Ai4’s Rapid Growth and SISO’s Attendee Challenge: Key Takeaways from Two Major Industry Events

Welcome to the latest edition of Snöcap.

SPOTLIGHT: Big growth, changing attendee expectations and new regulatory questions are shaping the events industry this week. Ai4 has tripled in size over the past two years, while conversations at the SISO Leadership Conference highlighted a different challenge for organizers: understanding why some attendees stop returning and whether events are still delivering the value audiences expect. Meanwhile, proposed FCC rules are prompting an industry push by the Exhibitions and Conferences Alliance to preserve exhibitors’ ability to demonstrate emerging technologies at U.S. trade shows.

Here are the full headlines from this week’s roundup:

Get the full stories below:

Ai4’s Rapid Growth and SISO’s Attendee Challenge: Key Takeaways from Two Major Industry Events

Ai4, an artificial intelligence trade show now owned by CloserStill Media, has tripled in size over the past two years, while organizers at the SISO Leadership Conference in Seattle examined why some attendees stop returning to industry events, according to a roundup by Stephanie Selesnick published on LinkedIn.

Ai4 held its latest edition at the Venetian Expo in Las Vegas, its first year at that venue, under CloserStill Media, which purchased the show last year.

By the numbers:

• An estimated 12,000 trade visitors and 400 exhibitors attended.
• Most exhibitor booths measured 100 square feet (9 square meters), while companies such as Cisco, Nvidia and PayPal occupied booths up to 20-by-30 feet (54 square meters).
• Organizers placed 66 new exhibitors in a centrally located showcase area.
• More than 1,000 speakers presented across 80 education tracks.
• Ai4 began in Las Vegas in 2022 as a conference-and-expo event, called a Confex, with 1,000 attendees.

Session tracks were organized by attendee persona rather than experience level, and technical sessions carried a label noting the talks were “intended for data practitioners only.”

The SISO Leadership Conference took place in Seattle at the newly opened Seattle Convention Center, with temperatures near 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26 degrees Celsius), compared with more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit (42 degrees Celsius) in Las Vegas around the same period.

Panels covered AI adoption, growth strategy and repeat attendance. Janice Rogers of Diversified USA described how her company and Access Intelligence are building AI training into job descriptions, advising teams to start with managers and review progress regularly. Vincent Polito of SISO, Yancy Weinrich of CloserStill Media and Kevin Thornton of Informa Markets recommended listening to customers, expanding into adjacent markets and using partnerships to reduce risk.

A panel on what Stephanie called “the non-attendee problem,” moderated by Caitlin Fox of MDG with panelists Amanda Gochee, Marian Sandberg and David Saef, examined whether event value propositions still align with what attendees need, pointing to training, unique content and outcome-focused marketing. Stephanie suggested organizers contact former attendees directly rather than by email, asking, “Why don’t you come to our expo anymore?”

Dahlia El Gazzar closed the conference with observations on event trends. “Boring is now a business risk,” Dahlia said. “Not everything is about AI,” she added, describing events as “Peak Moments” and warning that “burned out teams create burned out events.”

ECA Leads Push to Preserve FCC Trade Show Exemption

The Exhibitions & Conferences Alliance is leading an industry effort to preserve a Federal Communications Commission exemption that allows companies to display and demonstrate new communications technology at U.S. trade shows before it receives final government authorization.

New national security rules proposed by the FCC could prevent exhibitors from importing, displaying and demonstrating such technology at events before the products receive final FCC approval.

The exemption has been in place for decades. It permits exhibitors to bring unauthorized devices into the country for demonstration purposes, provided the products are not sold or put into commercial use.

ECA is circulating a coalition letter asking the FCC to keep the exemption in place while maintaining national security safeguards. More than 20 companies and industry associations have signed the letter so far. The letter is scheduled for submission to the FCC on Sept. 8, 2026.

Organizations interested in signing can add their name through a link ECA has shared with industry members ahead of the submission deadline.

Grip Launches EventSkills, a Free AI Skills Library for Event Teams

Grip has launched EventSkills, a free library where event professionals can upload and download AI skills built for specific event tasks, available at eventskills.ai.

The downloadable skills work with AI tools including Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot and Codex. They cover tasks such as building post-event reports, generating matchmaking messages and tracking sponsor deliverables.

Anyone can upload or download a skill. Contributors keep their name attached to what they publish, and each skill displays a download count and star rating.

Tim Groot, founder and CEO of Grip, said the library responds to a gap identified in the industry’s own research. “Event professionals have embraced AI as part of their workflow,” Tim said, adding that they lack a central hub to determine what actually works. He said Grip built EventSkills as a standalone product so the community could share skills, improve workflows and grow their events.

Some of the initial skills are built for the Grip MCP (Model Context Protocol), an open standard that lets AI tools pull live data from systems a team already uses, such as event registration status or outstanding sponsor deliverables, instead of producing generic text. Skills built for other platforms’ MCPs, including CRMs or other event platforms, are also accepted on the library.

Tim said skills built for other platforms are welcome alongside those built for Grip’s own MCP, and that the company built the foundation for EventSkills before opening it to the broader event organizer community to contribute.

MeasureUP 2026 to Spotlight AI and Event Measurement, With Snöball Sharing Peer-Driven Growth Strategies

MeasureUP 2026 is set to bring event professionals together in Washington, D.C., on September 2 for a one-day conference exploring agentic AI, data and the evolving role of measurement in the events industry.

Hosted by Bear Analytics, the conference will bring together event leaders and technology professionals to examine how emerging AI capabilities and data-driven strategies can help organizations improve event performance and better understand their return on investment.

Among the companies contributing to the conversation will be Snöball, which is partnering with Bear Analytics for MeasureUP 2026. The company will share practical strategies around peer-driven growth and how event organizers can turn the communities surrounding their events into measurable marketing channels.

Snöball’s Rachel Stephan and Ian Davis will participate in the day’s programming, focusing on how speakers, exhibitors and attendees can become active participants in event marketing.

Stephan will join the conference’s ROI panel at 11:25 a.m. ET, where she will explore the role of measurement in understanding the impact of event marketing efforts.

Later in the day, Stephan and Davis will lead Marketing Learning Lab sessions at 1:20 p.m. and 2:40 p.m. The sessions will give attendees an opportunity to build a practical plan for activating their event communities and connecting those efforts to registration outcomes.

The sessions come as event marketers increasingly look beyond traditional acquisition channels and explore ways to make greater use of the audiences and relationships they have already built. For event organizers, the challenge is not simply reaching more potential attendees, but understanding which marketing activities and community interactions are contributing to measurable growth.

That focus complements MeasureUP’s broader emphasis on using AI and data to make event marketing and management more actionable. The conference will examine how new technologies can help event professionals move from simply collecting data to using it to inform decisions across the event lifecycle.

With AI, measurement and event growth increasingly converging, MeasureUP 2026 will provide a forum for industry professionals to explore both the technology shaping events and the practical strategies needed to turn insights into results.

MeasureUP 2026 will take place September 2 at the National Housing Center in Washington, D.C.

Who is hiring?

Clarion Events Inc. – North America | National Sales Manager

International Confex – Marketing Executive (B2B Exhibitions) | Conference News & Conference & Meetings World – Marketing Executive (Publications) | Apply for both roles here

Hyve Group | New Business Account Manager

Informa TechTarget | Senior Customer Success Manager

The Event Studio | Freelance Event Manager