CHICAGO — Trade Show Executive (TSE), Lippman Connects and EVOLIO Marketing teamed up once again to conduct an industry survey and study focused on attendee acquisition trends, and found that the industry is struggling with retaining attendees and relies heavily on known audiences in the prospecting process.
“This study confirms a lot of what we already knew, including the low level of repeat attendees and reliance on previous attendee lists,” said Sam Lippman, President of Lippman Connects. “This study is the first to place those two data points side-by-side, which should serve as a wake-up call for attendee acquisition marketers.”
Trends in Attendee Acquisition and Metrics
Emphasizing the growing need for the events industry to have renewed focus on attendee retention strategies are two key data points: 48% of respondents said the number of first-time attendees increased, but only 22% said the number of repeat attendees increased during the same time frame.
Compounding the issue of high churn-and-burn rates, 38% of organizers say the number of attendees per organization has decreased. And, as the cost to acquire a new attendee is greater than that to retain one, event organizers that focus on deepening relationships with existing accounts and returning audiences can help encourage loyalty and drive repeat attendance. 
The report also highlights that while organizers are collecting extensive and detailed registration data — like role, interest, industry and purchasing authority — that data hasn’t been translated into personalized outreach. This gap represents a largely untapped opportunity to maximize the use of collected data to meet audiences’ demand for more personalized event journeys.
Attendee Acquisition Tactics
The survey results are clear in that multi-channel attendee acquisition strategies are the winning formula, with more than 75% of respondents saying they use paid social (78%), digital ads (83%), social posts (96%) and email blasts (100%). More than half of respondents said they use exhibitor “guest” tickets, print ads and peer-to-peer invitations.
While email is the most utilized tactic for attendee acquisition, with every respondent reporting they use the channel, a number of challenges have been identified. Despite 50% of organizers saying they find email to be the most effective tactic, 70% of users are saying corporate firewalls are blocking delivery, 48% say it has poor reach to younger attendees and 45% say they have issues with accurate reporting.
Prospecting Highlights Importance of Known Audiences
According to the data, the most common prospecting sources event organizers use are previous attendee lists (91%), professional networks/social media (82%), website leads (73%) and CRMs (70%).
Fifty-seven percent of respondents say they leverage industry associations/directories and exhibiting at industry events as a source, with a smaller number reporting they use B2B data providers (36%), email discovery tools (13%) and data enrichment tools (12%).
The top four sources demonstrate that organizers are finding the greatest success and traction with audiences that are already known, are identifiable and those that have a relationship with the event or organization already.
Related. New Joint Study Explores Trends in Attendee Acquisition and Exhibit and Sponsorship Sales
AI Adoption Update
The study also asked organizers about how AI is being used in events. The data highlights that writing and content creation is the top use case for the tech, while 67% of users are leveraging it for marketing, 46% for feedback collection and analysis, and 41% for support and customer service. Another 41% are using it for design and graphics.
And while the top use cases aren’t shocking, the research did find that only 46% of professionals with 10 or fewer years of experience in the industry are using AI, while 82% of those with more than 10 years of experience reported adopting the technology.
“I’m delighted to see how much more AI is showing up in event workflows compared with just a year ago, because it signals that our industry is moving from AI curiosity to practical adoption,” said Joe Federbush, President of EVOLIO Marketing. “What surprised me is that newer professionals are using it less than those who have been in the industry longer, and that most usage is still relatively basic and tactical, focused on things like content, marketing, support and analysis, rather than more strategic or agentic applications that could reshape how events are planned, measured and optimized.”
