Summary
2026 EXECUTIVE PA CORPORATE EVENT ORGANISER SURVEY
Summary
2019 2026
The surveys prior to COVID illustrated certain trends, such as shorter lead times and increasing interest in regional Australia to host events, together with simple but effective opportunities for suppliers to capture and keep business, such as refining their quotation and contract processes and delivering them in good time. The 2019 survey was the last one before COVID and the findings indicated a softened but stable volume of corporate event activity. The EAs who responded expected to be managing even more events in 2020 than they had done in 2019.
Technology innovations and tighter market conditions had resulted in EAs being tasked with organising more larger events than previous years. And fewer EAs had organised overseas events, which was possibly due to market conditions.
The use of convention bureaux by EAs had substantially increased, likely as a result of consistent marketing to the corporate sector in previous years where prior to that little activity had occurred.
COVID restrictions ended in Australia in September 2022, and a significantly understaffed event sector had to manage an immediate surge in event activity. Clients wanted to run their events that they had paid deposits for but had been postponed during the restrictions. Furthermore, corporate businesses urgently needed to reconnect with clients, workforces and other stakeholders. Business events provided the ideal vehicle for them.
The period since then has been one of adjustment for both suppliers and clients. Suppliers – having to initially fulfil a glut of event activity, whilst rebuilding their teams and attracting critically needed talent. Organisers – having to work with under resourced suppliers to deliver their events, whilst managing the expectations of their internal stakeholders used to pre- COVID levels of service, which most suppliers were only able to deliver several months later.
Three years later, the 2026 survey findings are consistent with a solid path for business event activity, rather than a stellar bounce back.
The findings also indicate that organisers are working to even shorter deadlines, and are more risk averse than they were prior to COVID.
Whilst the proportion of organisations running more than 50 events last year is down from 41 % in 2019 to 36 % in 2025, it’ s the same figure as reported in the 2018 Survey. Furthermore, the budgets the EAs said they had to work with in 2025 are almost identical to the figures in the
2019 survey.
The proportion of EAs who state they have organised an overseas event in the past two years compared to 2019 has unsurprisingly dropped from 24 % to 19 %.
A significant change is the percentage of EAs using convention bureaux. In the 2018 the figure was six percent and in 2019 the percentage had more than doubled to 13 %. This 2026 survey indicates that 25 % of EAs now use convention bureau services. Extensive promotional activity to corporate event organisers, not to mention investment in more user-friendly websites, has paid off. Convention bureaux services are free, so there is no reason why an increase in their use should not continue.
Anecdotal comments from some respondents suggest that virtual activity is now seen as more practical for executive and team meetings, than face to face. On the other hand, a significant number of comments from the EAs show an articulate and sophisticated understanding of the value of face-to-face events for their organisations. This indicates that, not just the use, but also the limitations of virtual events is firmly understood as far as c-suite executives are concerned – virtual events have found their place, for the moment at least.
Geopolitical events over the past three years may have added to the inevitable turbulence involved in a post COVID recovery. However, the findings of this survey indicate that corporate event activity, whilst not spectacular, is nevertheless recovering.
Summer Issue 2026 | Executive PA 27