HOUSTON, Texas — Maritz released its December Industry Trends Report just ahead of Expo! Expo!, IAEE’s Annual Meeting & Exhibition, outlining the top trends for 2026, reflections on 2025, AI usage and hotel and travel updates.
Trade Show Executive connected with Darren Phalen, Chief Operating Officer, BES Registration and Lead at Maritz, about the most recent Industry Trends Report to learn more about top trends to keep an eye on in the year ahead.
Top 10 Trends for 2026
The top trends shared by Maritz for 2026 center around three core themes of being data-drive, human-centered and compliant. Here are the top 10 trends for next year, according to Maritz’s report:
- AI will continue to mature and there will be acceleration and pullback in the year ahead.
- Technology will enable organizers to optimize their strategies around measuring impact, data and ROI.
- Personalization at scale will be possible through intelligent technology.
- Corporations are demanding suppliers meet more requirements and thresholds regarding sustainability.
- Organizers must understand and engage with a workforce that now spans four generations.
- Thoughtfully designed memorable moments will help to drive emotional impact and connect at events.
- People will be seeking out brands that feel authentic in an increasingly AI-driven world.
- Immersive experiences that allow attendees to contribute and create will win over passive experiences.
- Fostering belonging is moving beyond representation to encompass all the ways to make people feel welcomed at an event.
Stabilization in the Year Ahead
While “uncertainty” may have been the word of the year in the industry, as we look forward to 2026, industry leaders are cautious but optimistic about what’s ahead.
According to Maritz’s data from trade shows that took place in the fall of 2025, international registrations were down 10% YOY, while overall registrations were down 3% YOY. While more than half of the shows saw a decrease in international attendance, just 41% of shows saw an overall decline, and 30% actually saw an increase in overall registrations.
“I’m optimistic that we are seeing a stabilization [in attendance] overall, but that stabilization is down. What’s really going to influence that is international attendance, and it’s going to continue to be in flux,” Phalen said. “With all the regulations and everything else, it’s going to continue to be a challenge, but the overall 3% decrease in registrations we’re now seeing at the end of the year is a far different story than what we saw through Q1.”
Leaning Into Exclusivity to Drive Registrations and Revenue
According to earlier Maritz reports, attendees that register later tend to spend more and be more committed with an event. But insight doesn’t necessarily make the planning process any easier. In order to leverage this finding more effectively to help drive registrations — and revenue — Phalen encouraged organizers to look at changing up their pricing model.
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“All associations tend to use early-bird pricing, and statistics show that those are your people who are going to come anyways. They’re booking early because they know they’re going to be there, and they tend to be the ones that spend the least,” Phalen said. “So, get rid of early-bird pricing and start to lean into exclusivity. Instead of it being cheaper early, it’s when you book early you get something more, like a VIP-level access or something that others don’t get. We see that exclusivity matters for younger generations. It doesn’t matter that they’ve missed out on 10% off, but if they missed out on something exclusive, that might make a difference to them.”
Using AI and Registration to Drive Personalization
Attendees are craving personalized experiences at live events to align with their experiences online, and a great way to collect the data needed for personalization is through registration.
“It all comes down to asking our questions. Demographics are obviously a very important part of registration, but if you don’t ask the right questions, you’re not going to get the right answers no matter what sort of AI you’ve got working on it,” Phalen said. “It’s about trying to make sure that your registration questions are targeted to what your exhibitors actually want to know. Too often, I think, organizers are looking for trends in age or things like that, when an exhibitor might go, ‘I don’t care how old they are, they have the buying power.’ The best associations in trade show have exhibit roundtables where they find out exactly what the exhibitors want to know, and then leverage that data.”
And while you want to collect the most important information for your exhibitors and organization, registration forms that are too long risk incompletion.
“Asking 50 questions is not the right thing to do; it has to be extraordinarily targeted questions,” Phalen said. “One of the things we’ve tried to get organizers to toy with is having people register and buy immediately, but in order to get your badge, you get a follow-up email with the demographic questions later. This might lessen the chance that somebody is going to abandon the registration process.”
Once organizers have the right information on their attendees, AI can then be used to help create more personalized journeys at an event.
“The speed with which AI is being adopted is starting to surprise everyone, and the speed of adoption is only going to pick up,” Phalen said. “We’re already seeing the difference it’s making in our everyday lives. I think event-wise, the ability to connect the right people through matchmaking is changing so rapidly that we’re going to see a different event audience in the future just because of the way tools help recommend what we should be doing.”
Data Storage and Security
With more personal data being shared in registration and across online channels, it’s important for organizers and their partners to stay up to date on regulations, especially if there’s international audiences involved.
“The amount of regulations that seem to be coming out daily and weekly from different countries, different states, takes a full-time legal department to pay attention to. We really have to inform organizers, because if you have an international audience, it’s not the regulation necessarily of the state or the city you’re in; it might be the country of origin for that person,” Phalen said. “The information you can collect and store, and what information the organizer can access is super important, especially in the world we live in with cyber-attacks and internet security being a challenge.”
Looking for more insights from Maritz December 2025 Industry Trends Report. Click here to view the full report.
