Nine out of 10 associations say traditional conferences, trade shows and other face-to-face events are their top member engagement tool. But not all types of meetings are equally effective.

Just how important are events to associations? Almost 90% of respondents to a recent survey of associations say events are their top member-engagement tool — and event attendance also ranked at the top way they measure member engagement for 86%. While surveys and face-to-face interactions were the channels associations used most often to evaluate member needs, events also were in the top three on that list, with almost 64% saying events were their most effective way to gauge what members want and need.

Events are so important to associations that, if they were magically given a 50% total budget increase, more than a quarter said they’d use it to host more in-person events. The survey’s results were reported in the 2024 Benchmarking Report by Naylor Association Solutions.

Not all types of events are equally effective, however. Networking events in particular are gaining in popularity, with 72% saying these types of events are especially valuable engagement tools. Events for young professionals are also on the rise, up 6% from last year with 37% of this year’s respondents citing them as effective for engaging their membership.

Annual or regional meetings also were on a small upswing, with more than 56% saying these were top formats for engaging their members. While down slightly year over year, committee meetings and training and development events still were considered top ways to engage members by more than 65% of respondents.

The virtual events that zoomed into prominence over the pandemic continue to slide, however, with just 40% finding them a valuable way to engage members. While that may still sound high, keep in mind that just 2% planned to offer virtual-only events this year.

The majority of those who do plan to continue offering digital events said they plan to do so in conjunction with in-person events, with hybrid being the preferred way to go through the remainder of 2024 and into at least next year. In fact, almost 57% said they plan to host a mix of live and virtual/streaming events this year and beyond, which is a 2% increase over those who said the same last year. Almost 42% planned to go live-only.

Among the pieces of the in-person programming that associations say they are now offering to a virtual audience are opening keynotes (37%, down slightly from 40% last year), pre-conference programs (up to 18% this year, compared to 16% last year), and breakout sessions, which stayed about the same around 32%. Interestingly, slightly more said they were offering their expo halls to a digital audience this year than last, 15% compared to 13%.

Not surprisingly, generating non-dues revenues remained a top challenge this year. In fact, 65% said it was their biggest headache now, compared to 57% last year. While non-dues revenues were down across the board, exhibit sales took the biggest downturn, dropping to 17% from 24% last year. Part of the problem may be that half of survey respondents said their resources for going after that non-dues revenue were limited — a quarter said they didn’t have enough sales expertise on staff — and more than three-quarters are not able to outsource sales to help fill the gap. More than half said understaffing and limited resources were their biggest barriers to increasing those increasingly valuable non-dues revenues. Almost a third said the culprit was insufficient member engagement, which may end up being good news for future increases in their top member engagement tools — meetings and events.

One interesting conclusion: While traditional conferences/trade shows/face-to-face events has been the top engagement tool valued by associations for several consecutive years, “only 20% of respondents outsource full- service event management, while almost half agree that improving member attendance at events is a challenge. Given these statistics, it would seem beneficial to outsource event management so various departments within the association can focus on the content creation and promotion of various events.”