Budgets are tightening, attention is fragmenting, and loyalty, real loyalty, is harder than ever to earn.
For years, event marketers have obsessed over lead counts and “net new” audiences. But the real game-changer ahead isn’t acquisition. It’s attendee retention — building the kind of loyalty that keeps people coming back year after year.
In today’s event landscape, attendee retention is becoming just as critical as acquisition.
Pillar 1: The Retention Revelation
Freeman’s latest Trust Report lays bare a tough truth: organizers and attendees don’t define “experience” the same way.
As Freeman’s SVP of Research & Insights Ken Holsinger put it in our recent interview with him, organizers equate experience with spectacle, “keynotes, galas, big AV moments.” Now this is understandable, because those factors are a bit easier to plan and control with the goal of producing some “wow” moments.
But the data Ken and his team found showed something else. Attendees tie experience to why they came in the first place, their “core objectives” which are to learn, connect, and do business.
Freeman found “78 percent of organizers believe their event delivers memorable moments”, but “only 40 percent of attendees agree.” That gap in understanding expectations matters.
Because those who did experience a memorable moment said they were, “85 percent more likely to return”, compared to an industry-average retention rate of ~30 percent.
These findings illustrate both a crisis of missed expectations as well as an incredible opportunity to reimagine event strategy. This shift toward attendee retention demands that marketers stop guessing and start listening.
Essential Takeaway: Retention begins with understanding what experience truly means to attendees — it’s not spectacle, it’s purpose.
Pillar 2: Listening Is the New Marketing
Ken’s advice is simple and brutal: ask better questions.
“Most registration forms serve the organizer, not the attendee,” he said. Instead of just gathering data for sales, ask: What’s your core objective in coming? Then tailor content, communications, and even post-show follow-ups to that intent.
It’s basic marketing—but rarely practiced. “We market events wrong,” Holsinger added. “We brag about square footage and attendee counts when what new generations want is connection and purpose.” For Gen Z—the first truly “experience-native” workforce—trust lives face-to-face, not online. They may use AI more than anyone, but they also trust it least.
In an age of automation, listening is differentiation.
Essential Takeaway: When you ask smarter questions and listen with intent, you turn feedback into the foundation of attendee retention.
Pillar 3: The Clarion Example – Customer Obsession in Action
Clarion Events North America CEO Liz Irving lives this philosophy. “For us, everything starts with the attendee,” she told Rachel Stephan at IMEX. “If you don’t know them, you’re not bringing the right people. You don’t have a shot at ROI.”
Clarion’s shows, from ITC Vegas to MAU, run on what she calls customer obsession. Each event tells a story designed to win hearts and minds. Themes like Wonderland of Possibilities or Universe of Opportunities aren’t gimmicks; they’re shared languages that unify attendees, sponsors, and partners.
“Experience,” she said, “is about raising the bar on excellence and connection. It’s how you make people want to come back next year.” So the next era of attendee retention isn’t about more production—it’s about deeper connection.
Essential Takeaway: Design every decision around the attendee — customer obsession is the fastest route to repeat attendance.
Pillar 4: From Spectacle to Signal
That shift, from spectacle to signal, is exactly what attendee retention marketing advocates have been saying across industries: growth depends on keeping the right people coming back.
As Jay Schwedelson noted on Do This, Not That, “the real ROI from events happens before showtime and after hours—it’s not just the sessions, it’s the follow-up, the relationships, the content that people walk away with.”
His point hits home for event marketers: ROI isn’t measured by one-time attendance; it’s built through experiences that extend beyond the event itself. When attendees leave with new relationships, insights, and reasons to share what they learned, they’re already halfway to registering again next year.
Essential Takeaway: True event ROI is measured in relationships and follow-up, not fireworks; meaning sustains loyalty long after showtime.
Pillar 5: “Festivalization” and the Return of Joy
Ksenija Polla, CICE (Certified International Convention Executive) and senior consultant at Talley Management Group, calls this the “festivalization” of business events. In her LinkedIn post The Experience Factor she writes,
“Festivalization doesn’t happen overnight. It’s not about adding fireworks or turning your event into Coachella—it’s about creating organic, human experiences that spark connection and fun.”
(LinkedIn post, July 2025)
In fact, we discussed this topic with her in person at this year’s ASAE Annual Event in Los Angeles. Ksenija was speaking on the subject and shared why she feels this is a real solution to the event industry’s challenge to deliver experiences that foster real connection.
That philosophy mirrors what associations have long known: connection and joy fuel loyalty. When attendees feel part of something alive, they come back.
Essential Takeaway: Attendee retention thrives when people feel joy and connection — make your event a living, human experience.
Pillar 6: C2 Montréal – Turning Moments into Movements
Few brands embody that better than C2 Montréal, the Snöball client profiled by TSNN as a pioneer in “the festivalization of business events.” Its Gen XP framework reimagines the conference as “a three-day immersive playground—part conference, part festival, part participatory experience.” (TSNN
C2 doesn’t just stage spectacle, it designs serendipity. Each activation is a “moment that matters,” meant to ignite peer connection and trust. It’s a model for how B2B organizers can build retention through emotion, not just agenda.
Essential Takeaway: Transform moments into movements; build emotional connection that turns one-time participants into lifelong advocates.
Pillar 7: The Snöball Connection – Turning People into Amplifiers
Here’s where the retention problem meets the promotion solution.
If retention depends on delivering meaningful moments—and those moments are discovered through the right audience mix—then the question becomes: How do you attract more of the right people in the first place?
That’s the sweet spot of peer-to-peer amplification. Snöball helps organizers activate the very people who love their events—speakers, sponsors, exhibitors, attendees—to invite peers who are most likely to find value and return.
It’s how experience becomes exponential. Because the only thing more powerful than a great event moment is the trusted voice telling someone else to experience it too.
And when you show attendees who else is going—their peers, partners, and prospects—you’re not just expanding reach. You’re creating reasons to engage, connect, and have more meaningful conversations that extend far beyond the show floor.
Essential Takeaway: Empower your audience to amplify your event — peer-to-peer advocacy is the ultimate driver of attendee retention and measurable ROI.
The Bottom Line
- Experience is not the endgame—it’s the enabler.
Attendees define it through learning, networking, and discovery. - Retention starts with listening.
Ask attendees what they want before, during, and after—and build around it. - Memorable moments build memory, and memory builds loyalty.
You can’t buy it with budget; you earn it through trust.
Every touchpoint, from registration to post-event content, contributes to attendee retention—and ultimately, long-term event growth.
As Ken Holsinger said, “Trust is the currency that will take us into this next economy.”
And the smartest event marketers already know: currency grows fastest when your audience spends it on you again.
Create ROI That Keeps People Coming Back
Retention isn’t a post-show metric—it’s a design principle.
Build experiences that create ROI for attendees, not just exhibitors.
When people feel value, they show loyalty.
Calculate your own Event ROI for Peer-to-Peer Marketing
See how amplifying your audience’s voice can turn every attendee into a growth engine while ensuring attendee retention year over year.
About Snöball
Snöball is the peer-to-peer event marketing platform that turns your attendees, speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors into your most powerful growth channel.
By making it easy for every participant to share personalized event content with their networks, Snöball helps organizers expand reach, drive qualified registrations, and measure real ROI, right down to who influenced each conversion.
From global conferences to association meetings and corporate events, Snöball powers campaigns that build trust, amplify engagement, and retain your audience so they keep coming back year after year.
Learn more at snoball.events.
