To kick off the new year, Corporate Event News sat down with some of our industry’s most well-respected leaders to gain insights into what we can expect for business events in 2025. While none of them claimed to own a crystal ball, their extensive experience in producing impactful, high-quality live experiences for growing audiences has convinced us that these consummate professionals have their fingers on the pulse of the industry.  

In this first installment of our series running throughout the month of January, we sat down with Shawn Pierce, president of Strategic Events, Meetings and Incentives for MCI Group, and Spiro Global President Jeff Stelmach, who shared what they will be focused on this year and what they expect for the corporate event industry in 2025.   

Shawn Pierce, President of Strategic Events, Meetings & Incentives, MCI Group   

What are your predictions for the corporate event industry in 2025 in terms of attendance and revenues? 

Attendance is steadily increasing, and we expect this trend to continue in 2025. People are eager to meet in person again, and live events are delivering the kind of interaction and energy that virtual ones can’t.   

Exhibitors and sponsors are becoming more involved, and that growth is expected to keep up next year. Many of our clients are asking for creative sponsorship ideas, like unique activations, better media kits, and flexible packages, to attract both small and large sponsors. These efforts are boosting revenue and making events more engaging for everyone. 

Rising costs, especially for food, beverage, and other services, are making it challenging to stretch budgets. To address this, we are finding ways to cut costs without sacrificing quality, like streamlining logistics; using our buying power with trusted vendors to save money for our clients; and helping clients get more from their sponsorships by designing opportunities that are both practical and exciting. 

With so many events competing for attention, our clients are focused on making their events stand out and being the first choice for attendees. We’re working with them to create unique experiences that leave a lasting impression.   

What will be your organization’s biggest focuses for the events you work with next year? 

Our goal is to make every event unforgettable, whether it’s in person or online. We help clients connect with their audience in meaningful ways—whether that’s building relationships, growing membership, attracting customers, or engaging employees––and we’re focused on turning each client’s vision into reality, ensuring their events reflect their mission and values in a way that resonates with attendees. 

We take safety and cost management seriously. Rising costs are a challenge, but we’re helping clients find smart ways to save money while still delivering high-quality events.   

We use AI through our Jade product to analyze attendee behavior, such as who they interact with and which sessions they attend. This helps us better understand their needs, allowing us to personalize their experience at future events. This not only enhances their satisfaction but also encourages them to return year after year. We’re also integrating technology to improve networking and make content delivery more interactive and engaging.   

We also give clients access to our other resources, like our specialized brands, Black Flower and Dorier, for help with everything from design to execution.   

Our focus remains on creating custom experiences that feel unique and meaningful, ensuring attendees walk away with more than just information—they leave with valuable connections and memorable moments.   

What are you most excited and concerned about going into 2025? 

We’re thrilled that clients are asking for events that are more personal, creative, and thoughtful. It’s rewarding to help them find the right mix of professionalism and fun, so their attendees walk away feeling connected and inspired. It’s also exciting to see more interest in making events sustainable and leaving a positive mark on local communities. These efforts are becoming a bigger part of how we plan events. People are looking for more than just sitting in a room or listening to a presentation—they want to feel involved and part of something special. This is a challenge we’re excited to tackle. 

On the flip side, rising costs are a real concern for us and our clients. Budgets aren’t growing as fast as expenses, so we’re putting a lot of effort into finding ways to save without cutting corners. Despite the challenges, we’re excited about what’s possible in 2025. We’re ready to bring fresh ideas to the table and help our clients create events that people won’t forget.   

Jeff Stelmach, Global President, Spiro 

What are your predictions for the corporate event industry in 2025 in terms of attendance and revenues?  

As we look forward to 2025, the renaissance of live events continues and the tenets of what we know to be true are more important now than ever before. Consumers, exhausted by complexity and overstimulation, crave experiences that strip away the noise and focus on meaningful connections. Meeting those preferences and strengthening trust is less about finding a new groundbreaking trend, [and more about] reaffirming why the basics such as creativity, authenticity, simplicity, and emotion are so important.   

Live events also have a huge opportunity in the year ahead, fueled by growing consumer skepticism in an age of AI deepfakes and fake news—what we call the “Belief Gap.” As AI and other technologies continue to grow, consumer trust is dwindling—and live events are positioned to become the new center of truth.    

Why? Live events and experiences offer consumers the ability to “see it to believe it.” The real-time interactions with your brand, through these experiences, can strengthen trust and relationships, leading to greater loyalty. They quite literally become a tangible, real-time, emotional experience offered to your customers in a digital-first age, where tech advancements are igniting, and something’s “realness” is frequently called into question.  

Using data and insights to sculpt hyper-relevant, experiences that are tailored to your core customer is also paramount for the year ahead.  

As immersive tech like AR and VR continue to rise in popularity, success will depend on how brands combine these tools with strategic, data-informed creativity. By guiding creativity with data, we deliver personalized experiences that meet the growing demand for customer-centric interactions and can increase your “Brand Gravity”—the bond between brand and customer.    

Finally, event success will be measured not just by attendance and engagement, but by the depth of participation. Expect fewer passive audiences and more interactive participants, with some attendees even becoming co-creators of the experience.   

Brands that offer fully immersive, multi-sensory experiences can redefine the return on their experiential investment—not just in bottom-line revenue, but also in loyalty, advocacy, and lifetime customer value, ultimately cultivating lasting emotional connections that drive long-term brand success.    

What will be your organization’s biggest focus for the events you work with next year?  

Our mission is to create transformative experiences that cultivate deep, lasting bonds between brands and their customers, using the unmatched power of experiential marketing. As part of this, we’re focusing on integrating our global capabilities to create and elevate a consistent brand message and story for our clients across the world. Simply put, we strategically partner with them to increase their Brand Gravity through emotionally resonant experiential, no matter where their customers interact with their brand.    

At the heart of this mission is our proprietary Experiential Intelligence system, which we call our science of attraction. This system enables us to gain a deep understanding of what drives consumer behavior—and motivates action. For example, our G.R.A.V.I.T.Y. Index integrates industry benchmarks and taps into your unique Brand DNA, identifying and measuring how effectively events and experiences deliver on key experiential factors that attract and motivate customers. Using Gravitational Mapping, we then identify the customer touchpoints that will increase Brand Gravity across the holistic customer journey. By tapping into these insights and more from our Experiential Intelligence, we can design highly personalized, emotionally resonant experiences that position brands as the preferred choice, creating relationships that are both unforgettable and impactful.    

We’ll continue to push the boundaries of what experiential can achieve by blending personalized, data-driven insights with immersive, multi-sensory environments. Whether it’s through tech integrations like AR and AI or through face-to-face moments that feel genuinely human, we’re laser-focused on designing events that inspire trust, spark advocacy, and foster loyalty long after an activation is over and beyond the event floor.  

What are you most excited and concerned about going into 2025? 

The continued evolution of experiential marketing excites me most—seeing brands leverage immersive, multi-sensory experiences to tell deeper, more meaningful stories and forge long-lasting relationships with their audiences. With that, the power of knowing what drives customer attraction will be more critical than ever in 2025. This shift highlights a key challenge facing our industry: the ongoing talent shortage. As events become more complex and experience-driven, attracting and retaining top-tier creative and production talent will be essential to sustaining growth and maintaining high standards of excellence. 

I’m also energized about the continued growth and creative reinvention of the events industry. New tech and increased demand for in-person experiences mean more opportunities to push the boundaries of innovation. Integrating emerging tech and personalized experiences allows brands to engage their audiences on a global scale with evocative and immersive experiences.    

Alongside this, understanding what drives customer attraction will be more critical than ever. At our core, we believe the experiential channel is the most powerful way to forge a genuine bond with customers. That’s why we’re continually evolving to not only meet but exceed this growing demand. For example, we’re integrating more AI and innovative approaches, such as heat mapping and real-time audience listening. This allows us to optimize data gathering and enhance live event insights for our clients.  

One of the greatest challenges we face is ensuring event budgets align with these elevated expectations while delivering measurable impact. With an ever-growing number of events vying for attention, the key will be breaking through the noise to create experiences that aren’t just memorable but also increase your Brand Gravity—to strengthen your brand’s customer bonds, which ultimately drive customer loyalty and bottom-line results.   

The brands that will thrive in 2025 will be those that invest strategically, using data to guide creative decisions, blending immersive tech with authentic human connection, and designing experiences that resonate far beyond the event, creating lasting emotional connections that translate into sustained brand loyalty and measurable ROI. 

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