In 2008, Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired magazine, authored what would become a seminal essay on the creator economy, 1,000 True Fans, the premise being that to carve out a successful career as a content creator you only need a small, but highly dedicated, core audience. The concept caught traction in part because it was the polar opposite of the ‘go big or go home’ mentality that dominated the tech world for so long.

I’ve been reminded of this over the past few weeks after attending two conferences that adopted this approach, curating relatively small groups of very narrow audience personas, and providing deep levels of content and engagement.

• The SISO CEO Summit last month gathered together several hundred owners and executives of trade show and conference businesses to network and exchange ideas. If those people are your tribe, this is a can’t-miss event.

• Last week the organizers of Exhibitor Live, a 2,000 person show, hosted a half-day Executive Roundtable for two dozen leaders of exhibit houses, proving that you can create intimate settings for curated audiences amidst large events.

I’ve been a proponent of this ‘narrow and deep’ approach for some time now, as I believe this laser focus offers the highest ROI for participants. Think about the last large trade show you attended, something on the scale of IMEX, for example. There might be 10,000 people there, but only a handful who really matter to you. Meet with them and the show is worth your time and money.

That’s the premise behind the Event Agency C-Suite Growth Summit I’m co-hosting on May 12th in NYC, where we’re bringing together 70 executives, owners and investors in event agencies to share best practices, exchange ideas, and brainstorm solutions to common challenges. This grew out of several C-suite agency dinners I hosted last year, where participants clamored for a broader forum and a deeper dive to continue critical discussions. It’s the event I wish existed when I ran my agency. [See who’s attending below.]

The heavy lifting in a narrow and deep event like this is curating the right audience, which takes significant time and massaging. But if done right, it provides enormous value to participants. In our current era where we’re awash in a sea of content slop, and are inundated with too many event requests, the narrow and deep approach will stand out.

In this issue:

• Who’s attending the Event Agency C-Suite Summit on May 12

• Opus Group is sold to Eagletree Capital

• Nth Degree acquires INVNT

• Serial entrepreneur Jon Weiner acquires Nest Climate Campus

• The Iran war’s impact on events

• Narrow & deep’s impact on:

  • Events

  • Associations

  • Content

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M&A Updates

• The Opus Group has been sold to Eagletree Capital. Opus (comprised of Opus Agency, MAS and Verve), which was owned by Growth Catalyst Partners, was in the midst of a sale process in early 2020 that was put on hold due to Covid. Kudos to CEO Kim Kopetz for building up the firm with successful acquisitions and global expansion over the past few years. Eagletree may have more experience in the events sector than any other PE firm, having owned Sparks, Moss, Northstar, Frosch, ALM and Penton, and currently owns PRA. [Both Kim and Michael Struble from Eagletree will be speaking at the Agency Summit (see below).

• Nth Degree has acquired INVNT, in yet another example of a production & operations focused firm moving up the food chain to get closer to client decision-makers. Nth Degree is known for operational delivery and logistics for trade show booths and exhibitions, while INVNT brings storytelling and integrated experiential marketing to the table. This is Nth Degree’s third acquisition since being acquired by Shamrock Capital in 2024. [INVNT’s CEO Kristina McCoobery and Shamrock’s Co-President Andy Howard will also be at the Agency Summit.]

• Serial entrepreneur Jonathan Weiner has acquired the Nest Climate Campus event from NXT Events Media Group. Weiner’s previous successes include Money 20/20, HLTH, Shoptalk, all of which had successful exits, and is currently building out HumanX, an AI conference and trade show. The CEO will be Peter Gilmer, who previously scaled Web Summit from 150 to 17,000 people. The Nest Climate event already draws 8,000 people to NY each September. Look to Weiner and Gilmer to truly take this to the next level.

Thoughts on the Iran War

• The Importance of Defining Clear Goals. Watching the Trump administration’s goals for the Iran war continue to shift - pre-empting an imminent attack, facilitating regime change, protecting the protesters, preventing nuclear capabilities, etc. - reminds me of the importance of getting a client to articulate clear and measurable event goals. Without clearly defined goals, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to measure success.

• The Impact on Gulf Events. Dubai and the United Arab Emirates have spent years and billions of dollars to position themselves as marquis destinations for events, including considerable spending on new infrastructure as well as luring world class events like F-1, LIV Golf, and Art Dubai. The region build a reputation as an island of stability amid whatever chaos ensued in neighboring Iraq, Syria and Yemen. That reputation was severely punctured by recent Iranian attacks. According to Skift, since the war started, 269 events in the gulf have been cancelled or rescheduled, with the UAE taking the biggest hit. Long term, the region will continue to grow as a key event nexus, but the short term will be bumpy.

• The New Normal: Disruption > Pause > Strong Rebound. One of the key points I shared in my M&A session at Exhibitor Live last week was how the M&A market has adapted to the ongoing uncertainty and disruption over the past year or so. When Trump introduced his flurry of on-again-off-again tariffs last April, the market took a pause for a couple of months, but then rebounded very strongly. The same seems to hold true for events. The lesson being: disruptions come and go, and are impossible to time. But if the fundamentals of an acquisition or an event make sense, it’s going to happen eventually, and probably sooner than you think.

• Book Recommendation: The Lion Women of Tehran. I just finished this book, which follows the lives of two Iranian women from when they meet as kids in the 1950’s through the 1979 revolution and up to present day. It’s not my normal read, but I found it fascinating to learn about Iranian society through these two captivating characters, with the tumultuous historical events as a backdrop to their storylines.

Who’s Attending the Event Agency C-Suite Growth Summit

The response to the May 12th Event Agency C-Suite Growth Summit I’m co-hosting with micebook’s Chetan Shah in NYC has blown me away. Not only are we getting an incredible cross-section of agency leaders, owners and investors, but most of them are getting on a plane to fly in for it, from across the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Europe. I’m truly humbled.

Participating companies include:

We’ll spend a full day sharing ideas around M&A, AI, Talent and Growth, with a reception the night before and the night of. We’re capping attendance at 70 people to keep the format intimate, and as I write this there are eight tickets left. If you fit the bill, don’t miss this unique opportunity to connect with true peers and exchange ideas for taking your agency to the next level. Big thanks to the folks at Convene for hosting us at Neuehouse, one of their newest properties.

Narrow & Deep

Before the internet, the ‘village idiot’ in every town lived a lonely existence. Once the world became hyper-connected, all those village idiots could find each other online, and traffic in conspiracy theories, or whatever it is they enjoy. For better or worse, a key outcome of the internet is that people can find their tribes. Whatever you’re into, there’s a vibrant Reddit community for you. r/BirdsWithArms, for example, features photoshopped images of birds with human arms grafted on, and has, wait for it . . . 1 million subscribers.

Events

There’s tremendous power in bringing hyper-focused communities together, which is why in 2024 Clarion acquired Eaton Hall to be part of their Clarion Connect division, which also includes Consero Events, Connexa and Quartz Network & Events. Eaton Hall produces events for niche audiences like Hospital Security Forum (for 50 hospital security directors), and Cop Fleet Forum.

Kelly Comboni, CEO of Clarion Connect, says events like these are “faster to market in a life cycle than a traditional trade show. This is not about, oh, we do have 10,000 people walking in the halls. This is about 60 of the right people coming together for those two days, 60 people who are in a buying cycle right now.”

Attending an event becomes a worthwhile investment in time and money, for the most part, if you connect with a small number of key people. That’s it. Find three meaningful clients, partners, prospects, etc. and have substantive conversations with them, and you consider the event a success.

The challenge, of course, is finding those critical people amidst a sea of thousands of others. Sure, AI-driven appointment matching can help, though it is still remarkably inefficient. A narrow and deep event, on the other hand, does that heavy lifting for you.

Associations

The same holds true for associations. Compare the narrowly-focused FICP (Finance & Insurance Conference Planners) to broader event industry organizations like MPI or PCMA. FICP has around 700 people attend their flagship conference, roughly 47% of their 1,500 person membership base. MPI’s World Education Congress draws 2,000 people, about 16% of their membership base. Having nearly half their members attending FICP’s Annual Conference makes for a more engaged community. MPI may offer a much bigger audience, but if you sell to insurance companies, you’re more likely to sponsor FICP’s flagship conference because everyone there is a high-value prospect.

For an even more narrower association example, look at the wildly successful ELX (Event Leaders Exchange). Membership is by application and personal interview, and limited to senior in-house planners at very large companies. They only accept 1 out of every 10 applicants. Though members don’t pay, they’re required to actively engage with the community, or they get removed. CEO Nicola Kastner says the reason they’re so successful is they’re hyper-focused on one audience and only a handful of strategic partners. “We know who we serve and why. That allows us to focus our attention and programming in the right area rather than trying to be everything to everyone like a traditional industry association.“

Content

The days of ‘broad and shallow’ content are doomed. Newsletters that do little more than aggregate stories from other sources will see steady declines in readership and click-through rates, which will lead to swift drops in advertising and sponsorship, in no small part because email providers like Gmail now give readers terse summaries of the contents, obviating the need to actually read them. This comes on the heels of Google summaries dramatically impacting search traffic to companies of all kinds.

So what kind of content will actually resonate with people? What’s going to get them to open an email newsletter or visit a website? Content that is narrow and deep, providing keen insights on issues that matter to a hyper-targeted audience. Even better, make it fun and engaging to read by infusing some personality into it. Do that and you’ll not only have a dedicated audience, you’ll have passionate brand ambassadors.

That’s why Morning Brew expanded into silos like Healthcare Brew and Retail Brew. Lenny Rachitsky, a former product developer at Airbnb, has a newsletter for tech product developers, with a whopping 1 million subscribers. Industry Dive, which produces niche content for around two dozen sectors with product like Hotel Dive, Retail Dive, and Cybersecurity Dive, was sold to Informa for the premium multiple of 15 times earnings.

Tools available now make it easier and cheaper than ever to deliver content to micro-segmented audiences. Such niche content has numerous advantages, including:

• Demonstrating expertise

• Building trust faster

• Providing immediate value to readers who see their specific needs being addressed

• Commanding premium pricing

• Generating higher engagement rates than broad-appeal content

Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky said “It’s better to have 100 people love you than 1 million people sort of like you.” His advice to startup founders is to focus on how you’ll create a magical experience for 1 person, then for 10, then for 100.

Conclusion

Though will still be a thriving market for mega, tentpole events that bring entire ecosystems together, I firmly believe that the growth opportunity for content, associations and events lies in bringing tightly-focused communities together and providing highly useful content to them. Narrow and deep over broad and shallow.

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

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

Catch up on recent articles:

• Gradually and then Suddenly: the Widening Eventprofs AI Gap

• The Call Is Coming From Inside the House

• A Slew of Event M&A Deals to End the Year

• Q4 M&A Update: Bullish on the Industry, Cautious on Deals

• Mastering the Exit Strategy: Insights On Selling Event Businesses.

• The View From Private Equity

• Tailwinds

• Preparing Your Event Business For Sale

• 15 Agency CEOs Walk Into A Bar . . .

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

• Business Coaching & Owner Accountability

• Business Diagnostic & Company Valuation

• Growth Consulting

• Exit Planning

• M&A (Buy Side & Sell Side)

Wanna chat? Email me, or schedule an intro call.

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