Cvent guest blog: 3 Key Event Trends for 2023

After a challenging couple of years for the event industry, 2023 promises to be a year for
optimism. With the return of in-person events last year, there’s now an increasing focus on digitisation. This opens up new opportunities to extend and enrich the attendee experience, whether your events are in-person, virtual, or hybrid.

As we look forward to what 2023 will hold, here are some of the top trends to expect and how they will shape your events.

Greater emphasis on cost savings, efficiencies and ROI

With rising costs, inflation and high demand impacting events, budgets will be tight and
companies will be looking for ways to make their budget go further. It will be more important than ever for event planners will need to prove event ROI and demonstrate the business value of their events.

Top tip: It may seem daunting, but don’t worry, there’s plenty of ways you can save time and money. Take a step back and look at all your meetings and events as a whole, so you can identify where efficiencies can be found and costs reduced. Introduce standardised processes and use technology to automate manual tasks. This will make your event planning more efficient and free up more time to focus on important, strategic tasks.

Planners will use event data more strategically
Thanks to digitisation, event planners can capture more data than ever before and gain deeper insights to improve the attendee experience.

Which were the most popular sessions? What did the attendee journey look like? Did the event lead to a sales opportunity? This type of data will be key to optimising your events and having measurable statistics to prove the business impact to stakeholders.

Top tip: Ensure you have the right event technology that can capture this data and integrate with your martech solutions. This will allow you to see key event metrics, provide a holistic view of event performance and inform your future event decisions.

Internal events will play a key role

The pandemic has had a huge impact on the world of work, with many companies switching to a remote or hybrid working model.

But with this comes new challenges. Fostering team spirit and facilitating internal relationships will be crucial to building a strong company culture.

That’s why companies will focus on the important role of internal meetings and events, as a way to keep employees satisfied, engaged and motivated.

Top tip: It’s essential to think strategically about the format of your events (in-person, virtual and hybrid) and select the format that best suits your goals. For example, a hands-on training session or work celebration may be more appropriate in-person, while a regular meeting or routine training may be able to take place virtually.

While it won’t be without its challenges, 2023 looks set to be a promising year for events.

With the ability to use event data to gain better insights and leverage internal events as a way to bring distributed workforces together, there are many opportunities on the horizon.

Discover more event trends for 2023