How your peers are navigating the tension between efficiency, attendee experience, and the business impact of events.
As an event professional in 2026, you know the feeling. You pull off a flawless user conference, the attendees are buzzing, and the post-event survey scores are glowing. But when you sit down with executive leadership, the first question isn’t about the incredible keynote or the customized networking lounges it’s, “What was the business impact of the event?”, or a variation of that question.
If you dread that question, you are not alone.
We recently surveyed 145 event leaders to understand how they measure success, and the results highlight a critical disconnect in our industry. We call it the “Engagement Trap.”
According to the 2026 State of Events Value Survey, the market is split between the art of experience and the science of data:
- The Engagement Paradox: A resounding 41.7% of teams rank attendee engagement and satisfaction as their top success metric. That is more than double the number of teams prioritizing hard ROI (18.5%) or new leads (17.6%).
- The ROI Black Box: Executives don’t fund feelings; they fund figures. Yet, 43.1% of event teams struggle to connect their engagement metrics to revenue or pipeline.
- The Root Cause: Nearly a third (33.9%) admit they simply lack the tools to measure ROI effectively, relying on manual spreadsheets that let leads go cold before sales can ever reach out.
The danger here is clear. Treating attendee happiness as your final metric rather than a leading indicator leaves your event budgets highly vulnerable during financial reviews.
So, how are top-performing teams bridging this gap? It comes down to integration and efficiency. The survey revealed a stark “Integration Divide.” While roughly 30% of teams enjoy automated event data flowing straight into their CRM, triggering immediate follow-ups and revenue attribution, over a quarter of the industry is operating completely disconnected.
Furthermore, as we look through the rest of 2026, the mandate is to do more with less. With 41.1% of respondents naming efficiency as their top priority, savvy teams are figuring out how to balance limited budgets with rising attendee expectations, and examining where AI fits into that puzzle.
Are your events caught in the Engagement Trap, or are you operating as an integrated leader?
Stop guessing and start proving your event’s true business value. Dive into the full peer benchmarks, explore the surprising hesitancy around AI adoption, and learn actionable steps to close the ROI gap.