In a year where designer dolls and love stories grabbed the world’s attention, event marketers also leaned into niche interests and the speed of pop culture across their campaigns. These were among themes across the nearly 50 installments of our Trend of the Week column in 2025, and as the wheels turn for 2026, we’ve rounded up the trends that drew the most clicks and interest from experiential marketers—fodder for the next big idea, or trend.
1. Mocktail Movement
Offering non-alcoholic cocktails to eventgoers isn’t a new concept, but a growing interest in enjoying drinks without “drinking” has given rise to a booming artisanal mocktail industry. The seeds of the mocktail movement were planted with millennials who started opting out of booze-infused happy hours for health reasons. But the interest in alcohol-free drinks has grown exponentially with the Gen Z population.
2. Nostalgia Marketing
A widespread longing for the “good old days” has opened up ample opportunities for brands to craft nostalgic experiences that tap into consumers’ fondest memories. Millennials and Gen Z, in particular, are craving a trip down memory lane, and marketers are responding with events that evoke the warm-and-fuzzies, and as a result, foster personal, and memorable, connections. With ’90s- and Y2K-era activations leading the way—sometimes with a “newstalgia” twist—nostalgia marketing is having a moment.
3. AI-driven Experiences
Event marketers were among some of the earliest adopters of AI, but the scope was initially limited to back-of-house functions like developing creative concepts, streamlining operational processes and generating RFP responses. Flash forward to today and AI has come fully front of house as a consumer engagement technology that’s changing the way events are experienced.
Consumers now crave hyper-personalized experiences that take their unique needs, preferences and interests into account.
4. Women’s Sports Activations
Endorsements of female athletes is an evergreen marketing strategy, but women’s sports are embarking on a new, more experiential era as the teams, leagues and individual players that once played to limited audiences find new fans, larger audiences and a fresh crop of passionate investors. For early movers in the event community, it’s an exciting time to align and activate with a growth industry and support the sports figures and franchises who have been there all along, but are finally getting the kind of visibility they deserve.
5. Scream Machines
Whether in response to joy, fear or frustration, screaming is a part of human nature that marketers are tapping into to foster richer memory-making. Activations that center around screaming booths and audio-triggered vending machines are popping up to provide consumers with a participatory activity that inherently elicits heightened emotions (and, usually, a good laugh).
6. Claw Machines
There are some activities that stand the test of time, but are often reimagined and emerge in unexpected spaces. And if there’s one experience most audiences can relate to, at any age, and in any space, it’s the claw machine. This year, brands are thinking outside the (glass) box to incorporate this arcade staple into events with a twist.
7. Pop-up Perfumeries
Several brands have been offering a fresh take on scent-centric experiences to cut through a beauty category that is becoming increasingly oversaturated—and the data fueling the surge in pop-up perfumeries doesn’t lie. According to a Bath & Body Works-commissioned 2025 survey of 1,500-plus Americans, 72 percent agree that fragrance “makes their lives better,” while 78 percent say it has the power to transport them to another place or time.
8. Micro-Experiences
Experiential marketing is often billed as big thinking, and thus, big things. Sometimes transforming a space the size of a postage stamp into a tiny brand oasis can create exponentially big impact. The tiny house movement of the early aughts made its way from the pages of magazines and TV shows into events, inspiring an array of brand campaigns, but lately, the concept of the micro-experience is taking on a new shape.
9. Pop Star Sponsorships
Olivia Rodrigo, Charli XCX, and Sabrina Carpenter were just some of the pop artists shaking up the sponsorship landscape in 2025 through unconventional brand partnerships that reimagine what a celebrity endorsement looks like (hint: it looks a lot more experiential). Enterprising marketers have long leaned on celebrities to help them excite fans, gain traction with new audiences and generate media impressions. But there’s a new wave of IRL music-artist partnerships taking over socials this year.
10. Themed Learning
Gone are the days of one-way conversations. In the post-COVID, value-for-time world that event marketers are building experiences in, themed learning is improving engagement and retention. And the bolder, more playful the theme, the better.
Photo credits: Zero Proof; Daiya; Intel; Athlos; Michael Simon/startraksphoto.com; White Claw;Steve Lucero/BFA; Kelsey Rose; Hannah Turner-Harts/BFA; Quest Software
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