Corporate event trends change monthly instead of yearly. Just as event planners could foresee them, 2023 brought additional challenges. Today, there is so much at stake for event planners. So, keeping up with new corporate event industry trends is important to make your events go smoothly.

Using our network, we have been carefully observing and gathering inputs in discussions with experts and from meetings, conversations, and reports within the event industry to identify A to Z: Corporate event trends guidelines for you.

Cost savings and finding efficiency (Trend #1)

Facing all the current obstacles, event planners must focus on making cost savings and finding efficiency on all fronts. Doubts about the economic downturn, rising inflation, and increased event costs brought event planners to an intense focus on cost savings. The forecast shows an increase in overall costs by 7% compared to last year, placing cost savings on the list of important corporate event trends.

Data measurement becomes more important (Trend #2)

One of the corporate event trends is that companies will increase the usage of event apps. Study shows that an average American checks their phone 344 times per day, while 88 % is on mobile apps. As an integral part of event management software, mobile apps bring convenience, benefits, and interactivity to your events. Especially as event app usage shouldn't stop once an event is over, as participants might want to continue exchanging information and building relationships.

Events are the remaining sources of proprietary data (Trend #3)

Attendees will be more than happy to share their experiences with you when organizing events. One of this year's corporate event trends is about the introduction of a cookie-free future. Or at least try it. Acquiring data helps event marketers and sponsors collect valuable data to make the event experience more personalized and effective by creating a better customer experience. Event planners shouldn't lose out of sight to grow transparency about collecting data and explain to participants how it will be used.

Hybrid events will stay with us for good (Trend #4)

Hybrid events are not going anywhere, placing themselves on the list of corporate event trends. Even though the industry faces growing demand in global travel, hotel, and resort accommodations, event planners are hesitant to return to fully in-person events because of rising travel and venue costs. Unfortunately, many hotel and outdoor vendors still use the pandemic as an excuse to claim higher pricing rates.

Fuel and energy prices are booming worldwide, making it difficult to predict and organize event budgets and prepare actions to meet demand. This will drive event planners to host more hybrid events to diversify costs by avoiding organizing a traditional in-person event. Let's also remember that organizations with over 5,000 employees chose to format corporate events as a hybrid in 2022, which made it organizationally difficult to abandon now.

On-demand content drives audience attention (Trend #5)

As people have less time and less attention, investing in on-demand content related to your events is another corporate event trend you should be aware of. As many of you record on-site or through hybrid experience, your corporate events, besides marketing purposes offering them through an online repository, should be an additional feature for your attendees and a reason to increase their loyalty. 

Using an online repository helps you stay on track with your audience while boosting on-demand engagement with live interactions and follow-up surveys that will be useful when planning future events.

The ongoing build-up of event communities (Trend #6)

Event community creation is also on the list of corporate event trends, as event planners wonder why activity on event platforms should only occur during the event. It's time to consider moving towards year-round community engagement. 

Understanding your audience is what it takes to build an event community, as gathered data shows what worked and what did not to avoid future inefficiencies. As work that never stops, it will increase ongoing engagement and ensure that your corporate event brand stays in the spotlight among your stakeholders.

Sustainable corporate event planning (Trend #7)

New generations have seen how combining hybrid and virtual events boosts event sustainability, as corporate events won't give up on the in-person dimension. It will become crucial to acknowledge the carbon impact on in-personal events.

According to this source, just one conference attendee produces more than four pounds of waste and nearly 400 pounds of CO2. This pushes additional pressure on event planners to develop a strategy for the events they organize to become successful and sustainable. The ability to offer waste recycling, reduction, and usage of eco-friendly materials such as bento boxes when distributing meals to attendees should be considered when selecting your venue partner.

The more you go digital in the event planning process, the bigger the impact on paper reduction is. Event platforms such as run.events use a comprehensive approach to conduct processes in a digital environment using a single tool as a main helping hand. Moving away from printing and paper waste using a SaaS environment not only streamlines corporate event organization but also enables going paperless.

Virtual event fatigue continues to thrive (Trend #8)

Nearly two-thirds of event planners are considering producing more events this year. While that mainly reflects in-person events, virtual events are declining as our final corporate event trend to keep an eye on. 

Virtual event fatigue continues to thrive and become a problem. There are certain ways to upgrade experience through gamification and shorter streams, but more is needed to have great corporate event content. It still is the main attraction to any hybrid, virtual, or in-person event. If anything can provide extended value to virtual events saturation, it should be a chance to learn and possess a unique piece of knowledge.