The questions worth asking before you plan any event in 2026

If 2025 taught us anything, it’s that people still want to show up in person. The UK events industry is worth £61.65bn and sees 95.4m attendances annually.

Even better (or worse, depending on your to-do list), investment is following, the IPA Bellwether Report (Q3 2025) found events were the strongest-growing marketing budget category, with a +10.9% net balance of companies increasing spend.

As investment grows, so does the events industry standard. So, instead of predicting what events might look like in 2026, here are the questions we’re asking throughout the experience design process that make the post-event debrief high on high-fives and low on 'what-ifs.'

Most events are designed with a clear audience in mind and most are experienced by a much broader one.

A leadership event might be attended by wider teams, or a customer event might be quietly observed by partners, press or internal stakeholders. Your event is likely to land very differently depending on whether someone feels ‘in the loop’ or like they’ve missed the first ten minutes of a film.

When an experience subtly signals that some people are outside the conversation, it shows. People stop asking questions and start checking emails whilst nodding politely.

This matters more than ever when live moments are one of the few places large, mixed groups come together in person. With 95.4 million attendances a year across UK events, variety in the room is the norm.

Inclusion here isn’t about trying to speak to everyone equally. It’s about tone, language and pacing. About not assuming everyone arrived with the same context, the same confidence, or the same tolerance for acronyms.

A useful gut check during planning is this: if someone outside the core audience showed up, would they feel curious, or quietly lost?

Memory is selective, with certain moments carrying more weight and the ending often lingering. People remember not just the headline moments but also the small details that quietly show an experience was thought through, which is why the post-event story matters so much.

In professional settings, it might sound like, ‘That actually made sense,’ or, ‘They’d really thought it through.’ In consumer settings, it’s more likely to be excitement, surprise, or a recommendation that starts with, ‘You should have seen…’

Those comments don’t happen by accident, they’re the result of experiences that feel intentional.

When planning, it’s worth asking what you’d hope someone would lead with if the event came up in conversation a week later. If the answer is ‘the catering was good’, there’s probably more work to do.

Technology now plays a part in almost all events, but the real question for 2026 is how confident teams feel using it and where it genuinely improves the experience.

That confidence gap is real. Industry research shows 88% of event professionals are now using AI, yet 58% say they only understand the basics. It’s easy to see how tools are adopted before teams feel fully equipped to use them well.

One pattern is emerging. Technology tends to work best when it starts backstage. Operational uses of AI are already delivering around 35% efficiency gains in administrative tasks, freeing up time and headspace that can be reinvested into better flow, better hospitality and more visible human facilitation.

Audience-facing AI carries a different weight. In a live environment, anything front-of-house needs to be explainable, clearly beneficial and visibly supported by humans, otherwise it risks pulling focus for the wrong reasons. A clear view on that helps teams avoid ‘tech for tech’s sake’ and use it where it genuinely lifts the experience.

More and more events are now part of programmes rather than one-offs. Roadshows, series and repeat formats are becoming standard, which changes how success is judged.

Investment patterns reflect this shift. Around 23% of MICE budgets are now allocated to technology and AI, pointing to longer-term capability building rather than isolated one-offs.

Thinking about repeatability early is key, it shows you what really carries the experience. What would you protect if this ran again next year, or in another market? What needs to stay recognisably the same for it to still feel like you, rather than a template with a logo swap?

That question often clarifies things faster than another planning meeting.

Planning for 2026 starts with noticing how people experience events today. The moments that linger are the ones where people feel genuinely included and understood, where every interaction quietly reinforces that someone has thought about their experience from start to finish.

Small touches and well-timed cues combine with standout experiences to create a sense of coherence and care that becomes the story people tell afterwards. Asking better questions when planning gives creativity a place to land where it truly matters.

Sources referenced: UK Events Report (UKEVENTS), IPA Bellwether Report (Q3 2025), CHS Birmingham Survey (October 2025), VisitBritain (UK Conference and Meeting Survey 2024), Kahneman et al. (1993) and Peak-End Rule study (Psychological Science).