Event Trends for 2022
COVID-19 has been hella disruptive for a number of industries, including the event management sector. Concerts, conferences, expos, weddings, sports tournaments, award galas, bar mitzvahs all were put on hold while the world socially distanced itself in an attempt to curb the spread. And while the COVID battle is not yet over, with a good percentage of the population now vaccinated we are starting to see a slow return to the concerts and the conferences and the bar mitzvahs. Here we take a look at some of the key trends that event industry experts are forecasting for 2022 and beyond.
Virtual Will Continue to Have a Place in the Events Realm
Event goers have had a big ol taste of webinars, online trade shows, and virtual conferences this past 20 months. And while many are chomping at the bit to get back to the face-to-face gathering of yore, there are just as many who have become accustomed to the online experience, the flexibility it offers, the vehicle-less commute to their home office, the dress shirt on top, pajamas on bottom work-from-home wardrobe coziness. And for these folks, hybrid events will reign supreme.
Pajamas on bottom coziness aside, there are several compelling reasons to consider incorporating hybrid events into your programming calendar:
- Distance and travel are no longer barriers to attendance attendees can join from anywhere in the world which gives opportunities for tremendous reach.
- Unique opportunities for wannabe sponsors 80{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3} of corporate sponsors have expressed interest in virtual and hybrid event sponsorship.
- All the data who doesn t love data? Virtual and hybrid events give insights galore into your attendee preferences and engagement, insights that can then be used to inform future decision-making.
- Increased return on investment some serious money can be saved through virtual vs live events and with increased reach and scalability, this can translate into attractive margins.
There May be More Variants to Come
First there was COVID-19. Then there was the Alpha variant, which made its first appearance in Great Britain in November 2020. And then Delta became the predominant variant. And then a year later, Omicron swept the globe. Will Omicron be the final mutation, the one that brings the global community from pandemic to endemic? Please, oh for the love of Pete, let the answer by a resounding yes . However, it s just too early to say. For the time being, event planners need to assume that the virus will continue to be with us as the ultimate unwanted houseguest for some time, and plan accordingly. This means contingency planning in the case of a surge. This means considering how to accept proof of vaccination, and whether subsequent boosters will factor into your attendee requirements. This means finding ways to prioritize health and safety for your event attendees while still providing a fun and compelling experience.
Sustainability Will be the Norm
Eventbrite had identified sustainability as the number one event trend in 2020, and this is still a leading trend two years later. After years fraught with rising sea levels, wildfires, and deadly weather events, climate change action is on the minds of many global citizens, and all organizations have a role to play in adopting greener policies and processes. Reducing paper waste, sourcing eco-friendly swag, encouraging recycling at events, and using biodegradable items are just a handful of the ways in which event planners can be environmentally conscious.
Technology Solutions Will Continue to Evolve
The pandemic fast-tracked a whole new world of event technology solutions as event managers scrambled to transition to fully virtual events. And the tech world did not disappoint in their mad rush to accommodate this sudden and universal need. Whether your event is in-person, virtual, or hybrid, there are several new technological developments designed to improve the event experience all around.
Artificial Intelligence: While we re not quite in Blade Runner territory, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming used more and more in the event management space. Chatbots are increasingly employed to inform and connect with event attendees. AI is used to remove language barriers at international events by instantly translating attendee communications. AI can even be used to provide an enhanced networking experience to attendees by strategically matching those with similar event goals.
Facial Recognition: Facial recognition is a neat-o technology that allows one s face to serve as their form of identification. While there are obvious security benefits to this technology, the potential convenience applications are also rather tremendous. Imagine if you will, a long line-up full of travel-wearied and tired event attendees who neglected to print out their event confirmation specifics. That is a recipe for disaster. Now imagine this same group simply looking into a camera before having their identity and registration confirmed allowing them to seamlessly move through to the event floor. That is a recipe for happy attendee stew.
Mat Technology: Yep, this is a thing. Mat technology involves clever flooring that comes equipped with data tracking capabilities to measure and report on event analytics like what booths get the most foot traffic, what times of day were busiest, where were the low traffic spots. For those who love data as much as we do, it doesn t get much better than this!
Diverse Representation Among Your Event Stakeholders
It s 2022. Still think that diversity and inclusion don t matter? Just ask the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), that group of international journalists who are responsible for the Golden Globes. Once considered to be a primary staple of the Hollywood awards season, a February 2021 Los Angeles Times piece exposed some controversial realities about this group, including the following tidbits:
- Former HFPA President Meher Tatna shared that there hadn t been a Black member in the 90 person group for over twenty years.
- 30 HFPA members were flown to the Emily in Paris set in France in 2019, a show that subsequently received two nominations despite being much less critically acclaimed than other shows featuring actors of color such as I May Destroy You and Insecure.
- HFPA members would allegedly sell their tickets to the Golden Globes for upwards of $40,000.
Given these revelations and the ensuing outcry from the broader entertainment community, NBC opted to pull the plug on the 2022 Golden Globes, stating we continue to believe that the HFPA is committed to meaningful reform. However, change of this magnitude takes time and work, and we feel strongly that the HFPA needs time to do it right.
Diversity and inclusion matter and should be kept top of mind when hiring speakers, sourcing panelists, securing committee volunteers, and in determining programming content. Your attendees should see themselves reflected in the planning and delivery of your event.
Putting These Trends to Work for Your Next Event
What corporate events is your organization looking to pull off in 2022? Whatever it is, Decibel Events can help you to pull it off flawlessly. As a leading event production and management firm with experience in organizing everything from presidential events to massive trade shows to high-end corporate events, Decibel Event is right on top of all event management trends and knows how to best incorporate them into your next event. Let us help you to bring your event to life.
dB Blog #319: Events to Check out This Quarter (Q1 2022)
Welcome to 2022. The year in which New York professor Ferdinand Shuller predicted, 100 years ago in 1922, that restaurants would offer self-serving tables with meals rising from kitchens one floor below. While that specific prediction has not panned out (at least as far as I know if I am in the wrong, and these self-serving, meal-rising kitchens do in fact exist, please let me know where), there are plenty of other cool reasons to celebrate the arrival of 2022. Like these nine events taking place in the coming few months (at the time of writing).
Sundance Film Festival (January 20 30)
Well, that ended quickly. From when we first drafted this article to today, another in-person/Hybrid event has gone back to 100{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3} virtual. Thanks, Omicron, get bent.
America s largest independent film festival has been bringing out upwards of 40,000+ attendees to Park City, Utah for the past forty years to celebrate and recognize independent filmmakers. Originally planned as a hybrid affair, it was just recently announced that the 2022 iteration will be fully online due to the Omicron variant. Historically, the Sundance Film Festival has been the premier venue for some super popular movies including The Blair Witch Project, Little Miss Sunshine, Get Out, and Napoleon Dynamite.
Fun fact: The Sundance Film Festival was founded by Robert Redford in 1981 in order to showcase American-made films and attract more filmmakers to Utah and was named after his Sundance Kid character from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Full details: https://www.sundance.org/blogs/countdown-to-the-2022-sundance-film-festival/
New York Fashion Week (February 10 14)
The biggest of the Big Four fashion shows (ahead of London, Milan, and Paris), New York Fashion Week typically attracts over 200,000 fashion-minded attendees to the city every year. The fashion extravaganza will unveil the 2022 designer fall and winter collections. This bi-annual event (with the second iteration scheduled for September 2022) takes place at various venues all across Manhattan and New York.
Fun fact: Designers will pay in-demand celebrities as much as $100,000 for sitting front row at their fashion shows during New York Fashion Week (ya, we re looking at you Rhianna and Beyonce).
Full details: https://fashionweekonline.com/
Super Bowl 56 (February 13)
While the NFL s biggest event of the year is currently scheduled to take place at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, it is possible that the game may be moved to a new location depending on what indoor event restrictions are implemented in the coming weeks. While bookies are currently placing the Green Bay Packers, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the top three, it is still uncertain as to which teams will be duking it out on February 13th. One thing that is certain, however, is that this year s half-time show line-up is a damn fine one, including Eminem, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Doog, and Kendrick Lamar.
Fun fact: Each team competing in the Super Bowl gets 108 footballs. 54 are used for practice, and 54 are used for the game itself.
Full details: https://www.nfl.com/super-bowl/
Magic Las Vegas (February 13 16)
The first of the three fashion industry events (with subsequent conferences in New York and Nashville), Magic Las Vegas boasts a global audience of retail buyers, influencers, media, and industry stakeholders representing 860 brands coming together to learn, network, and spend, spend, spend. Fabulously.
Fun fact: 60+ countries and all 50 states were represented at the last Magic Las Vegas and Magic New York.
Full details: https://www.magicfashionevents.com/en/home.html
Screen Actors Guild Awards (February 27)
While the Golden Globes, currently experiencing a Hollywood boycott of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, were a significantly scaled down private affair on January 9th, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards are powering ahead (as of time of writing). This year s soiree will be co-hosted by Vanessa Hudgens and Rosario Dawson, Helen Mirren will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at this year s ceremony, and the celebrity fashion choices are sure to not disappoint.
Fun fact: The Screen Actors Guild award itself, referred to as The Actor , is a 16 inch tall statuette of a male figure holding a mask of comedy in one hand and a mask of tragedy in the other. The Actor is cast in solid bronze and weighs a hefty 12 pounds.
Full details: https://www.sagawards.org/
Rio Carnival (February 25 March 5)
Rio Carnival celebrates 300 years next year with the first one having taken place in Rio de Janeiro in 1723, to mark the start of Lent, which is a 40-day period that Catholics participate in that includes fasting and abstinence. So, they get it out of their systems while they can with this two-week celebration of food, alcohol, and fun. Recognized by Guinness World Records as the largest festival in the world, this year s version will be scaled down for pandemic-related reasons, but some of the major events are still expected to proceed at this time.
Fun fact: There are some mighty big numbers associated with Rio Carnival 2 million attendees each day, half a million foreigners travel in each year for the events, and 10 million liters of beer are consumed annually at Rio Carnival.
Full details: https://www.riocarnaval.org/
Mardi Gras (March 1)
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is determined that Mardi Gras 2022 will be a go this year, recently stating, without a doubt we will have Mardi Gras 2022, we will!
And what can partiers expect at this year s Mardi Gras? The festivities officially kicked off in the French Quarter on January 6, and are currently expected to go strong through March with krewes galore scheduled (which are the New Orleans clubs responsible for various parades throughout the nearly two-month-long celebration).
Fun fact: Everyone riding on a Mardi Gras float must be wearing a mask. This has nothing to do with COVID and is actually required by law. This mask-wearing tradition dates back generations and was instituted in order to remove the class constraints barriers that exist in society. As the official Mardi Gras website describes, when wearing a mask, carnival-goers were free to be whomever they wanted to be and mingle with whatever class they desired to mingle with. Cool beans.
Full details: https://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/
South by Southwest (March 11 20)
South by Southwest (SXSW) is described as an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, music festivals, and conferences. This ten-day event has been held in Austin since 1987 and has grown exponentially during that time, welcoming over 417,000 attendees in 2019, before moving to online events for 2020 and 2021. SXSW 2022 includes a film festival, exhibitions, a comedy festival, conference sessions, a music festival, and more.
Fun fact: The original festival email address was 72662.465@compuserve.com and at one point they ran a panel titled So You Want to Make a CD-Rom? . And that is what they call old school .
Full details: https://www.sxsw.com/
Ultra Music Festival (March 25 27)
This Miami-based outdoor electronic music festival has been running annually since 1999. Headliners for this year s festival include David Guetta, Kygo, Martin Garrix, Armin van Buuren, Illenium, and so many more.
Fun fact: The Ultra Music Festival was named after the 1997 Depeche Mode album titled Ultra.
Full details: https://ultramusicfestival.com/
And the ones that didn t make it
These events, originally scheduled for Q1 2022, have been postponed or outright canceled:
- The 2022 Palm Springs International Film Festival slated for January 7 17 has been canceled;
- The Critics Choice Awards that were originally scheduled for January 9th will be postponed;
- The Grammy Awards, originally scheduled for January 31st, will be rescheduled to a later date this year; and
- Giorgio Armani has canceled his fashion shows for the foreseeable future.
Hopefully you get the opportunity to take in one of these, or any other, large-scale event this quarter. If you do, and you get inspiration for a corporate event of your own, Decibel Events is the event production team to make your inspiration a reality.
