Mid-year reset: Where 2025’s event trends are heading
From Monetise B2B to Snowflake Summit, personalisation, AI and festivalisation are no longer optional; they’re becoming the operational core of modern events.
Most event industry trend reports land in January and are outdated by spring. That’s why I deliberately held back until now, June 2025, to take stock of where things truly stand. After speaking with dozens of event leaders and sitting in on sessions like the excellent Monetise B2B conference in London earlier this year, one thing has become very clear: the event industry has entered a serious phase of operational innovation, where attendee experience isn’t simply important — it’s existential.
At Monetise B2B, several sessions on festivalisation, gamification and the evolution of event models crystallised the moment we’re in. Events are no longer competing for attention; they’re competing for sustained loyalty. That means organisers must now use every tool at their disposal: data, AI, interactivity, community-building and behavioural science. The challenge is to create sharp, immersive experiences that drive both attendance and revenue growth. The post-Covid novelty phase is long gone. The real transformation is happening now.
The clearest theme cutting across every conversation is that personalisation at scale has become mandatory. Attendees no longer want an agenda built for the room — they expect one built around them individually. Each session should align with their specific interests, networking must be curated to match their personal goals, and exhibitor connections need to be highly targeted. On paper, it sounds almost impossibly ambitious.
But it is not. Smart event organisers are mining registration data, session selections, social media signals and previous attendance patterns to deliver targeted experiences. As vFairs CEO Muhammad Younas put it recently: "You need to ensure attendees find the most relevant audience to interact with, the most relevant session to attend and the most relevant exhibitor to meet." That is becoming the baseline expectation.
Detailed engagement metrics
Data analytics sits at the heart of this shift. From RFID-enabled badges to smart event apps, organisers are now able to capture a live digital footprint of attendee engagement, which sessions drew the crowds, which exhibitors generated dwell time and where attendees spent time networking. Companies like the event management platform Whova have shown how this data is reshaping event design, allowing organisers to adjust everything from room allocations to future programming decisions. As one recent Whova case study noted, some events have scaled their global reach several times over by combining in-person and virtual formats, using behavioural data to continually fine-tune the experience.
Personalisation also extends far beyond programming. It’s reshaping monetisation. With first-party data now fine-tuned, organisers are able to offer sponsors not just foot traffic numbers but detailed engagement metrics. Exhibitors can see which visitors came to their booth, how long they stayed and what content resonated most. This, in turn, drives stronger sponsor renewals and investment decisions.
Artificial Intelligence has moved on from hype to an operating system. AI now touches nearly every part of the attendee experience: from intelligent matchmaking that pairs attendees based on goals and interests, to AI-powered chatbots that serve as 24/7 personal event assistants, updating schedules, speaker information and venue maps. Large-scale deployments, such as the AI-powered chatbots used at India’s Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, India, this year (supporting millions of visitors), show how scalable these tools have become.
In the background, AI is also quietly shaping operational decisions. Event platforms can now use machine learning to predict session popularity, optimise room usage and even adjust livestream quality dynamically for virtual attendees. The engagement platform GlueUp said in their recent analysis, back-end AI is helping event teams fine-tune hybrid event delivery with the kind of precision that would have been impossible a year ago.
Keeping attendees alert
Gamification, which used to be seen as a playful extra in the past, has now become a core design principle for engagement. At Monetise B2B, the conversation around competitive socialising and festival-style experiences made clear that gamified interaction is not optional if you want to drive engagement. Leaderboards, live polls, scavenger hunts, trivia contests and team challenges are increasingly common. They keep attendees alert and emotionally invested and serve as effective ice-breakers, sparking advanced networking.
Beyond points systems, many conferences are now designing entire interactive journeys before the event starts. Automated event management platforms like RSVPify say their data analyses prove that events that integrate game mechanics into pre-event apps, allowing attendees to accumulate points for completing profiles, scheduling meetings or engaging with sponsors, see higher participation once the event goes live.
On the more experimental end, augmented and mixed reality are starting to add richer interactive layers. While full-scale adoption is still limited, AR activations such as digital scavenger hunts or AR-enhanced exhibitor booths are generating some early buzz. Mixed-reality gaming floors, as tested at some US and European events, allow attendees to physically participate in digital competitions, blending the live and virtual worlds into immersive engagement experiences.
Hybrid events have fully cemented themselves as standard operating practice. Post-pandemic, the hybrid format has evolved from a safety net to a revenue driver. Organisers are no longer treating virtual attendees as passive livestream viewers but as participants: live Q&A, breakout rooms, online matchmaking and interactive digital lounges have levelled the experience across both physical and digital channels. As Whova has demonstrated through multiple client case studies, hybrid formats routinely multiply attendance reach while unlocking parallel sponsorship revenue streams, both on-site and online.
The strategic advantage of hybrid lies not only in flexibility but in ongoing engagement. Events are increasingly monetising on-demand content libraries post-event, turning one-time conferences into year-round content hubs that build stronger audience relationships and extend sponsor visibility beyond the event itself.
Core operating systems
Crucially, these trends aren’t limited to one event type or region. B2B conferences like the recent Snowflake Summit 2025 deployed AI to generate personalised session tracks and exhibitor recommendations. The AI Summit in London successfully matched attendees for more productive networking based on AI-driven profile matching, while trade shows and consumer-facing mega events are using the same technologies.
There is enough evidence to prove that the reinvention of attendee experiences moved beyond novelty to operational execution. It means AI and other data tools for personalisation and festivalisation have become core operating systems for event organisers competing for attention and profits in 2025.
What separates the leaders from the rest isn’t merely the adoption of shiny tools; it’s the integration of these systems into a cohesive, revenue-generating, relationship-building ecosystem. Increasingly, event ROI is measured not in ticket sales or sponsor packages, but in “return on relationships” — the long-term depth and strength of communities being built across these platforms.
I’ll bet good money the next 12 months will sharply separate those who fully embrace these realities from those still clinging to a pre-pandemic playbook. The audience has moved on. The technology has raced ahead. And here’s the hard question for anyone in the events business: Do you have the operational courage to rebuild your events around what attendees now expect?
If you found this mid-year reality check useful, subscribe for more analysis at the intersection of events, media and emerging technology. Between Cobus Heyl, founder of That Coalition and an events programme specialist, and me, we cover what’s happening and where businesses should focus their attention next. Feel free to share, comment or challenge. Your perspective helps sharpen the debate.