It’s that time of year again. No, not pumpkin spice latte mania. I’m talking about the tsunami of purple “Vote for Me!” posts on Linked In, promoted by the 1,500 (that’s the actual number) people who’ve been nominated for Eventex’s Most Influential People In Events list, because popularity is the same thing as influence, right?

In stark contrast, the Skift Meetings’ Power Rankings of the 15 most powerful people in the events & meetings industry utilizes transparent and methodical criteria in their selection process.

Somewhere in between are the event industry association awards, which seem to be conferred to major sponsors and board members at an outsized rate.

The comparison, which I get into below, presents an opportunity to examine how we bestow recognition as an industry, and the calculus of value.

In this issue:

• M&A updates from Convene and Clarion, and the launch of Assemble.

• Events Venture Group hosts its inaugural Event Builder’s Bootcamp.

• Breaking down Event Industry Awards:

  • The Prom Queen Contest

  • The Honor Society

  • The Insider Circle Jerk

  • The Oscars

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M&A and Business Updates

• Convene has taken over two of the Neuehouse locations, following Neuehouse declaring Chapter 7 bankruptcy (the liquidation kind, not the restructuring version) last month. They reopened the NYC space, on 25th Street off of Park Avenue, and are working on re-opening the West Hollywood venue. (Neuehouse Venice Beach was taken back by the landlord). The Neuehouse facilities have a cool vibe that is different from Convene’s traditional meeting venues, and the team at Convene are world-class operators, so this is a good match.

• Word is that the sale process of Clarion, the world’s 4th largest trade show organizer, has stalled. AMO reports that Blackstone, which acquired Clarion in 2017 for £600 million ($802 million), is having trouble finding a buyer at the asking price of £2 billion ($2.7 billion), and is considering raising a continuation fund, which would keep the company until a future sale, bring in a new board, and enable the original LPs to get paid out. Phoenix Equity Partners used a continuation fund last year for its ownership of Nineteen Group and Envisage Dental.

• Social Tables founder Dan Berger is launching Assemble Hospitality, offering boutique lodges for corporate retreats, in offbeat cities, the first of which will debut in Boise, Idaho shortly. Berger, who sold Social Tables to Cvent in 2018, is leveraging his insight from his recent book The Quest: The Definitive Guide to Belonging, to design Assemble properties from the ground up with team-building in mind. Each room is named after a famous inventor. I’m enjoying the hands-on videos he’s posting that showcase the build in progress.

Upcoming Events

• NEW: Following the success of the two agency C-suite dinners I co-hosted this summer, we are planning a full day Agency Leaders Summit in NYC on May 11 or May 12, 2026. More to come soon.

• NEW: On December 2nd the Events Venture Group is hosting an Event Builders’ Bootcamp in Washington, D.C. EVG is an investment group of event industry entrepreneurs looking to fund (& support) early and mid-stage event companies. But what about budding event businesses that are still trying to get off the ground? That’s what this event is for. Only 30 spots are available, and tickets are $250. The full day program, co-hosted by Freeman, includes workshop sessions led by former Questex CEO Kerry Gumas, Clarion Chairman & CEO Greg Topalian, Marco Giberti of Vesuvio Ventures, and other successful entrepreneurs. If I weren’t already committed to EDPA’s event (below) I’d be there.

• Dec 2-4 I’ll be speaking on The State of M&A at ACCESS, the annual conference of EDPA (Experiential Designers & Producers Association), an organization comprised of companies that support the exhibition, experiential and event industry.

• The Engage! Luxury Wedding Business Summit will take place Dec 8-11 at the Ritz Carlton Bacara in Santa Barbara, where I’ll be leading their first ever M&A session. The wedding industry has ‘grown up’ over the past few decades, and now has numerous highly successful companies that are considering an exit. Registration is a whopping $6,500, and it’s already sold out.

Skift Meetings Forum: M&A Session Video

In case you missed it, here’s the full video of my 15 minute M&A session at Skift Meetings Forum last month, Mastering the Exit Strategy: Insights On Selling Event Businesses.

Industry Awards: The Good, the Bad & the Shameless

Last summer, when I was preparing to sell my house, while going through the mountains of ‘stuff’ we’d accumulated over 25 years, I came across a crate of my son’s old sports trophies. There were dozens of them, from years of Little League baseball, rec and travel soccer and basketball. The vast majority were ‘participation trophies’, given to every kid on every team for just showing up. When I asked my son which ones he wanted to keep, he quickly jettisoned all but the ones that were merit-based. The harder one was to earn, the more he valued it, even if it was just a frayed paper certificate with his name hand-written on it.

To many in the events profession, industry awards and top lists have been gradually turning off more and more people. Whether it’s the seemingly endless proliferation of awards programs, the opacity of the selection process, or the popularity contests dressed up as merit-based recognition, the collective result seems to be a growing disenchantment with the entire category.

The Prom Queen Contest

Each year, Eventex creates a list it dubs the Most Influential People In Events, with a staggering 1,500 people nominated, each of whom are urged to promote their candidacy on social media to stump for votes.

I scanned through the list (no small feat, given the sheer volume), and for sure there are legitimately influential people on there, to whom I mean no disrespect. But this is by no means a barometer of who wields the most influence in our industry. It’s a popularity contest, plain and simple. A more apt name would be “the Most Popular People In Events,” but even then I’m not sure the list would be representative.

I get why Elevato, the company behind the awards, does them. They’re an awards management event tech firm, and every event prof who logs in to vote is a potential customer experiencing their platform, so it’s good marketing for them.

And they’ve hit on an old adage in media: you can never go wrong appealing to people’s vanity. Everyone craves recognition and acknowledgement, and Eventex has harnessed that energy to get hundreds of people to promote their nomination, showcasing the Eventex brand in every post.

But we’re starting to see cracks in the foundation of this concept, as people are beginning to voice their frustration with the dilution of value of what influence actually means, through sheer numbers and an arcane process.

Nicola Kastner posted on Linked In that while she was grateful for being recognized as a nominee, she would not be campaigning for votes. Nicola is someone who warrants being on that list, given what she’s done at Event Leaders Exchange and her ongoing advocacy for event measurement, among other things. I applaud her for diplomatically voicing what many industry professionals have long felt about such popularity contests masquerading as awards.

Amen.

The Honor Society

The downside, apart from inundating us with social posts begging votes, is it undermines the credibility of the industry, in particular when similar lists are curated with more legitimate methods, such as Skift Meetings’ Power Rankings, released earlier this month. Compared to popularity contests, inclusion in this group is more like having the GPA to qualify for a high school honor society, in that the criteria are clear and calculated.

This list deserves to be celebrated for several reasons:

1. Perhaps most important of all, Skift came up with a very specific scoring system, and made their methodology public (see below). The fact that such clarity and transparency stands out tells us something about the broader state fo industry awards.

   

   Skift Ranking Methodology for Most Powerful People In Events

2. Further, ALL of them belong on the list. Case in point: Stephen Carter, CEO at Informa, the largest trade show company in the world, clocks in at #1 in Skift’s list, yet is nowhere to be found on Eventex’s 1,500 person list. Being CEO of a large industry player should not, by itself, merit inclusion, as there are plenty of people occupying such roles who simply keep the seat warm for the next person. But Carter has been instrumental in scaling Informa, including his acquisition of UBM in 2018, and Ascential (producers of Cannes Lions and Money 20/20) in 2024, which became Informa Festivals, finally bringing to life the long-hyped ‘Festivalization of Events.”

3. Skift also limited their list to 15 people, a far more sensible number that better reflects influence and power.

Here’s the full list. One could argue that others should be included, but nobody could reasonably say that the people here don’t belong.

1. Stephen Carter | Informa Group CEO

2. Hugh Jones | RX Global CEO

3. David Peckinpaugh | Maritz President & CEO

4. Sebastien Tondeur | MCI Group CEO

5. Lisa Hannant | Clarion Events CEO

6. Gerardo Tejado | Amex GBT SVP of Professional Services & GM of Meetings & Events

7. Fiona Bruder | George P. Johnson Global CEO

8. Tina Madden | Meetings & Incentives Worldwide CEO

9. Kinsey Fabrizio | Consumer Electronics Association president

10. Charlotte Pedersen | Salesforce Sr. Director of Global Strategic Events: Dreamforce

11. Karen Chupka | National Association of Broadcasters EVP of Global Connections & Events

12. Jonathan Weiner | HLTH Chairman and CEO, HumanX Co-Founder

13. William Reed | American Society of Hematology Chief Strategy Officer

14. Shannon Watson | Rotary International Director of Meetings & Events

15. Severin Podolak | World Economic Forum Head of Event Management & Operations

The Insider Circle Jerk

Somewhere in between the Eventex and Skift lists lie event industry association awards. They’re typically not popularity contests per se, but neither do they utilize a concrete methodology, which leads to the knock that they’re a bit too . . . incestuous.

Indeed, the best way to win one of these awards is to serve on the board or be a major sponsor, which often entails hosting their annual event at a steep discount. I’m not saying there’s an overt linkage between the two, nor am I saying that many of these awards are undeserved. But the crossover is undeniable, and is certainly not healthy. Critically, it serves to undermine the awards’ integrity.

One reason for this is that the typical event association CEO seems more focused on making sure their board members and major sponsors are happy, than on driving value for their members or advocating for the industry. They know where their bread is buttered: the board approves their employment agreements, and the sponsors fill the majority of their coffers.

Perhaps this is why there were no CEOs of industry associations on the Skift power list. In an ideal world, these leaders should be doing the kind of work that earns them a spot on lists like this. Some certainly are, and I can think of 1 or 2 who would probably make the list if it ran to 25 people or more, but many are not.

As a result, many, if not most, of the awards bestowed by industry associations seem to be thank yous to board members and major sponsors. There’s quite a bit of cross-over between honorees and the people who govern - and financially support - associations, which is why we tend to see so many of the same names and faces on boards and stages.

It’s unfortunate that while many of these people may truly deserve these awards, their value is eroded by a selection process that could use more rigor, and cast a wider net.

The Oscars

Compared to people-based awards, performance-based awards, that recognize excellence in producing various types of events, fall into a different category, and for the most part tend to be well-regarded.

Perhaps the most coveted such awards in our industry are Event Marketer’s Ex Awards, given out at their Experiential Marketing Summit. Winning one of these is a well-earned, crowning achievement, deserving of promotion.

On the supplier side, Northstar Meetings Group’s Stella Awards also carries cachet. Using a blended selection process, over 10,000 industry professionals vote, followed by a rigorous evaluation by a panel of judges.

Contests like these typically have detailed applications and require entry fees, which are not ‘pay-to-play’. The fees are revenue generating for the organization, and to a lesser extent cover the costs of administering the awards program. I’ve judged a number of industry awards. It’s extremely time-consuming, and judges take their roles very seriously. You rarely hear anyone complain that such awards are undeserved.

Conclusion

The harder something is to achieve, the more it is treasured. When every kid gets a participation trophy, the thinking is that it’s good for self-esteem. In retrospect, we diluted the trophy’s value; no one wants to display a participation trophy on their mantle, when everyone else has one.

Awards should show clear and transparent methodology behind their processes, including who makes the decisions and how, and disclose any potential conflicts of interest. Otherwise they will continue to be met with skepticism, which reflects poorly on the issuing organization and undermines its value to the recipient.

Here’s to taking your event business to the next level!

Howard Givner
Senior Advisor | Oaklins: DeSilva & Phillips (M&A) email me
CEO | Heathcote Advisory Group (Consulting) email me

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If and when you’re ready, here are ways I work with event business owners:

• Business Coaching & Owner Accountability

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• Exit Planning

• M&A (Buy Side & Sell Side)

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