The State of Events 2026: What the Data, the Investment, and the Culture Are All Saying at Once

September 2026 edition. Every figure below is traced to a numbered source at the end of this page. Download the full PDF or read on.

The short answer

Brands spent $139 billion on experiential marketing in 2025 and are on track for about 10% more in 2026. The most-quoted event statistics still circulating online come from studies run in 2015 and 2018. The current numbers are lower, and they are still a clear majority. Loneliness, screen fatigue and a flood of AI-generated content are pushing value back into the room, and investors have noticed. This is what the data says, with the disagreements left in.

Ten things to know

1. Brands spent $139B on experiential marketing in 2025 and are on track for about 10% more in 2026. The U.S. is 46% of that. [1]
2. 79% of 18-to-35-year-olds plan to go to more events in 2026. [2] Spending on experiences is growing more than three times as fast as spending on nonessential goods. [3]
3. Two in three Gen Z adults (67%) report loneliness, vs 44% of Boomers. [4] 62% wish their online friendships would turn into real ones. [5]
4. The most-quoted event stats (85% buy, 91% feel positive, 98% purchase) come from studies run in 2015 and 2018. The 2026 numbers are lower: 61% and 59%. [6] Still a clear majority.
5. 81% of event marketers see higher brand trust after in-person events, and 85% say AI-generated content makes trust harder to build. [7] The flood of AI content is pushing value back into the room.
6. 88% of meeting professionals expect budgets to rise in 2026. [8] Events rank as the #2 area for new B2B investment, behind only AI. [9]
7. Planners are running fewer, better events: only 40% plan to run more of them, down from 66% the year before. [10]
8. The squeeze is real. Airfares were up 20.7% year over year in April, [11] and international travel spending in the U.S. is still 18% below 2019. [12] Money is shifting toward shorter programs closer to home.
9. New York's visitor economy reached $84.7B in 2025, [13] and its hotels ran the highest occupancy of any U.S. city for the third year running. [14]
10. Money is betting on the physical room. Fever raised $250M in September 2026 [15] and Sony put $100M into Cosm. [16]

01. The market is big. The forecasts disagree.

In April 2026, Allied Market Research put out a headline projecting a $2.5 trillion global events market by 2035. [18] It was syndicated to Yahoo Finance the same day and has been widely shared since. It is also a re-release of a report first published in November 2025, and the numbers in the release do not line up: its 2021 baseline of $736.8B cannot reach $2.5T at the stated 6.8% growth rate. Trillion-dollar forecasts from different firms land hundreds of billions apart. So we lead with the number that was actually measured.

• $139B. Global experiential marketing spend in 2025, up 8.3%. [1]
• +10.3%. Forecast growth in global experiential spend in 2026. [1]
• $64.4B. U.S. experiential spend in 2025: 46% of the world total. [1]
• $1.46T. Estimated size of the total events industry in 2026. [17]

What the forecasters say

The Business Research Company puts the whole events industry at $1.46 trillion in 2026, reaching $2.08 trillion by 2030 at 9.3% a year. [17] Allied projects $2.5 trillion by 2035 at 6.8% a year from an unstated 2024 base, and names sponsorship as the largest source of revenue. [18] Event management software alone is forecast to grow from $11.52 billion to $36.42 billion by 2035. [19] The totals disagree because each firm defines "events" differently. The direction does not disagree.

The events industry is not recovering from the pandemic. Experiential spend passed its 2019 peak in 2024 and set another record in 2025.

Why 2026 is a spike year

PQ Media expects U.S. experiential spend to grow 11.8% in 2026, helped by one-off events: the Winter Olympics, the FIFA World Cup, and midterm political spending. [1] Some of that lift will not repeat in 2027. Budget for the trend line, not the spike.

02. The Reset to Real

Eventbrite's first Social Study, a survey of 4,051 18-to-35-year-olds in the U.S. and U.K., calls it the Reset to Real: a generation moving away from curated digital performance and toward physical experience. [2]

• 79% of 18-to-35-year-olds plan to attend more events in 2026. [2]
• 49% want events that feel less curated and more real. [2]
• 88% of young travelers will keep or grow travel budgets in 2026. [20]
• 3x. Experiences are growing more than three times as fast as nonessential goods. [3]

They want to take part, not watch. Surprise locations over predictable venues, organic connection over forced networking. Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz: people are "done with performative get-togethers and instead want rooftop sessions with secret lineups, block parties where neighbors become friends, and spaces where they can shape the moment rather than perform for it." [2]

People do not want more events. They want better ones. More real, more participatory, less choreographed.

The spending data backs it up. McKinsey finds the experiences market grew 2.6% between 2023 and 2025, compared with 0.8% for nonessential goods. [3] 88% of young travelers plan to keep or grow their 2026 travel budgets, and say they will cut shopping before they cut experiences. [20] In the U.K., 58% of Gen Z and Millennials chose experiences over physical goods last summer. [21]

03. The loneliness paradox

In 2023 the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory calling loneliness an epidemic. [26] The generation reporting the most loneliness is also the one most determined to get back into rooms with other people. The two trends are moving together.

• 67% of Gen Z adults report loneliness, vs 44% of Boomers. [4]
• 54% of U.S. adults felt isolated often or some of the time in 2025. [22]
• 51% of Gen Z feel lonely on weekends. [5]
• 62% of Gen Z wish their online friendships became real-world ones. [5]

Everything in the data suggests loneliness is feeding demand for physical gathering. People are not choosing another app or feed. They are choosing a room, a shared experience, a reason to be somewhere with other people. Hinge now funds free in-person community events through its One More Hour program, with $1 million in its 2025 round across New York, Los Angeles and London. Its own survey found 85% of British Gen Z report feeling lonely. [23]

The catch: 68% of Gen Z say going out "isn't worth the damage it does to my wallet." [5] The demand is there. So is the price sensitivity. Events have to be worth it.

The capital signal

Partiful, the Gen Z party-invite app, reached 500,000 monthly active users in early 2025, up 400% in a year, according to Sensor Tower estimates reported by CNBC, [24] and was named to the TIME100 Most Influential Companies list. [25] In September 2026 the live-experience platform Fever raised $250 million in a round led by EQT, pitched as a bet on "what AI can't replace." [15] Sony Pictures put $100 million into Cosm's shared-reality venues. [16] Investors have decided that physical community is a real category.

04. The stats everyone quotes are a decade old

Search "experiential marketing statistics" and you will find the same eight numbers on hundreds of agency sites, pitch decks and blogs, usually labelled with the current year. We traced each one back to where it started.

The honest 2026 numbers are lower than the recycled ones, and they are still strong. Six in ten people leave a brand experience more ready to buy. That is the number to put in your deck.

05. The ROI of being there, 2026 edition

EventTrack, Event Marketer's annual industry study, surveyed 517 brand marketers and 811 event attendees for its 2026 edition. [6] These are the current numbers.

• 61% of consumers are more inclined to purchase after an event. [6]
• 59% feel more positive about a product or service after an event. [6]
• 82% tell friends and family about the experience. [6]
• 81% of event marketers see higher brand trust after in-person events. [7]

Brands across every sector expect to spend 8% to 11% more on events in 2026, and 56% of attendees say they will go to more events than they did in 2025. [6] Among nearly 1,000 marketers and event professionals surveyed by Cvent, 98% say in-person and community events remain central to their marketing, and events take 34% of program budgets. [31]

Word of mouth is the multiplier. 82% of attendees tell the people around them, and 59% capture content in the room. A well-designed experience keeps working after the doors close.

Trust is the new metric

91% of event marketers expect events to become more central to strategy over the next two years, but only 28% have a solid way to measure the trust those events build. [7] Teams that can measure it will win the budget arguments.

06. AI raises the value of the room

AI has moved from experiment to standard practice in event planning. The more important effect is on the other side: as AI-generated content floods every channel, the in-person moment becomes the thing people trust most.

• 95% of event organizers expect their use of AI in events to increase. [10]
• 72% of planners call AI valuable or essential to better outcomes. [32]
• 50% of meeting professionals planned to use generative AI in 2026. [8]
• 85% of event marketers say AI-generated content makes trust harder to build. [7]

Adoption is running ahead of results. In preliminary findings from Cvent and Forrester, fielded among event and hospitality leaders in June 2026, 59% use AI for event content, but only 37% say it is paying off. 70% say events matter more, not less, as AI floods every channel with synthetic content. [33]

The biggest opportunity for AI in events is not planning. It is in the room itself: visuals that react, content that adapts, a space that responds to who actually showed up tonight.

Freeman found 70% of attendees rank live events as their primary source of professional learning, but only about half attend the keynotes. [34] People come for the room and the people in it, not the slides.

07. Immersive is the fastest mover

Everyone agrees immersive entertainment is growing fast. They disagree on how fast. Grand View Research projects 29.4% a year; Mordor Intelligence projects 12.2%. Both start at about $140 billion. [35] [36]

• $137.7B. Global immersive entertainment market, 2025. [35]
• $1.02T. Grand View Research projection for 2033. [35]
• $260.8B. Mordor Intelligence projection for 2031. [36]
• 75% of organizers rate immersive experiences that let attendees disconnect as important. [37]

Even the conservative forecast nearly doubles the market in six years. North America holds about 44% of global revenue. [35] The public companies show the same thing: Sphere's segment revenue rose 69% in Q1 2026, [38] and Live Nation reported "the strongest concert ticket sales we've ever seen." [39]

EPR Properties, the experiential real estate REIT, ended 2025 with its 19-million-square-foot experiential portfolio 99% leased or operated. [40] There is almost no vacancy at the infrastructure layer of physical entertainment.

The tools behind immersive rooms, including projection mapping, real-time generative visuals and spatial audio, are faster to deploy and cheaper to run than they were three years ago. The creative ceiling keeps rising. Purpose-built rooms to run them in are still scarce.

08. Events become infrastructure

Executives now treat events as business infrastructure, not one-off marketing campaigns. They get discussed in board meetings, measured against pipeline, and weighed against product and media spend.

• 88% of meeting professionals expect their budgets to rise in 2026. [8]
• 33% of B2B marketers put events in their top 3 areas for new investment. [9]
• 40% of organizers plan to run more events, down from 66%. [10]
• 60% of planners feel positive about the outlook (MPI, Q3 2026). [41]

The pattern is fewer events with more money behind each one. Budgets are rising while event counts flatten. In MPI's latest survey, 71% of planners named "creating a premium experience while controlling expenses" as their hardest trade-off. [41]

Events rank second only to AI tools as the area where B2B marketers plan to increase investment in 2026: 33% vs 45%. [9] Events are competing directly with technology for budget.

Not every budget is growing

Skift's September survey of in-house corporate event teams found 47% working with flat 2026 budgets. Yet 31% of those companies spend more than $10 million a year on meetings. [42] Proving ROI is getting easier: 40% of organizers say it is hard, down from 70% a year earlier. [10]

09. The headwinds

A report that only shows the good news is not a report. 2026 also brought rising costs, weaker international travel, and a wobble in planner confidence in the spring. This is what could slow things down.

• +20.7%. Year-over-year rise in airfares in April 2026. [11]
• 41%. Business-travel confidence in April, down from 59% in January (GBTA). [11]
• -18%. International travel spending in the U.S. vs 2019 (2026 forecast, inflation-adjusted). [12]
• 68% of Gen Z say going out is not worth what it costs them. [5]

Planner sentiment dropped in the spring. MPI's favorable outlook fell from 57% to 47% in Q2, [43] then bounced back to 60% in Q3. [41] Tourism Economics cut its 2026 forecast for international arrivals to the U.S., with the biggest cuts for Canada, South Korea, Germany, France and the U.K. [44] Concert grosses hit records in the first half, but on more shows rather than more money per show: North American top-tour grosses were flat and average gross per show fell. [45]

Companies are not cancelling. They are adapting: shorter programs, local or secondary-city destinations, shorter or cheaper flights. [11] The squeeze favors events that are closer, smaller and better.

What it means: the out-of-town mega-conference is under the most pressure. The local, high-production experience a short trip from a company's own office has the advantage. 63% of planners call travel costs their main obstacle. [11]

10. Why New York still leads

New York is not just one market among many. It is the benchmark. No other city packs as many premium venues, corporate headquarters, media companies, agencies and creative people into one walkable area.

• 65.0M. Visitors to NYC in 2025, up 0.7%. [13]
• $84.7B. Total economic impact of NYC tourism in 2025. [13]
• 84.1%. NYC hotel occupancy in 2025, the highest of any U.S. city for the third year running. [14]
• $3.5B. Regional economic impact of the 2026 World Cup in NY/NJ. [46]

NYC Tourism + Conventions reports $55.6 billion in direct visitor spending in 2025, $7.5 billion in tax revenue and 397,000 jobs supported. The city booked 1,515 meetings and events worth almost 345,000 room nights. It forecasts 66.3 million visitors in 2026, with domestic travel expected to beat the 2019 record. [13] The average NYC hotel room cost $333.71 a night in 2025, 17% more than in 2019. [14] The World Cup brought more than 645,000 fans to eight matches and beat its own economic forecast. [46]

What 2026 buyers want from NYC venues, in our experience: broadcast-quality production, content capture built in, VIP privacy, flexible floor plans, and experience design led by the guest. Square footage matters less. Production capability matters most.

Domestic visitors carried 2025 while international visits fell 3.2%. [13] For event buyers, that means New York's own audience is the base to build on: local teams, local clients, local press.

11. The next ten years

Every signal in this report points the same way. Physical gathering is entering a long period of structural growth, driven by loneliness, fatigue with screens and AI content, spending on experiences, and the measurable returns of being in the room. The question is not whether to invest. It is how to position for the kind of events that will define the decade.

The events that win. The demand is not for more events. It is for better ones: more real, more participatory, less choreographed. [2] Rooms that feel like they could only happen once. With costs rising and budgets concentrating, the average event gets cut first. [10]

Immersive becomes the standard. Forecasts for immersive entertainment range from $260 billion by 2031 to $1 trillion by 2033. [36] [35] Either way, projection mapping, spatial audio, generative visuals and responsive environments move from exceptional to expected.

Trust becomes the product. As AI-generated content fills every feed, the in-person moment is the one people believe. 70% of event leaders already say events matter more because of AI. [33] Teams that use AI to shape the experience itself, not just the planning, will define the category.

The biggest events of the next decade will not be the biggest events. They will be the most specific.

About LUME Studios

The State of Events 2026 was researched and published by LUME Studios, an immersive event venue and production studio at 393 Broadway on the SoHo and Tribeca border in New York City. Since 2016, LUME has produced more than 1,700 events for brands and artists including Nike, Amazon, Adidas, Roku, JetBlue, Bai, Billie Eilish, Doja Cat and Burna Boy, all from one in-house team. We built this report because we wanted to know what the data actually says about the industry we work in every day. Then we checked it again.

Planning a brand activation, executive dinner, offsite or launch in New York? Book a walkthrough, email hello@lumestudios.com, or call (212) 203-3732.

Quoting this report? Please do. Cite "LUME Studios, The State of Events 2026 (September edition)" and link to this page. For the underlying source files, email hello@lumestudios.com.

Methodology

We only cite research we could trace to the organization that produced it: a survey publisher, a market research firm, a company filing, or a government or trade body. Where we had to rely on press coverage of a study, the citation says so. Vendor-sponsored surveys are labelled in the index. When forecasters disagree, we show the range. Every figure was checked against its source between September 20 and 24, 2026.

Market-size forecasts are models, not measurements. Firms define "events" differently, and a single forecast can be wrong by hundreds of billions. Survey figures describe the people who answered, often event professionals with a stake in the answer. We treat the direction as more reliable than any single number.

What changed since the May 2026 edition

The May edition led with Allied Market Research's $2.5T forecast. That release is a re-issue of a 2025 report, and its baseline and growth rate do not reconcile. We now lead with PQ Media's measured 2025 experiential spend. The 91%, 85%, 98% and 70% figures came from EventTrack studies published in 2015 and 2018. They are replaced with EventTrack 2026 data, and the originals are traced in the Myth Check above. We removed the "96% of millennials share" claim, the "10x earned media" claim, the 3:1 to 5:1 ROI range, a 39% projection-mapping revenue share, and several other figures that could not be traced to primary research that says what was claimed. Attributions were corrected, weak sources were replaced, and a full Headwinds section was added.

Sources

Numbered in the order they first appear. Every link was working at publication.

1. PQ Media: Global B2C & B2B Experiential Marketing Forecast 2026 to 2030. June 9, 2026. Global experiential spend $138.94B in 2025 (+8.3%), forecast +10.3% in 2026. U.S. $64.43B in 2025 (+9%, 46.4% of global), forecast +11.8% in 2026. prweb.com
2. Eventbrite: Inaugural Social Study, "The Reset to Real." January 14, 2026. dcdx survey of 4,051 people aged 18 to 35, U.S. and U.K., fielded July 2025. eventbrite.com
3. McKinsey & Company: State of the Consumer 2026. June 18, 2026. n=4,863 across five countries. Experiences market grew 2.6% (2023 to 2025) vs 0.8% for nonessential goods. mckinsey.com
4. The Cigna Group: Loneliness in America 2025. YouGov survey of 2,500 U.S. adults, fielded mid-2024. 67% of Gen Z lonely vs 44% of Boomers. thecignagroup.com (PDF)
5. The Harris Poll: The Gen Z Weekend Report. July 2026. 4,100 U.S. adults including 603 Gen Z, fielded May 28 to June 6, 2026. theharrispoll.com (PDF)
6. Event Marketer & Sparks: EventTrack 2026. October 27, 2025. 517 brand marketers and 811 event attendees. Executive summary. eventmarketer.com (PDF)
7. Cvent & Censuswide: Event marketing trust study. June 15, 2026. 901 marketers and event professionals, 12 countries, fielded March 20 to 31, 2026. cvent.com
8. Amex GBT: 2026 Global Meetings & Events Forecast. Fall 2025. YouGov survey of 601 meeting professionals in eight countries, fielded July 14 to 21, 2025. The 88% figure is the sum of the significantly increasing (5%), increasing (36%) and slightly increasing (47%) responses. amexglobalbusinesstravel.com (PDF)
9. Content Marketing Institute: B2B Content and Marketing Trends, Insights for 2026. October 8, 2025. 1,015 B2B marketers. The 33% figure is for the "events and experiential marketing" category. contentmarketinginstitute.com
10. Bizzabo: 2026 State of Events Benchmark Report. Early 2026. bizzabo.com
11. Skift Meetings: Airfare costs are up, but companies aren't cutting meetings. May 26, 2026. Cites a survey of 300 planners and 1,000 attendees (MMGY Intel, linked from the article), the Bureau of Labor Statistics and GBTA. meetings.skift.com
12. U.S. Travel Association: Travel Forecast. May 2026. International inbound spending forecast at $178B in 2026, still 18% below 2019 (inflation-adjusted). ustravel.org
13. NYC Tourism + Conventions: Annual Report. March 24, 2026. 2025 actuals and 2026 forecast. business.nyctourism.com
14. Office of the New York State Comptroller: NYC hotel industry report. July 16, 2026. osc.ny.gov
15. Fever: $250M raise led by EQT. September 17, 2026. Company-reported. newsroom.feverup.com
16. Deadline: Sony Pictures invests in Cosm. June 24, 2026. Sony led Cosm's Series C with $100M. deadline.com
17. The Business Research Company via Research and Markets: Events Industry Market Report 2026. February 2026. $1.33T (2025) to $1.46T (2026); $2.08T by 2030 at 9.3% CAGR (2026 to 2030). researchandmarkets.com
18. Allied Market Research: Events Industry Market, 2021 to 2035. Press release April 15, 2026, a re-issue of a release first published November 3, 2025. $2.5T by 2035 at 6.8% CAGR, 2024 to 2035. Sponsorship is the largest revenue source. prnewswire.com
19. Research Nester: Event Management Software Market. $11.52B (2025) to $36.42B (2035) at 12.2% CAGR (2026 to 2035). researchnester.com
20. Klook: TravelPulse 2026. February 11, 2026. 11,000 Millennials and Gen Z across 20 markets. 88% plan to increase or maintain travel budgets in 2026. klook.com
21. American Express (U.K.) consumer survey, via Retail Rewired. August 13, 2025. 2,000 U.K. consumers. 58% of Gen Z and Millennials opting for experiential spend over physical goods this summer. retailrewired.co.uk
22. American Psychological Association: Stress in America 2025. November 2025. Harris Poll, 3,199 U.S. adults. 54% felt isolated often or some of the time. prnewswire.com
23. Hinge: One More Hour global launch. March 27, 2025. $1M for in-person community events in NYC, LA and London. OnePoll survey of 2,000 U.K. Gen Z: 85% report feelings of loneliness. hinge.co
24. CNBC: Partiful growth (syndicated via NBC New York). April 19, 2025. 500,000 monthly active users in Q1 2025, up 400% year over year, per Sensor Tower estimates. nbcnewyork.com
25. TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2025: Partiful. time.com
26. U.S. Surgeon General: Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation (Advisory). 2023. hhs.gov (PDF)
27. Event Marketer & Mosaic: EventTrack 2018. 1,204 consumer responses. eventmarketer.com (PDF)
28. Event Marketing Institute & Mosaic: EventTrack 2015 (Consumer). 1,620 consumers, U.S. and Canada. eventmarketer.com (PDF)
29. Harris Poll for Eventbrite, 2014, via Digital Music News. September 18, 2014. digitalmusicnews.com
30. Forbes (contributor): How synergizing earned, owned and paid media can 10x marketing ROI. November 28, 2017. About digital media mix, citing TUNE. Not event research. forbes.com
31. Cvent: Marketer confidence in events as a pipeline channel. July 13, 2026. Nearly 1,000 marketers and event professionals. Vendor survey; methodology not disclosed. cvent.com
32. EventsAir: The State of Events 2026. February 5, 2026. 380+ event professionals. eventsair.com
33. Cvent & Forrester Consulting: Center for Event Insights, preliminary findings. July 15, 2026. Fieldwork June 2026; sample size not published. cvent.com
34. Freeman: Trends Report, Unpacking XLNC (Part 1). April 16, 2026. 4,700+ attendees and 185 organizers. globenewswire.com
35. Grand View Research: Immersive Entertainment Market. $137.7B (2025) to $1,024.55B (2033) at 29.4% CAGR. North America 44% share. grandviewresearch.com
36. Mordor Intelligence: Immersive Entertainment Market. $140.15B (2025) to $260.77B (2031); 12.16% CAGR 2026 to 2031. mordorintelligence.com
37. Bizzabo: 2026 State of Events Benchmark Report (full PDF, hosted by Eventastic). 75% rate immersive experiences that allow attendees to disconnect and focus as important. eventastic.com (PDF)
38. Sphere Entertainment Co.: First Quarter 2026 Results. May 5, 2026. Sphere segment revenue $266.0M, up 69%. investor.sphereentertainmentco.com
39. Live Nation Entertainment: Second Quarter 2026 Results. July 30, 2026. livenationentertainment.com
40. EPR Properties: Q4 and 2025 year-end results (Business Wire, via StockTitan). February 25, 2026. Experiential portfolio about 19.0M sq ft, 99% leased or operated. stocktitan.net
41. MPI: Meetings Outlook, Q3 2026. Fielded July 6 to 20, 2026. n=483. mpi.org (PDF)
42. Skift Meetings: Survey of in-house corporate event teams. September 10, 2026. n=100+. meetings.skift.com
43. MPI: Meetings Outlook, Q2 2026. Fielded March 18 to April 1, 2026. n=163. mpi.org (PDF)
44. Travel Weekly: Tourism Economics lowers 2026 U.S. visitor forecast (shared by Brand USA). July 23, 2026. 70.6M to 69.9M international arrivals. travelweekly.com
45. Pollstar: 2026 Mid-Year Business Analysis. June 22, 2026. news.pollstar.com
46. NY/NJ FIFA World Cup 2026 Host Committee: Economic impact. August 26, 2026. Study by Tourism Economics. nynjfwc26.com

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