Who Wasn’t There? 
The people hurt most by a return to live events will be the more junior employees (budget constraints) and CEOs (time constraints). This is a huge opportunity for a community of digital events to serve these two audiences.

Reskilling
Finding a next-gen workforce that’s vested in the events business is critical. It's no longer only about piping, draping, and tabletops. It’s about AV, social media, and serious production skills.

Personal and Planetary Wellness
The next generation of event goers are hellbent on social issues: inclusivity, personal health, life balance, and a greener planet. Cater to them. Wellness areas, quiet spaces, and nutritional food will continue to become the norm. At IMEX, Mariott and Google even announced a special initiative called The Neu Project to make sure neurodivergent populations are accommodated with solutions including fidget toys, sound filters and glasses to filter out excessive lighting.

Data Rules
We know people say one thing but do another. Behavioral psychologists are needed to analyze everything from the event goers personae, to their travel through a space, to who they want to meet. Intentional is in. Serendipity is, for the moment, out. Time and relevance are the new currency.

Find the Narrative
Tech vendors talk a good features game, but do a lousy job of articulating their differences and an even worse job of understanding the needs of their clients. Storytelling, according to Dahlia El Gazzar, is going to become essential if these products want to survive. Michelle Bruno from Dahlia’s organization says your big tip-off might be to explore the company’s roots. Was it born of a mobile app? An AV production house? A registration platform? Genealogy plays its part.

Mergers and Acquisitions Escalate
The biggest M&A story at IMEX was a new company called Stova (because all the reasonable names were taken?), which is the amalgamation of MeetingPlay, Aventri, and eventcore. Just one more in a series of consolidations we expect to see in an industry that is maturing and rightsizing. (PS. The names weren’t too good in the first place and they’re even weirder now.)

More Tech, Please
30% of jobs may disappear alongside the digital revolution. Replacing them will be new jobs that need new skills. In his opening comments at IMEX, Skift Meeting Innovation Lab hosted by Miguel Neves presented preliminary results from the “State of Business Events” report, revealing that 74% of planners say they are now “using more tech than previously.”