Industry Trends

Feb 3

Team-building and Transparency
- “You can’t do epic sh!t with basic people. Be really, really thoughtful about your teams.” - Charlotte Pedersen, senior director of global strategic events at Salesforce
- “Speakers noted that initial friction can be overcome through constructive problem-solving and honest conversations about what works, what doesn’t, and why. And egos? There’s no room for them if you want to build a successful collab.”

Artist and author Phil Hansen said during his opening keynote: “Giving ourselves intentional limitations is a really powerful way to reshape not just that singular project, but our whole mindset about little challenges and discoveries… Anytime there’s something big in our lives, instead of telling each other to seize the day, we should remind ourselves as much as we can to seize the limitation.”

“Choosing partners who have sustainability in their DNA—who genuinely prioritize it beyond marketing—is essential,” said Rodney Hart, VP-Events at RainFocus. “Retrofitting sustainability into an existing event is often costly; it’s far more effective to embed sustainable thinking from the outset.”

“Some of the most successful sponsorship marketing campaigns this year aren’t carving out real estate; they’re creating it.”
“Taking lessons from its small-business programming with the LPGA and the US Women’s Open, Amex designed a livery for its car in F1 Academy, which promoted the brand’s Small Business initiatives. And at every race stop around the world, the company partnered with women-owned SMBs to feature their logo on the car that race weekend.”

“...a chance to build experiences alongside the host brand. From bringing small businesses into the fold to asking attendees to craft original content, it’s about empowering them to be collaborators, not just observers.”

Kate Kerner, VP-Global Strategic Events at Genesys, put it: “The event itself is not the foundation—it’s the outcome of the community you build and nurture.”

Matt Parnell, head of brand and community marketing at Sony, says, “A lot of times, what happens with KPIs is that you will pick the shortest route to get there. If it’s impressions or something else, it’s just whatever will get me there the fastest. But it doesn’t give you a connection… So we believe that community events should be transformational, not transactional.”

“You can reframe the way you think about that quote as, ‘AI won’t replace you; it replaces the version of you that worked twice as long for half the impact.’”

Patrick O’Keefe, chief integrated marketing officer at e.l.f. Beauty says, “...when our community tells us something, we may jump in and we may not. But from our ceo, all the way down to the coordinator and admin assistant, everybody is always looking for something new to talk about. When we see something… we dive in deep and we find our unique way in that no one else could.”

60% of consumers told us they want to connect with and immerse themselves in nature, and 77% are willing to pay more for such events
63% of organizers believe people will be looking for micro-events and intimate gatherings
47% of consumers discover events through word of mouth
Food and beverage sales are the biggest revenue driver for organizers after ticket sales

Rafael Cubela

2025 Trends