Feb 06, 2025
Did you know Millennials (1981-1996) and Gen Z (born 1997-2012) combined comprise 75% of working professionals, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics? Younger corporate employees are influencing the evolution of meetings, events, and conferences like never before.
“From attending their first work conference to experiencing an off-site with their team, this new generation entering the workforce is more digitally savvy than ever, while still valuing connections and redefining the purpose of face-to-face interactions,” explained Hilton Vice President, Sales Engagement and… more
Feb 03, 2025
Event catering is in a constant state of innovation. As event planners strive to perfect what they serve at gatherings (and how they serve it), they also incorporate food and beverage trends to create unique culinary experiences that surprise and delight guests, raise the bar for creativity, and promote corporate social responsibility (CSR).
To understand which F&B trends will impact our industry in 2025, we gathered insights from event professionals around the globe. From high-end mocktails to ultra-luxury dining to emphasizing sustainability and dietary restrictions, these 10 trends… more
Jan 30, 2025
What do attendees want (and expect) at meetings in 2025?
At the recent Hilton Experience Showcase, a press and client event held on Jan. 22 at Lavan Midtown in New York City, insights into these very trends were shared, with new research unveiled offering fresh perspectives on shaping the future of meetings.
“A shifting workplace, as people seek greater flexibility from work or home and clear work-life boundaries, demands in-person meetings shift in new, modern ways,” according to new research by Hilton and Ipsos, a global market research and consulting firm.
Context: Conducted in… more
Jan 24, 2025
As event professionals seek new ways to connect with attendees and foster engagement, experiential gifting has emerged as a transformative approach. At PCMA Convening Leaders held Jan. 12-15 in Houston, we caught up with CI Group Experiential Gifting Division Founder Jenna Ovadia at a corporate event at the Four Seasons Houston to explore and discuss innovative gifting solutions.
Read highlights from our conversation or watch the full interview from the Texas gifting experience here.
Exploring Experiential Gifting
CI Group, a 40-year-old privately held full-service brand engagement and… more
Jan 23, 2025
Inside Live Events, a new book by co-authors Freeman Board Member Bob Priest-Heck and Freeman Board Chair Carrie Freeman Parsons, debuted yesterday as a comprehensive playbook for creating and producing live events, including trade shows, corporate events, and exhibits.
Back story: With a combined 78 years of event production experience, the authors drew on their decades of knowledge to publish Inside Live Events, designed to serve as a reference for events veterans while equipping newcomers with practical insights and actionable strategies.
Need to know: Offering steps to create… more
Jan 22, 2025
In the face of people’s changing perceptions toward alcohol consumption, fueled by an increasing focus on health and wellness, the growing “sober-curious” social moderation movement appears to be picking up steam as people are re-evaluating their relationship with alcohol.
Between 2016 and 2023, the share of Americans who view moderate drinking as “good for health” dropped from 19% to 10%, whereas the share who perceive it as “bad for health” increased from 26% to 39%, according to Gallup. Americans are drinking less than they used to--with the average number of drinks consumed falling… more
Jan 20, 2025
The Consumer Electronics Show brought a hotbed of innovation to 12 different venues scattered across the Las Vegas strip. The city is already busting at the seams with hotels, restaurants, and other engaging experiences vying for tourists’ attention, but during CES 2025, which ran January 7-10, these 10 activations and events won the attention of more than 141,000 onsite attendees and media outlets for their innovation, photo worthiness, and plain ‘ole cool touches of experiential.
Keep scrolling to see what we’re talking about, plus get an inside look at how the events teams behind each… more
Jan 07, 2025
Whether it’s the Real Housewives franchise, Below Deck, Married to Medicine, or Southern Charm, Bravo’s suite of reality series has garnered passionate fan bases over the years. Bravo has celebrated these fandoms through experiential marketing—a strategy that the NBCUniversal-owned company has continued to expand since launching BravoCon in 2019.
After the network put BravoCon on pause in 2024 (the three-day fan convention is set to return to Las Vegas in 2025), Bravo used the hiatus to create new in-person experiences designed to immerse fans into the world of its shows. These have… more
Jan 03, 2025
Now in its 13th year, Amazon’s AWS re:Invent conference merged old and new for more than 60,000 in-person attendees at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas. Held Dec. 2-6, the event—Amazon's largest of the year— “focused on innovating and strengthening AWS building blocks for customers while adding several new ones,” said Tom Soderstrom, a director and enterprise strategist at Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of Jeff Bezos’ e-commerce giant that provides cloud computing services.
Those “building blocks,” Soderstrom explained, spanned “computing, database, storage and inference to support every… more
Dec 20, 2024
How Event Leaders Exchange Embodied the Theme of “Growth” at its Inaugural European Summit in Berlin
Event Leaders Exchange (ELX) and its invitation-only community for heads of events programming is no stranger to taking things globally. For the first time ever, however, it brought its band of event-industry visionaries together in real life at the ELX European Summit 2024, held Dec. 4-6 in Berlin, Germany.
The to-do adopted the theme of “GROWTH” to specifically tailor an itinerary for 24 of the world’s top-tier event professionals. But because ELX operates under the Chatham House Rule, a globally recognized informal agreement that allows participants to share information from a meeting… more
Partner Voices
MGM Resorts is committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse culture, not just among employees and guests but also within its supply chain. The company prioritizes procuring goods and services from businesses owned by minorities, women, veterans, people with disabilities, LGBTQ individuals and those facing economic disadvantages. This commitment is integral to MGM Resorts' global procurement strategy.
Through its voluntary supplier diversity program, MGM Resorts actively identifies and connects certified diverse-owned suppliers to opportunities within its supply chain. The company is more