2025 Trends & Predictions for Events
At Snapbar we do our best to stay plugged into the events industry, what’s changing, and what’s trending. We like to consider ourselves on the bleeding edge of those trends, at least in our small niche of photo experiences and marketing, but it changes so fast we’re certainly reliant on feedback from our amazing clients, and insights from the influencers and friends we know in the industry. Here are some of the biggest trends and predictions we’re tracking for 2025.
"The future of events isn't about replacing human connection with technology – it's about using AI and digital tools to make those connections even more meaningful. At Snapbar, we're seeing firsthand how the right tech can turn moments into memories.”
-- Sam Eitzen, CEO & Founder
1. The Continued Boom for In-Person Events (With A Focus On Better Engagement)
The events industry experienced a significant resurgence in in-person gatherings in 2024, and it’s not clear yet if 2025 will be able to keep pace. As we get closer and into the new year, however, there’s one thing we do know about live events - they will continue to evolve quickly in structure and technology.
Personalized Experiences Powered by AI: AI-driven personalization is transforming attendee engagement by enabling event organizers to tailor experiences to individual preferences. AI-powered platforms can analyze attendee data—registrations, social media activity, and past event behavior—to deliver personalized content, session recommendations, and networking opportunities that match specific interests. Attendees will benefit from more targeted and customized experiences that should both increase engagement as well as overall satisfaction.
Smart Event Apps with AI Integration: The sophistication of AI-powered event apps is increasing, offering real-time recommendations and personalized schedules based on attendee behavior - as well as the information that attendees provide, which is as good as gold for event planners. By analyzing profiles and preferences, these apps can notify users about sessions of interest, nearby networking opportunities, and even recommend food and beverage options—creating a frictionless experience that feels fully customized.
Articles we’re reading about AI-driven personalization and event app advancements:
2. The Use of Digital Engagement Tools (URL) at Physical Events (IRL)
Blending physical and digital elements has become essential, and as event organizers seek to create deeper connections with attendees, innovative technology like AI chatbots and immersive augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) experiences are obvious evolutions to increase value.
AI-Powered Chatbots for Real-Time Assistance: With advancements in natural language processing, AI chatbots are now capable of providing comprehensive support at events. They can answer attendee questions, offer directions, provide real-time translation, and more, creating a seamless experience and reducing the workload on event staff. It’s also important to note that these bots are generally only as good as the information fed to them, so good infrastructure, planning, and data management is even more critical to power this next generation of support tools.
Immersive AR and VR Experiences: AR and VR will start to shift from novelty to standard at events as technology improves and price decreases, opening the door for unique opportunities for personalized, interactive booth experiences, product demonstrations, and enhanced networking environments. Augmented Reality (AR) in particular will become more impactful as hardware becomes more accessible (like AR goggles and glasses) as well as software than can integrate directly into the apps everyone is already using on their phones. Smart event maps, real-time networking recommendations, customized content recommendations, and much more will all become standard soon.
Crowdsourced Photography: This is our vision for the future of our Digital Photo Booth platform. Part of it is embracing mobile-first experiences to replace the need to hardware or lines or physical footprints at events, but the bigger part for us is leveraging the powerful camera everyone has in their pocket - and aggregating the massive amount of content people already capture at these events in one central place. Using unique photo transformations, integrated contests or gamification, and easy web-based access allows brands to replace the traditional event photographer with a digital experience that makes every attendee an event photographer.
Articles we’re reading about in-person event tech:
3. AI Levels-Up Event Experiences
AI isn’t new at this point, but the speed at which it’s evolving guarantees there will be huge leaps in capability and potential in 2025. The competition is getting deeper, meaning accelerated innovation and niche implementations, and the AI models are getting smarter and more sophisticated - meaning evolving from question and answer type solutions to fully automated intelligence for concierge services, analysis, content creation, and much more.
Predictive Analytics for Event Optimization: AI is becoming indispensable for analyzing large data sets to predict attendee behavior, optimize logistics, and proactively address potential issues. Predictive analytics provide actionable insights that help organizers improve event flow, personalize content, and anticipate attendee needs. This can also have a massive impact on registration and marketing, giving event planners new tools to optimize timing for promotions, communications, and recommendations to focus efforts on the highest intent people at the ideal times to drive interest and conversions.
Automated Content Creation and Event Management: AI tools powered by tech like ChatGPT and DALL-E are reshaping content creation, from crafting timely social media posts to developing unique visual designs. AI also enables automated event management, assisting with scheduling, venue layout optimization, and guest list management, streamlining operations and enhancing efficiency. These tools don’t replace the people already running these complex events, but they can give new superpowers to event planners and drastically reduce time spent on repetitive tasks.
AI Photo Experiences: Our own products have transformed radically over the last 1-2 years as we’ve integrated AI to create truly unique photo experiences for all kinds of brands, but it’s really just the tip of the iceberg for what’s possible. Some of our newest features are opening the door for not only more realistic and dynamic AI generated content, but the ability for users to choose their own adventure for their content. Using integrated AI intelligence along with new AI models and some smart engineering, we’re now creating more open-ended experiences that let each user drive the results - whether choosing a setting, portrait style, era, or any other personal preference we can use to adjust their custom content.
AI Video: We love creating more complex and realistic AI generated portraits and static content, but AI generated video is the future we’re most excited about. While still quite new, we’re already creating some really impressive ways to transform images into videos - or mini movie clips featuring the user as the central character. There’s so much exciting potential here, we can’t wait to start rolling this out more and more to bring the next wave of truly immersive event marketing content.
More on AI in events:
4. Hybrid Event Formats Continue to Evolve
The explosion of in-person events in 2024 hasn’t diminished the relevance of hybrid models. Instead, 2025 should continue to see a more seamless integration of virtual and in-person elements, allowing attendees to engage with events in flexible ways. And this isn’t confined to one audience being in-person, and another audience being virtual or remote, but giving attendees flexibility to do both seamlessly as part of the total event experience. People don’t necessarily want to be at a venue for an entire day - it’s exhausting - so we expect events to continue offering more mixed experiences where people can pick and choose how they want to engage.
Enhanced Hybrid Networking with AI: The newest AI-powered tools and platforms are breaking down barriers by matching in-person and virtual attendees through shared interests and behavior patterns, enabling easier, more impactful connections. This new era of networking tools might finally deliver on the promise of creating a cohesive hybrid experience that includes both virtual and live audiences, fostering inclusivity and delivering the result most people are really looking for from events - connection (both business and personal).
“Seamless” Digital-Physical Integration: We’re hopeful that hybrid events will start to offer virtual participants an experience that’s truly comparable to being on-site, with immersive keynotes, collaborative workshops, social experiences, and entertainment. We certainly envision our digital photo experiences as a part of this - bringing people together around unique content in real-time that drives conversation and spreads some smiles. Social walls and live galleries are excellent examples, as they connect on-site and remote attendees through real-time content displays and connect brands to coveted audiences on social networks.
5. Sustainable, Value-Driven Events and Brand Activations
Sustainability has moved from a trend to an expectation, and therefore a requirement, with event organizers increasingly mindful of their environmental footprint and seeking ways to incorporate eco-friendly practices. This spans the entire event ecosystem across travel, venues, food & drink, swag, ticketing & registration, sponsors, speakers, and everything in between.
Eco-friendly initiatives resonate more and more as audiences become increasingly socially conscious, which won’t necessarily get people to attend - but it will definitely keep them coming back, or prevent them from coming back if you get it wrong.
AI-Enhanced Sustainability: AI can help optimize resource allocation, reduce waste, and track carbon emissions, allowing organizers to plan more sustainable events. We also know that AI technology itself is extremely resource intensive, so simply stating that you’re using AI to improve sustainability isn’t going to cut it. Be transparent and measure the impact. It’s ok to admit shortcomings or small failures if you have plans for how you have or will improve. It will resonate much more with audiences, improving loyalty and retention.
6. Brands Demand Measurable Value & Results
As event scope and attendance is growing, so is competition - meaning more events to choose from and more noise for brands to break through. This also means more events competing for the same sponsors, vendors, and venues - and as many costs, like travel, are increasing, more decision makers asking about real value and ROI (whether hosting, sponsoring, or attending).
AI-Powered Analytics: As brands seek measurable value from event sponsorships and activations, AI analytics are proving essential. By tracking engagement, lead generation, and social reach, organizers can gauge the impact and ROI of each event and adjust strategies for future engagements. These metrics have existed since the beginning of events, but new technology can do a much better job of analyzing large, complex data sets and relating metrics to create actionable insights in near real-time.
Modern Lead Capture: People may attend events to learn and network, but brands attend events to drive business - and often that’s measured as qualified leads and resulting deal flow. New networking and badge tech is streamlining lead capture in-person which is great when people stop by tradeshow and expo booths, but what about if they don’t?
A key part of our digital photo experiences is capturing lead data as people participate, creating a triple benefit between the overall brand exposure, captured lead data, and the email touchpoint upon delivering the final content, creating justifiable ROI and impact for brands and sponsors.
Enhanced Networking: Networking is still the holy grail many events and event tech companies are trying to solve for, and we should see some exciting advancements in 2025. The deeper integration of digital experiences as part of the event, AI-powered recommendations and match making, augmented reality, and personalized experiences will all help enhance the networking potential and value for events. As people get more perceived value from these connections they can justify the expense to their companies, and as companies see more value from business connections at events, investments and participation will increase.
The Future of Events is Dynamic
The events industry in 2025 will be characterized by innovative, personalized, and data-driven experiences that cater to evolving attendee expectations. By leveraging AI across all aspects of planning and execution, organizers can create seamless, impactful events that drive deeper connections and maximize ROI.
We’re excited to be at the forefront of our own AI-powered technology, bringing brands exciting new features and experiences that increase engagement, capture leads, generate marketing content, extend reach + awareness, and just generally delight people. Let’s connect and create experiences that help shape a bright future for the events industry.
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