Association events that serve to build industry- or field-based best practices and knowledge still matter – whether or not they support some top-down vision. Photo Credit: iStock/Martin Barraud
Does every business event leave a positive impact on the host city beyond the immediate boost given to hoteliers, taxi drivers and restaurateurs? Does every business event save lives or somehow benefit society at large? Does every business event support the industrial strategy of the host city or act as a spur for inward investment or talent recruitment?
Of course not. Some do. But, in truth, they represent a small percentage of the thousands of events taking place every day.
Yet the line being fed to government from the ‘business events industry’ – DMOs/CVBs, convention centres, etc., – is that business events have an important strategic role to play in the economic development of cities, regions, and countries.
So, what ‘events’ are they talking about exactly?
You could argue that the poster child for the business events industry is not a business event at all, at least that's not how the organiser would describe it. It is a medical or scientific convention – usually owned by an association – that draws several thousand people to a city, has a specific problem to solve, and leaves a tangible ‘legacy’.
There are some wonderful examples of such events. I can’t list them all here, but industry partner The Iceberg has collected numerous case studies, which I’d urge you to look at.
A recent example being the 11th International Conference on Isotopes, in Saskatoon, Canada, which came at a moment when Isotope supply, critical to healthcare, was under pressure.
It’s a great story and the industry is right to highlight it along with others of a similar nature. But, even in the association sector, these events are the exception, not the rule.
A typical international association meeting convenes around 250-300 people and is held in a hotel, or perhaps a university building, without much fuss, fame, or fanfare.
It might be a trade body discussing best practice around new regulations or a group of academics sharing research on the life and times of an obscure 14th century theologian.
These events exist because people have a shared interest. They don’t necessarily support the host city’s 2030 Vision, and they certainly wouldn’t claim to be saving lives or making the world in general a better place – beyond adding to the sum of knowledge of those inside the room.
That doesn’t mean they don’t matter.
It’s just that the ‘society-level’ – or even city-wide – impact, trumpeted by the business events industry, is beyond their scope.
What if the reality for most business event organisers doesn’t align with the messaging of the industry that supports them?
As I tried to articulate in a previous piece about event legacy, they matter because, ‘they allow for the high-level exchange of industry or subject-specific information between people who might otherwise never meet in person … because they help people make valuable and lasting connections … and because, in a world where everything is mediated by screen technologies, they bring people together’.
This week, for example, I attended a corporate event on the impact of AI on travel marketing. It involved around 200 people getting together in a very nice space in central London. The content was entertaining and informative and there was some networking afterwards. And then everyone went home.
That’s good enough isn’t it?
There's a more fundamental question here: whose impact are we talking about?
There's a more fundamental question here: whose impact are we talking about? The language of the business events industry increasingly seems to put the interests of the destination at the centre of every event. It talks about inward investment, skills, innovation, regeneration and industrial strategy, as though these were the objectives of every meeting that takes place within a city's boundaries. An association has a responsibility to its members and its subject. Its board will have its own ideas about what 'event legacy' should look like, and it probably doesn't involve supporting the economic development plan of the host city.
That doesn't mean destinations shouldn't seek these wider benefits. Of course they should. If an event creates an opportunity for investment, or industry profile-raising, the city should seize it. But perhaps we should stop expecting business events to carry the ambitions of the host city on their shoulders.
For one thing, it doesn't seem to be working.
Despite the industry banging the legacy and impact drum for decades, the funding model for convention bureaux remains as precarious as ever, with the DMOs of London and Brussels – two of the biggest association hubs in the world – currently both in the middle of major ‘restructuring’ plans.
The industry keeps asking why its message isn’t sinking in, and its solution is to repeat the message in the hope that it finally does. But what if the message itself has gone awry? Become too detached from the quotidian reality?
What if the reality for most business event organisers doesn’t align with the messaging of the industry that supports them? And what if the experiences of politicians, who have attended business events themselves, doesn’t align with the industry’s messaging either? What if this is making some people in the events industry feel excluded? And what if it’s causing politicians to scratch their heads and ask themselves, “Saving lives, eh? Really?”
When associations meet and achieve great things, it’s worth celebrating. But right now, a few extraordinary examples are being made to represent an entire sector.
When associations meet and achieve great things, it’s worth celebrating. But right now, a few extraordinary examples are being made to represent an entire sector. There are plenty of reasons why business events matter – I’ve listed them above. They don’t have to save lives or support a city’s economic strategy. They can do these things, and that’s definitely worth shouting about. But it’s time the industry embraced a wider, more inclusive message, too, and rediscovered the basic value of meeting in-person. With the spread of AI, misinformation, and the ever-increasing digitalisation of our lives, that shouldn’t be too difficult.