Event planners will be learning to work with AI tools. At first, it will be primarily as idea generators, whether that’s color and design schemes, or even agenda planning. Case in point, this week I asked ChatGPT to create an event agenda for a high tech agricultural conference, very similar to one I’m speaking at. 

Here are the prompts I gave it: 
Create an event agenda for an agriculture show that focuses on how technology can aid agriculture. Include metaverse, digital crops, VR, and blockchain. This is a one day event in Arizona.

Sometimes belt buckling also means increasing power in numbers through reach. At PCMA (Professional Conference Managers Association) the biggest news was made by the Association itself. A slew of acquisitions, mergers and partnerships were announced. For starters, they acquired the Event Leadership Institute, which offers 17 certificates in specialized areas of planning education. These augment its own courses. 

They also acquired the U.K.-based Event Marketing Association, which has 800 event-marketing professionals based in Europe who work for global brands. The combo is meant to more closely align marketers and event planners. 

They also announced a sustainability partnership with the American Geophysical Union, an association of earth and space scientists, to develop more effective education on the events industry’s climate-change strategies, and another partnership with the National Coalition of Black Meeting Professionals to solve some of the industry’s inclusivity issues.

It’s quite ambitious to tackle some of the major obstacles facing the events industry in one bold swoop. Sustainability, climate change, inclusion and diversity, and aligning the education of marketers and planners. As always we’ll see how much meat lies under the fat of announcements. 

Here are three wildly different views to consider:

• Skift asked Kai Hattendorf, CEO of UFI, The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, for his vision of the business trade show in 5-10 years. His prediction? A shift towards less product-focused show floors and more conversation-driven spaces. Hattendorf also sees a heavy emphasis on sustainability. Listen to the full episode. Note to self: Exhibitors in the traditional sense are going to have the hardest period of readjustment to new event models.
• The Digital Speaker has an essay that is betting on the refinement of phygital events, using concerts and sporting events as the best examples of going live and virtual simultaneously. And elsewhere our friends at Cointelegraph are betting that Web3 has the biggest influence on events in the future with the blockchain at its heart.
• Finally, over at Martech they expect marketers to extricate themselves from the crypto mire and use NFTs and metaverse as part of basic Marketing 101 to foster loyalty and engagement. What about the rest of you futurists? Any crystal balls (or Magic 8 balls)?