Julie, your number one.

Julie Haddix [00:28:49]:

Attendance numbers. I am really, really wanting to watch and see if this expected lower attendance actualizes into actual lower attendance. Did we go lower year over year? By what percentage on average? Are we staying flat? Again, I anticipate that we're going to be slightly lower to flat in the year over year, and that's what we're going to start to see, but that's the metric that I'm really interested to watch. And in a couple of months at Cvent Connect, Jaimi is going to be on stage talking about Pulse and our other insights report, the Cvent Source, which is our report that looks at our actual Cvent data. So we look at the aggregate of all of our Cvent customers and say, "What are the trends and actuals that we're seeing in the data?" So that's going to be, I think, a really interesting session to tune into at Cvent Connect, whether you're joining us in San Antonio or, plug for virtual and hybrid, that one will be live stream stage if you want to hear from Jaimi in a couple of weeks on what we're seeing in our next Pulse combined with the Cvent Source.

Jaimi Welch [00:30:01]:

Also to clarify, I will not be alone up there. We will have a planner up there with me. We will have someone from North Star up there with me to talk about the data. We will also have different types of hoteliers. So it's not just me up there, it's other people who are your peers who can say, "Hey, this is what we're actually seeing." If you like these tips, they're going to give you such amazing tips for how that you can implement all of this into your own strategy. So definitely tune in.

Alyssa Peltier [00:30:28]:

Well, that was just a masterclass in cross-promotion of a conference through a podcast. Jaimi and Julie, thank you so much for joining us. I think this is a very much a conversation that planners, suppliers, marketers, are all wanting to have right now. There's clearly a lot of concern on the minds of a lot of those that are executing events, and so this is a very timely conversation, and I would love to invite you both back on the podcast later in the year to see how things have changed or they haven't, but I think that this is very much a needed conversation and certainly something that our listeners love. So thank you guys so much for joining today. And for all of our listeners, thanks for joining, and we'll see you next week.

Thanks for hanging out with us on Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. If you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

Rachel Andrews [00:31:22]:

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Felicia Asiedu [00:31:31]:

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Felicia Asiedu [00:31:49]:

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Alyssa Peltier [00:31:58]:

And that's a wrap. Keep creating, keep innovating, and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.