One of the biggest shifts in the research isn't about technology, formats, or budgets.
It's about how events are remembered.
People rarely talk about the full agenda afterwards. They talk about moments. How welcome they felt when they arrived. Whether the room had energy or completely drained it. Whether something happened they didn't expect.
Production quality matters - of course it does. But the research suggests it's now the baseline, not the differentiator. What separates an event people tolerate from one they tell someone else about often comes down to how it made them feel.
Behavioural science has a useful frame for this - the peak-end rule. People judge an experience by how they felt at its most intense moment, and how they felt at the end. Everything in between fades. Which means one or two moments designed with real care will stay with people far longer than a packed programme of back-to-back sessions.
The research also found something I suspect many experienced event professionals already know well: traditional formats tend to reward the loudest voices in the room. Open Q&A, unstructured networking, turning to the person next to you. For a significant number of attendees - including some of the most knowledgeable and senior people there - those formats can feel uncomfortable. When events unintentionally lose those voices, everyone misses out.
What the research points to is starting event design from a different place - asking how you want people to feel at the peak moment, and how you want them to feel as they leave. I found that really interesting as a reframe.
None of this surprised the people we spoke to. But having the data to name it and back it up - that felt like it mattered.
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