Light & Wonder’s display at the Global Gaming Expo.

The meeting planning industry has undergone a seismic transformation, with constant change becoming the new normal rather than the exception. Meeting planners today must navigate an increasingly complex landscape characterized by rising costs, evolving attendee expectations, technological disruption and persistent economic uncertainty.

AI has changed not just the meeting planning profession, but the world. According to OpenAI, in less than three years since ChatGPT’s release, the number of users has reached 700 million.

In addition, a challenge facing meeting planners is the increase in costs. Almost 30% of planners report rising vendor costs as a major obstacle, with food and beverage and audio/video costs expected to increase by up to 50%, according to event management company RSVPify.  Meanwhile, 50% of in-person event attendees report decreased travel budgets, creating a perfect storm of higher costs and reduced resources.

This financial pressure has forced planners to develop creative solutions, with 53% considering moving meetings to secondary markets to reduce costs. The challenge extends beyond immediate expenses, 47% of event planners cite costs as their top area of dissatisfaction, indicating a systemic issue requiring adaptive strategies.

Workforce Burnout and Staffing Challenges

The industry faces significant workforce challenges, with many planners reporting staffing shortages and burnout as ongoing issues. The constant pressure meeting planners face to adapt to changing circumstances while managing multiple complex events has created unsustainable stress levels.

The burnout problem is particularly acute among middle management. In the events industry, this translates to overworked teams and high turnover rates that limit capacity for effective event execution.

Meeting planners face significant challenges in predicting attendance patterns, with irregular registration patterns and uncertainty about participation levels making it difficult to manage hotel blocks and mitigate attrition penalties. More than 8% of planners point to late registrations and delayed vendor commitments as sources of stress, disrupting timelines and planning processes.

Meeting planners are shifting focus from logistics management to experience creation.

Navigating change is not new in the world of meeting planning. All one has to do is look back to the pandemic. Planners who had full calendars of in-person events during the pandemic had to pivot, embracing virtual platforms and redesigning agendas for online engagement.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Planners are leveraging comprehensive data collection before, during and after events to prove value and optimize future strategies.

In addition, they are moving beyond traditional metrics like revenue and attendance numbers to capture qualitative aspects of attendee experience, providing insights into engagement and satisfaction levels.

Meeting planners are evolving into strategic partners who connect with leadership across organizations, playing critical roles in corporate ecosystems. The events industry’s rapid evolution demands a culture of continuous learning and feedback.

Successful planners regularly review progress, analyze what works and doesn’t, and use insights to inform strategy iterations. This involves actively seeking input from all organizational levels and external stakeholders to maintain alignment with real-world conditions.

The constant change facing meeting planners is not a temporary challenge but a permanent shift in how events are conceived, planned and executed. Success in this environment requires embracing agility, investing in technology, prioritizing data-driven decision-making and maintaining focus on attendee experience while demonstrating clear ROI. Those who master these adaptive strategies will not only survive but thrive in the dynamic future of meeting planning.

When Gabriella Robuccio, founder of ProEventTips, thinks about change, an event she helped plan in Paris instantly enters her mind. “We were building a full working office and studio set right on the banks of the Seine. After years of planning and site visits, the build was underway, and then, our nightmare, unprecedented rain hit Paris,” says Robuccio. “By the time our team landed, our office was literally underwater. I still remember our local runner in a wetsuit, swimming to grab gear that was floating away.”

This is the kind of moment when event pros shine. Robuccio had three days to go live on TV, and strong stakeholder relationships helped the situation.

What also helped was trust inside the team. ”Everyone had a role. Someone managed communication, someone scouted backup locations, leadership adapted the concept. Because we trusted each other’s strengths, no one outwardly panicked — at least not too much,” she says.

Vendor relationships helped as well. “During planning, we’d been transparent with an alternate venue about why they weren’t selected. Because we left that door open respectfully, they were willing to step in at the last minute and host us,” she says.

Another helpful factor was leadership that rallied people. “Our staff and vendors went above and beyond to rebuild a new set in record time because they felt valued and respected,” Robuccio says. “This is an extreme example, but the same principles apply to everyday pivots. When a vendor is late, a speaker doesn’t show or the venue switches your room last minute, the event professional who can manage their own emotions, read the room and communicate clearly will get through it.”

This scenario, and many like it, taught her a big lesson. “Build your emotional intelligence first, then lead from that foundation. Strong EQ creates trust, and trust gets you through change,” she says.

A simple stakeholder map or communication plan goes a long way, she advises. “If people know what’s happening and why, they’ll move mountains for you,” says Robuccio.

Regular check-ins are recommended as well. “I tell my clients: explain your decisions honestly, and explain them often. That little bit of proactive communication is what prevents panic when things shift,” she adds.

Another example of navigating change Robuccio shares involves a nonprofit gala that the CFO took ownership of. “I kept him looped in with a living slide deck, constantly updated so I could answer questions on the spot without drowning him in unnecessary detail. We had a great cadence, but come event week, things changed,” she says. “Onsite, he would decide the room layout wasn’t working or that another speaker had to be added. This could have been chaos, but I’d planned for it.”

How did she do that? From day one, she had backup layouts pre-approved by the venue and written into the contract. “So when he says, ‘The bar is too dark, we need to move it,’ I could confidently reply, ‘Here’s our second approved option. We can make this change, but these are the only approved variations.’ Sometimes, he chose the change and was right, other times he backed down knowing we’d exhausted the options,” she says.

In addition, her run of show always included hidden time buffers, but no one outside her team and AV knew they existed. “They’re built in for late speakers, tech issues or last-minute additions. And every AV pre-meeting includes a contingency protocol: who makes the call, who updates the deck, how timing will shift. So, when he wanted to add a speaker last minute, we already knew how to absorb it without unraveling the entire night,” says Robuccio.

Asembia’s AXS25 Summit brought in more than 8,000 attendees last spring. Photo credit: Motion Stills Multimedia

Post-pandemic, Jennifer Phillips, director, strategic meetings management for Asembia, a company that is focused on connecting and strengthening the pharmaceutical industry, noticed that both organizations and attendees were becoming more intentional about how they spend their time and money on events.

“Attendees are thinking more carefully about when and where they travel, which is prompting organizers to invest more effort into curating meaningful content, fostering genuine networking opportunities, and creating unique experiences and activations,” says Phillips.

In addition, companies are tightening their budgets and relying heavily on data and metrics to justify where they send their teams, she explains. “This puts a magnifying glass on events, requiring them to be truly strategic and impactful for all stakeholders involved,” she says.

How is Phillips navigating this change? “From the planner’s perspective, it’s always beneficial to align strategy with business goals and support proposed event changes with data and industry trends to drive meaningful transformation. Flexibility is key, being easy to work with makes you a strong business partner and collaborator for both internal and external stakeholders,” says Phillips.

Personal touches don’t have to break the budget, Phillips adds. “Leverage the technology and tools you already have to enhance attendee personalization, whether through the registration process, event communications, or onsite tools like a mobile event app,” she says. “Consider refining event content to make it more impactful. Actionable panels, hands-on workshops and interactive sessions are fresh approaches that empower attendees to stay engaged and apply what they’ve learned once they return home.”

Phillips recommends learning about the tools your teams already use and have access to. “For example, are you fully utilizing your registration or event management platform? Lean into your account executives and take advantage of virtual training opportunities to discover ways to customize the attendee experience. Simply adding a question to the registration process can help you better segment your audience and use that data to personalize communications, suggest sessions or organize meetups tailored to attendee interests,” she says.

She also recommends exploring the capabilities of your mobile app. Does it support networking, Q&A forums, meeting requests and other engagement features? These are easy wins that can significantly enhance the attendee experience.

Utilize AI (artificial intelligence) tools whenever possible to streamline tasks and free up more time for strategy. After all, your event strategy is what sets your event apart. Some ways to leverage AI include scheduling and calendar coordination, reviewing communications, building timelines, generating FAQs, summarizing session content for post-event follow-up and analyzing survey feedback to inform future planning.

Establishing routines with your team and vendor partners also helps when it comes to navigating change, says Phillips.

She holds semiweekly team calls to stay aligned as a small group, and also has monthly touchpoints with key vendors and quarterly calls with sales leaders.

Gathering post-event feedback immediately after events, whether we host or attend, is always helpful. What worked? What didn’t? What should we try next time? These reflections are essential for continuous improvement,” she says.

After eight years away from events, David Childs, account executive at SWX Global, has returned to the industry with a new perspective. He watched as the pandemic reshaped both business and human connection, underscoring the irreplaceable value of in-person gatherings.

He sees changes. “I’ve noted a shift from structure-centric designs with wow factor to a much more story centric appeal. The things that differentiated an event vendor or exhibitor on the show floor 10 years ago are almost entirely obsolete now. The focus is far more on whether exhibits are easily scalable, environmentally conscious and how the ROI extrapolates over the number of shows / events they’re attending,” he says.

Childs continues. “The bigger realization for me, however, is my own internal change from the last time around. Where I thought selling exhibits was the result of good conversation and addressing a need, I had missed the part where the relationships need to be built and expanded upon before a need arises. The ROI companies are getting from trade shows continues to grow, which tells me investment will continue to scale alongside it.  What I once saw as a slowly dying industry is now what I view as the lifeblood of so many businesses.”

Navigating Change 

In her  previous role, Sibylle Hartzell, former head of events, Europe at Avantor, an American biotechnology, chemicals and pharmaceuticals company, had to create a framework as the company was undergoing a very large three-year transformation/reorganization. “So, while I was lacking guidance from above, I tried to break things down for my team to something that was tangible and ‘real,’” she says.

“A goal was to improve employee experience and with my team, we tried to make this tangible and measurable for us, so we had a north star where to align ourselves. This means rolling out Cvent so registration and reporting become easier and better and having travel policies that allow for personal time around the sales conferences, including allowing early arrival and later flight departures without impacting the event budget,” adds Hartzell.

Having a clear understanding of outcome helps navigate change. “When we look at the possibly ever-changing budget and scope for events, I have to try to get agreement on the desired outcome, the measurable overall goal of the event — try to anchor onto something that we can agree on so navigating toward it becomes clearer. Making sure everyone is clear on the different roles and responsibilities and how the larger team works together to understand who would make decisions when needed to keep the momentum going,” she says. “Have a smart goal to anchor all activities on. Smaller changes such as hotel change, date change, format change, content change all become clear, if you have agreed on what the outcome should be.”

Change is a global phenomenon. “Change is unavoidable, and what I have learned from the recent lay offs, there is a huge difference in how these are navigated, based on where you are located and how protected you are with local labor law,” she says. “For a global company, this is a tough area to navigate, as each country has their own setup — unions in Switzerland are not popular, whereas in Germany, Belgium and France, the employees are much more protected — nothing you can do about this, it just is as it is.”

With so many possible changes that can occur, meeting planners have to be ready for anything. Being prepared ahead of time and mapping out contingency plans can help to make events flow much more smoothly no matter what happens. C&IT