How corporate events are evolving beyond 2023

Planning

Aug 5

Event planning

How corporate events are evolving beyond 2023

Sara Iannacone · 8/5/2023

Our BoomPop event organizers have witnessed firsthand the immense change the corporate event industry has gone through in the past few years. Today, we’re sharing the evolution that’s unfolding across the industry and world.

This year has been full of positive changes for the meetings industry and the world after a challenging chapter. The demand for meetings and events is back—and we couldn’t be more excited to see tons of groups back in person.

Northstar Meetings Group just shared stats from June, and corporate meeting demand is 30% higher year over year, reaching 90% of pre-pandemic levels. Major cities like Austin (our 2nd most booked city at BoomPop) have seen demand increase nearly 75% since last year alone.

It's our job to keep up with the trends and evolutions of the industry for our clients. So today, we’re sharing what our team has seen after planning hundreds of offsites and retreats amidst the ongoing evolution of our industry.

Lasting ripples from the pandemic and how they’re impacting events

In the most recent Northstar Meetings Group Pulse Survey in June, there were still lasting ripples from the pandemic impacting the meetings industry. However, they shared that the market outlook for events is bullish.

Other findings included:

Only 10% of planners aren’t focused on planning in-person meetings
Over 60% of stakeholders see in-person events as more valuable post-pandemic
25% of planners still have postponed events from 2020 they’re planning now, making venue inventory tight, especially for those events being planned on a tight timeline
The return on investment on time spent meeting and experience are the top priorities for planners

Remote and hybrid work is here to stay

Gartner recently shared a state of work press release where their Senior Director Analyst, Ranjit Atwal, shared:

“Hybrid is no longer just an employee perk but an employee expectation.”

With that, it’s expected that by the end of 2023, 71% of knowledge industry workers in the United States will be either fully remote or hybrid employees, who are defined as working in the office at least one day a week.

This shift is here to stay, while companies are seeking ways to better provide a collaborative culture daily and long-term. Part of the long-term strategy for many companies is quarterly offsites for teams and cross-team meetings to bring different departments together.

Return-to-office must come with perks

The return-to-office hasn’t been easy on many. Many companies have added perks and extras to bring people closer together, like in-person events. This way, they can bond via new experiences and become a more interwoven team that is productive in the office.

Plus, the return to in-person work has placed more importance on offsites and retreats being something different. There needs to be a differentiator between on-site, day-to-day meetings and separate gatherings.

This is why our agendas incorporate activities like:

Unique tours of or scavenger hunts around the meeting destination
Fun ice breakers and facilitated coffee break chats to get to know teammates on a more personal level
Interactive experiences like cooking classes or wine pairing classes with dinner to bond over meals

Our goal with in-person teams is to produce something that they couldn’t have ever done in the office together for ultimate engagement and enthusiasm.

Perk meets productivity

Plus, now that many are in the office or hybrid, so they’re close to home, travel is now, in some ways, a perk, offering employees unique and fun experiences alongside productivity and team building.

There’s been a surge in bleisure (business-leisure) trips recently, as teams capitalize on expensed flights and accommodations. While this term has been around for over a decade, blended travel really started to gain popularity in the mid-2000s and surged with the pandemic and introduction of remote work. It essentially means that individuals are spending more time in a destination to explore or taking a flexcation where they use their flexible meeting schedule to explore between meetings, etc.

Because of the diverse travel arrangements, those planning meetings do typically enlist support with travel management so it’s not a burden on the team’s planning point person to do the footwork. But companies realize this is a perk and aren’t cracking down too hard.

Check out our post on how to create your company’s bleisure policy.

Tighter budgets, higher expectations

The average cost of a corporate event has increased an estimated 32% over 2019. For that reason and more, responsibly-priced events are a high priority for companies regardless of size. There are two key ways we tell our clients they can do this:

Start planning early
Choose your location carefully

With that, our team carefully analyzes trends and data so we can make financially sound suggestions for your team, including the use of our Budget Optimizer. We also have negotiation experts in-house who are the gurus at getting costs down due to their industry knowledge and the years they’ve spent building relationships in the industry.

All these factors are reflected in both our customized offsites and retreats, as well as our pre-built itinerary like those you’ll find here under our “Most Affordable” collection of pre-planned offsites.

Substance over novelty

One of the biggest evolutions of client offistes has been the intention behind them.

On average, our BoomPop clients plan approximately 2-4 meetings per team per year. That means that over the past couple of years, they’ve become accustomed to getting together, and that initial excitement that comes with the return to in-person has worn off.

To combat that, teams are really seeking content and on-site experiences that provide value, spark ideas, and grow deeper connections that contribute positively to company culture. Typically, this is measured by goal setting.

A couple of questions we prompt our clients to answer before event planning to ensure efficacy are:

What’s the purpose of the meeting?
What does success look like, and how can it be measured?

From there, use those answers to guide agenda and activity planning. You can find more about setting and measuring event goals for your retreat or offsite in this blog post.

P.S. To help your team plan more valuable meetings, we have some things to help. Check out our template library, where our team has put together free resources that have been helpful for our clients, from agenda templates for maximum fun and productivity to effective icebreaker ideas and more.

A more strategic approach

One of the biggest evolutions we’ve seen from our clients, especially larger companies, is that they’re realizing that one-off and random events are no longer a functional option. The labor and organization required cause too much strain, and piecing together an event last minute doesn’t set it up for a successful impact.

That said, they’re starting earlier, enlisting support, and creating an annual event strategy so that all the puzzle pieces fit together for ultimate impact.

To create an annual event planning strategy, we suggest companies think about:

How many company-wide events do you want to host?
How many department-specific events do you want to host?
What are organizational goals and KPIs for the year, and how can those play into the planning of these events and offsites?
What different kinds of event formats would you be willing to explore?
Will you be hosting client events and internal events? If so, how can those play off of one another – does that make sense in any way?
Who will be in charge, and what roles will each team play?

By answering these questions, companies are creating plans for what activities to include, what speakers to bring in, what strategy sessions to host, and more. Effective events need time for event planning and intention behind each and every activity, meal, and planning decision.

Leaning on partnerships

Nearly half of planners surveyed by Northstar Meetings for the June Group Pulse Survey said that loss of venue and vendor partners during the pandemic continues to create struggles for their team while planning this year.

Having positive vendor partnerships can help you:

Secure better pricing
Access to extended event partner networks
Simpler risk mitigation as you have built that trust
Quicker response times and action
& more!

At BoomPop, we pride ourselves on being a valuable partner to our clients. We spend time cultivating partner relationships so we can extend those relationships to our clients throughout the event planning and execution process.

Your goals become our goals, your successes our successes. Planning intentional corporate events, offsites, and retreats isn’t easy. But our experienced event organizers are here to help you streamline and simplify. Let’s chat about how we can be the perfect partner for your team.