Inaugural report sheds light on why proving event ROI is consistently a top challenge for event professionals
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 15, 2025 — Swoogo, a global event management platform, today announced the release of its inaugural industry report, The 2025 Eventscape: Trends and Truths for the Experience Economy. Based on a survey of 500 event organizers, this report reveals insights into the most important event trends and what event professionals should prioritize in 2025.
The study finds that event organizers are still struggling to prove the value of events and report on ROI. In fact, 50% agree that demonstrating ROI is a top stressor. Additional survey results indicate why this is so difficult: 44% of event professionals don’t have their event management platform connected to their CRM and 69% don’t have it connected to their marketing automation platform. Further, they ranked event registrations and attendance rate as more important event effectiveness KPIs than ROI.
“Event professionals today are expected to do more with less, show results, and scale their programs — often without the resources they really need,” said Chris Sykes, CEO of Swoogo. “This came through in our data. We’re committed to solving these challenges for event teams with a single platform to host, manage, and measure their programs, proving the impact of their work.”
Other key findings from the report include:
Micro events are on the rise — and they’re effective. In-person micro events hosted on Swoogo increased 16% from 2023 to 2024, and 45% of event organizers we surveyed said their company is committed to hosting these bite-sized events. These companies are also 15% more likely to have an average year-over-year growth rate of 20% or more.
AI will be huge for event teams. This comes at an ideal time, as budget and resources are the biggest challenges keeping event organizers up at night. 44% of respondents said they think AI will be 2025’s biggest trend in events, with 36% naming generative AI and 8% naming predictive AI capabilities as game-changers this year.
Hybrid events are declining. Companies hosted 25% fewer hybrid events on Swoogo in 2024 than the prior year, and 47% of survey respondents said they’ve hosted hybrid events in the past but have no plans to host them in the future. The top two reasons: it’s tough to get engagement and they take away from the experience for in-person attendees.
The 2025 Eventscape is now available. For more information or to request an interview, please email [email protected].
About Swoogo
Swoogo’s leading event management platform empowers anyone to bring people together by equipping event organizers with the tools to bring visionary events to life. Swoogo enables event teams to customize event sites, registration flows, attendee agendas, speaker portals, and email communications, delivering fully bespoke and on-brand events that supercharge authenticity and maximize impact.
With Swoogo’s partner ecosystem and open API, event organizers can have it all, bringing together best-of-breed partners for unparalleled event experiences. Brought to market in 2015, Swoogo is steadfast in its commitment to enterprise-grade solutions, transparent pricing, and exemplary customer support. Learn more at swoogo.events.