2023: What We Foresee For The Events Industry

5 Event Trends for 2023

2022 was another big year for London Filmed as the team, our services, and our clientele grew. And the industry didn’t stand still. For the third year in a row, we saw big shifts in the events landscape.

2022 certainly saw us return to the in-person event format, albeit with a digital upgrade. We don’t expect to see IRL events going anywhere in 2023, but we do have a few predictions and challenges we foresee shaping the industry, which we are going to unpick in this blog.

1. Tech integration

2022 kicked off with an immediate return to in-person events. While this satisfies cravings for real-life interaction and a return to the comfort of what we knew and loved pre-pandemic, we think this has set us up for the next big challenge: tech integration.

2022 has felt a little bit like a story of two sides, with event tech such as event platforms on one side and venues on the other. There was lots of talk of tech integration, without a huge amount of action, with many events reverting to pre-pandemic ways of working where tech could have streamlined and elevated the experience.

A large part of tech integration within events is the role that a technical live production partner takes. This role sits between, and importantly, connects the tech and the venue to create a seamless in-person and online event experience. For the client, a live production partner manages the complexity of these projects, helping to reduce the stress and anxiety that hybrid-style events seem to have got a reputation for within the industry.

Progress has been made in 2022, so we’re confident that we’ll see technology playing a greater role within in-person and hybrid events in 2023. This will simplify and streamline production, and create better user experiences.

2. Value for money

With that being said, value for money is going to be a constant push/pull throughout 2023. We expect to see tech integration, by the way of live production partners, being allocated a portion of event budgets in 2023. Additionally, smaller, lower-cost venues will be more popular as we move towards more intimate, experiential in-person events, and event platforms will also take a portion of the budget to satisfy the needs of online audiences.

We also expect to see an increase in extra-event services such as video production services, animation, and other creative content and media services as events become one part of a more extensive marketing and sales ecosystem.

3. Events subsumed into marketing

On that note, the last few years have helped to firmly establish events as a core marketing activity that generates valuable ROIs. With that, we’ve seen a merging of marketing and events teams, which has birthed a wider scope of service requirements across event production, design, technical, media, and content as an omnichannel approach has been adopted.

Events are now respected as a key touchpoint that complements other marketing activities to create a seamless customer journey. The event experience itself is becoming much more curated and creative as boundaries are pushed to maintain engagement, community, and brand reputation.

We’re already working with many of our clients across the full creative suite of event production, design, and media (video production, photography, filming, animation, etc.), and we expect this to grow during 2023.

4. TV-grade production

There has been a notable jump in the quality of live event production over the last few years, which has set a new bar for content expectations. As more of us enjoy consuming event content virtually, whether live or on-demand, we are now so used to the exceptional production quality of TV, that anything less risks us quickly and easily navigating towards the red cross.

We’ve noticed a shift towards considered, pre-produced event content during 2022, with more clients opting to produce pre-recorded video content for their virtual events and on-demand content. This allows more control of the messaging and quality of content delivery, as well as post-production editing, to create a slick, TV-like viewing experience. The virtual event is then built using the curated content in the event platform of choice, ready to be broadcast live, and/or for viewing on-demand.

Take a look behind-the-scenes at a pre-recording session we ran with Magnite for one of their online events:

5. Sustainability & corporate responsibility

As consumers continue to adopt sustainable lifestyle practices themselves, the demand for corporate responsibility grows. With a third of consumers reducing air travel and opting for low-carbon emission modes of transport, we expect to see continued virtual event growth, especially in the form of live streaming. With corporate responsibility high on the agenda for many companies and the looming economic challenges, it will be hard to justify international travel for delegates.

So how does this shape events in 2023? We anticipate a strategy of more frequent, local, in-person events throughout the year with content live-streamed for virtual participation. At in-person events, we expect to see a mirroring of the more widely adopted personal sustainability values such as reduced single-use plastic and products, responsible waste management, and carbon offsetting in a welcome alignment of values.

Here’s to 2023

The event landscape continues to evolve at pace, but 2023 is shaping up to be a year in which we can capitalise on the digital advancements that have been made over the last few years and fine-tune the balance between the physical and digital experiences. This is the year that technical live production partners will take a key role in the creation of better customer experiences and innovative, seamless event experiences, and where we see the proper integration of technology.

London filmed is an event production company based in London. If you’d like to discuss your event or creative project plans for 2023, please get in touch!