Event marketing is a vibrant and dynamic industry that changes constantly, adapting to the mercurial needs of consumer demographics. Globally, the value of this industry is set to reach $722.67 billion by 2028 and is growing at a CAGR of 10.63%.
Understanding how event marketing is evolving is crucial for anyone in this fast-paced industry, so we’ve taken a closer look at what’s making it tick. We reviewed the engagement levels of 7,424,640 people on social media platforms worldwide for a full year, ending on September 19th, 2024, to find out the current state of event marketing.
1. 62% of event organisers are focusing on hosting virtual events
2. Sponsorships and partnerships, top events revenue generation
3. Over a quarter of event marketers judge a hosted event’s success by sponsorship
4. Community meetups are the fastest growing in popularity
5. Securing sponsorship is the biggest event marketing challenge in 2024
6. Content creation is the most common way for event marketers to use AI for event hosting
7. Overscheduling accounts for nearly half of event ticket buyers’ frustration
8. Over 65s are the majority involved in event marketing
9. Over 50% of event marketers are female
10. The majority of engagement is from US event marketers
11. Most workers in the industry earn between $40k and $80k annually
12. About the data
Virtual events first gained traction in the pandemic, but now, the data we gathered reveals that they dominate the international events scene:
An overwhelming 62% of our survey participants listed virtual events as their core focus. In 2023, the global virtual events market size was worth a staggering $171.4 billion, and it’s estimated this will increase to $889 billion by 2032. Bearing this in mind, it makes sense that such a high volume of event organisers who participated in our survey are currently focused on specialising in hosting exclusively virtual events for consumers.
North America also owns the lion’s share of the virtual events market right now, representing 42% of the global value. There is a lot of money in virtual events, prompting more event marketers and planners to head in hybrid or virtual directions.
That said, in-person events are far from dead. In fact, they remain a cornerstone aspect of the event marketing industry. 31.4% of survey participants still host in-person events, and 6.6% host a mix of both, thus diversifying and expanding the industry even further.
Many factors play a role in event revenue generation. But some play bigger roles than others. According to data found in our survey, the following are the most effective:
Our data shows that event marketers find sponsorships and partnerships the biggest catalysts for generating revenue, accounting for a staggering 88.4% of engagement. Considering the fact that the right sponsorship can improve engagement by up to 98%, it’s not surprising to see the connection between well-funded brand collaborations and a profitable event.
Coming in second with a more than 78% difference is audience engagement at 10%, followed by networking opportunities, with just 1.6% engagement.
As we’ve seen above, sponsorship is a key aspect of event marketing. For many in this industry, the success of an event depends on the relationship they have with the brands funding it, resulting in a high volume of people gauging their event’s success through the presence of the right sponsor.
A good sponsor means attracting a wider audience, having access to better resources, higher brand credibility, and being able to offer guests a more value-packed event experience. It makes sense then that 31.8% of respondents judged the success of their hosted events by the sponsorship they garnered. Considering that sponsorship makes up 12% of a brand’s marketing budget on average, and in 2023, $97.4 billion was invested in sponsorship globally, it’s easy to see why this is such a hallmark of success.
However, there’s more than one way to judge the success of a hosted event.
When asked what their preferred barometer is, 19.3% of participants responded with “attendance,” while 16.6% responded with “networking opportunities,” and 16.1% stated “feedback.” Engagement was also important (8.9%), while media coverage, post-event surveys, and social media reach played less of a role, with engagement levels of 5.1%, 1.4%, and 0.9% recorded.
Event trends change all the time, and right now, community meetup-centered events are taking center stage. Here’s how different types of hosted events are growing in popularity:
Community meetups are a style of social event in which people from the same virtual or in-person communities gather, often with a focus on specific lifestyles, hobbies, or interests. These events are getting the highest engagement levels, with 27.4% of survey respondents naming them as the events that are growing in popularity.
Events marketers also listed workshops (14.9%), networking events (14.6%), virtual conferences (13.4%), and live Q&A sessions (11.3%) as notable types, indicating that consumers are showing interest in a wide variety of different events and meetup experiences.
Charity events didn’t fare as well, with only 6.7% engagement, and online courses and product launches came in last, with 6.6% and 5.1%, respectively. This is especially interesting when looking at the focus on online events.
The event marketing industry is highly competitive, and numerous challenges come with it. The below graph reveals the most prevalent challenges in 2024:
Although sponsorship is so prolific and such a great indicator of a successful event, 24.6% of respondents say that finding and securing quality sponsorship collaborations is the biggest challenge they experience in their work.
Another significant challenge that can be difficult to deal with in this industry is ensuring audience engagement, with it being the major concern of 20.5% of respondents. Creating engaging content aligns with this, and it garners 16.9% engagement while measuring success is 14.8%.
Choosing promotion channels is far less challenging, with 8.5% engagement, while dealing with competition is even less so, at 5%. This is interesting, considering the immense competition in the industry. Timing, targeting demographic, managing logistics, and budget constraints are also challenges, but they get minimal engagement at 4.3%, 2.1%, 2%, and just 1.2%, respectively.
AI is transforming the way people live and work in the world, especially in the field of marketing and advertising. Event marketers are embracing the autonomous technological powers of AI in a number of different ways, but content creation is apparently by far the most common.
With 29% of respondents listing content creation as the main way they are using AI for event hosting, it is clear that this approach is advantageous to many who work in the field. Content creation can apply to the creation of promotional posters, flyers, banners, slides, and social media posts—all of which are being used by 45% of marketers across the board.
Using AI for content creation can save time and help marketers produce more brief-specific designs. But it’s not the only way event marketers utilise AI.
Targeted advertising (18.1%), social media engagement (17.7%), chatbots in marketing (15.3%), and event promotion (6.9%) all remain a considerable part of how event marketers use AI for virtual and in-person event hosting. Other aspects of AI, such as personalisation in marketing (3.9%), SEO optimisation (3.8%), email marketing and data analytics (both 2%), and analysing customer feedback (1.3%), are still gaining traction in this industry.
Challenges remain a part of every industry in the world, and event marketing is no exception. Consumers want easy, simple, and accessible ways to buy tickets for events, and increasingly, data shows that overscheduling remains one of the most common hurdles preventing them from achieving this. Check out the other challenges below:
With 42.1% of event ticket buyers claiming that overscheduling is the biggest problem they face when browsing event options, it’s evident that marketers may need to do more in terms of spacing out event calendars. Today’s consumers live busy lives, and being unable to attend the events you are interested in due to overscheduling can be very frustrating.
Some of the other common challenges buyers report experiencing include virtual event burnout (24.8%), engagement-lacking events (22.2%), event fatigue (8.3%), and event overload (2.5%).
All of the above buyer challenges paint a similar picture: consumers who feel overloaded and burnt out by the events they are attending or trying to attend.
Considering that 84% of event attendees (particularly virtual ones) say they have experienced event burnout in the past year, it’s not surprising that our survey highlights the reality of people struggling to balance their personal and professional lifestyles with event attendance.
The event marketing industry includes a diverse range of age demographics. The majority of survey respondents seen in this particular survey highlight the significant presence of older event marketers, signifying that a more mature perspective is extremely relevant in the current landscape.
With 21.6% of respondents being over 65 years old and only 15.6% being younger than 25, it appears that the influence of senior event marketers is stronger than previously anticipated.
The other age group’s engagement levels stack up as follows:
The event marketing industry is female-dominated, meaning that there are more women (52.8%) actively working in this industry than men (47.2%) or other gender identities.
Research from IBTM had similar findings: as many as 77% of people working in the event marketing industry were female in 2022, and 83% of respondents were women with executive positions in their company.
However, women’s prevalence in event marketing still has hurdles to get over. According to the same IBTM survey, of the people who responded, only 16% were women with director-level positions, while 32% were men with director-level positions. This could indicate that despite a strong female presence in the industry, women are still outnumbered by their male counterparts when it comes to upper-level corporate positions.
Our data revealed where the highest and lowest engagement levels were for event marketers, and the graph below shows us this, and who’s in between:
The survey we conducted found that a whopping 63.5% of respondents were located in the US. Considering that the US holds the biggest market share of this industry globally, this isn’t surprising.
But the US is not the only region to crop up—our survey showed that many other nationalities are represented in the event marketing industry, including the UK in second place with 11.7%, Germany with 7.1%, Australia with 4.1%, and Italy with 4%. Canada and France share similar engagement levels of 3.8% and 3.6%, while Spain only gets 1%, Mexico 0.8%, and Poland 0.4%.
The engagement levels in our survey revealed who earns what every year:
A mere 0.6% of event marketers earn over $1 million per year, and just 8.4% take home between $500,000 and a million. The vast majority (27.8%) earn a much lower annual wage of between $40,000 and $80,000 on average. Considering that the average annual income for a US adult is $63,795, this information is consistent with the average event marketing earners from our survey. However, our data showcases a healthy bracket of earners (25.9%) who make between $200k and $500k per year, demonstrating that the income tiers for people working in this industry are extremely varied.
More data from Glassdoor suggests that the average annual income for event marketers is between $55,000 and $103k, which ties in with the 16.2% who make $80,000 to $200,000. However, the amount ultimately depends on work experience, where you live, and whether you operate as a freelancer or under a company. Those earning the least also racked up the second lowest engagement, at just 2.6%.
successful career in this sector.
The figures in our data paint an interesting picture and highlight that, although there are challenges in events marketing, there are also plenty of opportunities to make money and enjoy a
This data was sourced from an independent sample of 7,424640 people from X, Quora, Reddit, TikTok, and InstagramThreads. These global responses are collected within a 95% confidence interval and 4% margin of error. Engagement estimates how many people in the location are participating. Demographics are determined using many features, including name, location, and self-disclosed description. Privacy is preserved using k-anonymity and differential privacy. Results are based on what people describe online as the questions were not posed to the people in the sample.
