Survey Results Show How Business Events Are Being Disrupted -

More than 175 respondents — 90 percent of whom work for organizations headquartered in the U.S. (and 4 percent in Canada; 3 percent each in Europe and APAC) — participated in our pulse survey. The largest group of respondents — 38 percent — work for associations.

What They’re Experiencing

More than three-quarters of event organizers said changes made by the administration have resulted in lower registration numbers for upcoming — or recently held — events. Around one in five respondents said they are not seeing any impact.

Where The Impact Is Being Felt

We asked those respondents who have experienced lower registration and attendance numbers to share what specific audience segments are more affected (e.g., domestic or international) and what factors are contributing to this trend.

Respondents most often mentioned “international” in their open-ended responses, indicating that their events are being most impacted by audiences outside of the U.S., particularly those affiliated with government, academic, or publicly funded institutions who are facing restrictions or uncertainty when planning travel to U.S.-based events. These responses often referenced visa delays and institutional hesitancy to commit to overseas events. “Travel” was the second most-often cited concern, frequently paired with mentions of policy-related disruptions or lack of clarity.

survey graphic Other often-cited factors were “U.S.” and “government.” But “domestic” also came up frequently in responses, indicating that attendance at their events has been affected by grant-related travel bans and layoffs of federal workers — indeed, the words “funding,” “federal,” and “cuts” were repeated an equal number of times, followed by “grants,” “layoffs,” and “restrictions.” Geopolitical uncertainty, funding changes, and other factors are influencing who can attend, as reflected in these comments:

“International, federal, and state workforce. Fear of not knowing what they can say. If they even want to commit to travel because of the expense and they don’t want to be on the hook for it. And [non-U.S. potential attendees] just don’t want to come to the U.S. because they don’t think it is safe and they disagree with policies.”

“Domestic — government layoffs, lack of funding for registration/travel, and DEI programs cut, so those attendees are no longer able to attend.”

“International attendees are unable to get visas or are concerned with being harassed upon entry or departure.”

“[We] recently canceled an entire conference for federal employees because of an executive order not allowing them to travel — one month away from the conference.”

“We lost over 150 military attendees because all their funding was frozen. They were devastated to cancel. All of our Canadian members canceled — they are afraid of border detainments and are boycotting the U.S. Our association serves higher ed and many universities are afraid of the federal funding freezes and don’t want to come in case they lose their funding later in the year. They say they can’t take the risk of using their funds now in case it’s gone later.”

“We won’t come to the U.S. since we draw from every continent and there’s lots of concerns for visas or [being] stopped at the border.”

How Organizations Are Adapting

A little more than half of respondents have not altered their event content, speaker selection, or sponsorship strategy in response to administration changes. Twelve percent have made changes to their sponsors and/or speakers (in some cases, having speakers who cannot travel present virtually), and one out of 10 respondents have modified DEI-related content — not necessarily scrapping those sessions or programs, but adjusting language to downplay a specific focus. What respondents had to say:

“Before canceling [our] event, we had to remove a whole track that was focused on DEI.”

“We’ve had some speakers cancel, which has required their session/content to be adjusted. But overall, our host associations do not receive federal funding and as such are not making changes to their proposed content or DEI policies. Most are ‘doubling down’ and ensuring their commitment to DEI programs is strong.”

“We are trying to work with vendors to reduce room blocks and F&B, but with little success.”

“We picked a Canadian keynoter specifically as we did not want a U.S. speaker.”

Preparing International Attendees

Fewer than one out of five respondents indicated that they have updated or added travel-related messaging to support international attendees; seven out of 10 have not. Another 11 percent said they haven’t done either — perhaps this reflects a lack of clarity about how to best prepare international attendees, but it’s also a missed opportunity to proactively engage with them. However, several said they are not making blanket public statements but responding, as one planner said, “on a one-by-one basis.”

survey graphic Here are some other comments:

“Some encouraging words were said, but that was before the deportations of those who are allowed to be here. … It’s all being reconsidered.”

“No, with tariffs being announced with little advance notice, it’s hard to alter our messaging this quickly.”

“We inform them, but they are very concerned about being denied entry even if they have the necessary docs.”

“We made a point of sending out a communique that said that meetings are important to advancing science.”

Tested by Tariffs

In response to the question of whether recent trade policies or tariffs have had an effect on event planning, operations, or attendance patterns, “cost increases” was the most-mentioned impact. These financial pressures come on top of rising costs that planners have said have been their No. 1 challenge since the pandemic.

“I cannot source our next open year and we may have to cancel future meetings due to lack of funding because our organization is government grant funded.”

“U.S. government–funded institutions like WHO, hospitals etc., have frozen their travel budgets, due to uncertainties.”

“I order spirit/novelty items for my group and they usually come from China. I will be cautious moving forward with placing these orders. I’ll have to take the price, including the tariffs, into consideration and see if it’s still worth it for me to provide those items, or see if I can get them at a reasonable price in the U.S. or just not provide them.”

“Food prices are through the roof, so yes. I would guess as the tariffs deepen and affect more of the supply chain, we will see higher costs everywhere from printed signage to AV equipment.”

“Yes, the rise in the cost of goods. Plus, due to economic uncertainty, our budgets were cut. Double-edged sword.”

“We can already see increases in food & beverage costs, especially breakfast because of the egg shortage.”

“More online participants. Late, late, late registrations, and more cancellations.”

Changing Contracts?

Almost three-quarters of respondents have not made any changes to contracts in response to recent or anticipated U.S. policy shifts — only 9 percent said they have. An additional 17 percent provided unclear or non-committal responses, perhaps reflecting uncertainty about how contracts should be handled. Government organizations are the most proactive here by far, with 67 percent reporting contract updates, unsurprising given their direct exposure to regulatory changes.

Taken as a whole, these results seem to reflect a gap in risk-management readiness, but individual responses demonstrate that thought is being given to protect organizations and consider next steps:

“We are not sending out RFPs yet for next year for fear of overcommitting to room blocks and F&B minimums. We will have a late booking cycle.”

“Since I work with public school programs and am partially funded with federal government grants, we are hoping to include protective language in our upcoming contracts should funding become an issue [over which we have] no control.”

“Working on force majeure wording.”

“We are pausing all contracts awaiting more travel clarification.”

“We now try and get a performance clause in all our contracts to ensure that what we expect happens even if the venue etc. have staffing or supply issues.”

“An opportunity came up to postpone our 2027 event which was supposed to be in the U.S., so we took it due to fears of holding an international conference in the U.S. under the current administration.”

What About Workarounds?

Since the pandemic, most events have gone all in on in-person participation — not to mention that offering hybrid events can be expensive and a drain on resources. So perhaps it’s not surprising that more than half of respondents said they are not offering virtual or hybrid events as a way to offset the current challenges of attracting face-to-face attendees. “NO,” said one respondent. “That increases the price and is twice the work. We have a small team and we do two large conferences a year that are six months apart. It’s too much to put on my staff … it’s like planning four conferences in a year.”

Three out of 10 respondents did not commit to a yes or no response, reflecting yet more uncertainty or perhaps ongoing internal deliberations. Only 5 percent said they are definitely offering a hybrid option and only 4 percent said it would require a fee, like one respondent who said the virtual component would not be free but the registration cost would be offset through the organization’s foundation, adding that the request for virtual has increased due to travel restrictions, and the organization sees it as an “opportunity to increase revenue and include the core audience who would ordinarily attend in person.”