So, I went. Turns out that the question I should have been asking was, “What’s the best that could happen?”
Friday Feature
Eventbrite’s 2026 trend report, Reset to Real, suggests audiences are increasingly drawn to experiences that feel personal and authentic.
Seventy-nine percent of Gen Z and millennials plan to attend more events this year, while nearly half want events to feel less curated. Phone-free experiences are also up a striking 567 percent globally.
Matt Tuffuor, an event marketing expert at Eventbrite, says one of the biggest mistakes businesses make is starting with the event itself i.e., the venue, the guest count, the speakers, the food.
Instead, start with something much simpler.
“What do you want to happen because this event exists?”
From there, six principles can help turn an event from an expensive gathering into a genuine marketing channel:
1. Start with the outcome, not the occasion.
Before you book a venue or pick a date, Tuffuor says you need to know what you want the event to achieve.
Is the goal to build community? Generate leads? Educate customers? Drive revenue? Increase loyalty? Create content?
Those answers should shape almost everything else.
Then take it one step further. “What do you want attendees to do in the 72 hours after they leave?”
Maybe they book a call, buy your product, join your community, share something from the event, or bring a friend to the next one.
A full room might look like success. But if everyone leaves and nothing happens afterward, what exactly did the event accomplish?
“An event without a clear objective risks becoming an expensive party rather than a marketing channel,” Tuffuor says.
2. Don’t confuse capacity with demand.
Here’s another trap: assuming a bigger crowd automatically means a better event.
Tuffuor says businesses often plan around how many people they can fit rather than how many people they actually need.
A 600-person event isn’t necessarily more valuable than one with 75 attendees. If those 75 people are genuinely interested in what you do, they could be worth far more than 600 people who showed up simply because they had nothing else to do.
“Just because people are willing to show up doesn’t mean they’re genuinely interested in what you do,” Tuffuor says.
People may recognize your company and like your product. That doesn’t necessarily mean they trust you to give them an experience worth giving up their Saturday night for.
That trust has to be earned.
And sometimes, smaller brands have an advantage here. Eventbrite’s 2026 Social Study found that 69 percent of people prefer discovering events through personal networks and word of mouth.
A recommendation from someone you trust can carry more weight than another branded ad.
3. Treat your event as market research.
An event doesn’t have to generate a pile of sales on the night to be valuable.
Tuffuor suggests thinking about it as an opportunity to learn.
In person, you can see what people gravitate toward, hear the questions they ask, notice who they bring, and spot what gets them excited — or leaves them checking their phones.
So instead of asking only, “How much did we sell?” ask “What did we learn here that we couldn’t have learned anywhere else?”
Those insights can influence your next event, your marketing and even your product.
Your first event, in other words, doesn’t have to be perfect. It can be an experiment.
4. Know who shouldn’t be there.
Most event-planning advice focuses on defining your ideal attendee.
Tuffuor suggests asking another question: “Who shouldn’t attend?”
That might sound strange, but being more specific about your audience can save money and make the experience better.
Trying to create an event “for everyone” can mean a bigger venue, more programming, more production and more marketing—all to reach people who may not actually matter to your business.
A narrower audience lets you spend with more intention.
“For small businesses, the goal shouldn’t be to make the event feel big,” Tuffuor says. “It should be to make the right people feel like it was made for them.”
5. Be a host, not an advertiser.
Finally, don’t make the mistake of treating your attendees like an audience.
Tuffuor’s advice: “Think like a host, not an advertiser.”
That means giving people something to participate in rather than simply something to watch.
And participation doesn’t have to mean spending thousands on an elaborate interactive installation.
It could be a skill swap, collaborative activity, group tasting, challenge, or even asking attendees to help shape what happens next.
When people contribute to an experience, they’re more likely to remember what they did rather than what they were shown.
They also start forming relationships with one another — with your brand acting as the connector.
6. The new currency of events? Attention.
All of this comes at a time when people seem increasingly hungry for experiences that feel a little less perfect.
For marketers used to competing with endless notifications, feeds and screens, that makes an in-person event unusually valuable.
You can have someone’s attention for two hours.
The question is what you do with it.
“If you're hosting a two-hour event, that's two hours of their attention,” Tuffuor says. “The brands that win will design for that attention, and for what happens after, rather than just trying to get butts in seats.”
The format of my London speed-networking event was straightforward. We had about five minutes to talk to each person one-on-one before moving on to the next.
There weren’t hundreds of people crammed into a room or a lineup of speakers demanding our attention. Just a manageable group of women, moving from conversation to conversation.
And somewhere between those five-minute chats, I clicked with two of them.
When the event ended, we decided to go out for wine, kept in touch, and started seeing each other regularly. Soon, we were taking trips together and building friendships.
Looking back, the event worked not because it was big, but because it put the right people in the same room and gave us a reason to actually talk to each other.
