Best of B-to-B: Five Event Tactics That Generated Love and Leads in 2025 -

Between budget restraints, tariffs, shifting trade policies and AI everything, it’s been one hell of a trip around the sun for b-to-b event marketers. But this industry always rises to the occasion, and the meetings, conferences and exhibits delivered in 2025 were no exception. With 2026 just around the corner, we rounded up some of the year’s top b-to-b event tactics. Check out five ideas worth exploring in the new year.

A THEME WITH LEGS

Event profs fully embraced conference and trade show themes this year, with an emphasis on driving home brand messaging and delivering a cohesive experience.

For Quest Software and this year’s NXT sales kickoff, it was all about leaning into the event’s host city of Boston as theme, which helped reinforce the company’s core messaging around honoring its legacy while celebrating the future of software innovation.

At VMX, a “Festival of the HeARTS” theme aimed to “celebrate the emotion and art behind veterinary science,” and the conference delivered, from art therapy sessions in a Zen Garden, to custom poetry crafted by a local poet and delivered on-site, to pop-art pet portraits.

And for the overhaul of Webflow’s user conference, the brand ran with a “play” theme that permeated nearly every aspect of the event and helped demonstrate the evolution of web design in the age of AI.

SCENT-CENTRIC

In both the b-to-c and b-to-b realms, scent played a major role in live events this year, with perfumery-style activations leading the way. Between pervasive digital fatigue and the power of fragrance to recall memory, it’s no surprise that the sensory strategy gained steam.

During this year’s AWS re:Invent conference, to demonstrate how brands can use Amazon’s Bedrock and Nova AI to create custom products and campaigns, Amazon tapped the art of the perfumery with its Fragrance Lab. Attendees put on headphones and answered several questions about their personality and scent preferences, and the Lab translated that into a fragrance that matched.

At IMEX America, Singapore invited attendees to “have a smell” and transported them across the ocean with its First Light scent, an aromatic tribute to the iconic local breakfast kaya jam, complete with creamy coconut, roasted coffee and nutmeg.

A BREAK FROM THE HUSTLE

Much of corporate America runs on hustle and caffeine, but burnout is also rampant. In that spirit, more b-to-b events incorporated intentional wellness zones and experiences that give professionals time to relax and reset—a tactic that has also provided brands with sponsorable engagement opportunities.

Event spas were among top event trends this year, with retail and e-commerce professionals treated to recharge experiences at ShopTalk in Las Vegas, a sponsored Resilience Room popping up at IMEX America, and CrowdStrike providing a tranquil and protective space during RSAC 2025 Conference in San Francisco called the Muir Woods Zen Lounge, where the brand promoted relaxation and conversation over coffee, vinyl records, a custom scent bar and massage chairs.

AI AGENTS

The industry is moving full steam ahead on integrating AI into both customer-facing experiences and the internal processes that make them possible. In particular, event profs embraced AI agents in 2025, which over the course of the year shifted from “curiosities” to game-changing digital assistants.

At Automatica 2025, ABB leveraged ABBigail, an AI-powered metahuman who served as the company’s technical expert, digital host and brand storyteller. Designed as a bilingual 38-year-old robotics engineer with eight years of experience and an expert in her field, she was trained on vast sets of product data and more than 70 topics, and could explain complex robotics concepts while feeling friendly and approachable to attendees.

To handle attendee logistics for its Vineyard Summit, CollegeVine also turned to AI agents. Among tasks, agents took care of scheduling and room requests in real time; provided tips for getting around the city; conducted research on each attendee ahead of the event, then used that information to create networking conversation-starters; and developed strategic seating arrangements for the event to ensure that colleagues were seated together, that competitors were not, and that the appropriate ratio of company employees was part of each group.

SENSIBLE SWAG

The industry continues to swap wasteful tchotchkes that end up in the landfill for digital swag, premium giveaways and limited-edition products. This year, some brands even asked attendees to earn their free items, a tactic we’ve dubbed “swag-tivities.”

Take CES, where LG offered up endangered species-themed plushies made from recycled materials as part of its ongoing Endangered Species Series campaign. Attendees weaved through the exhibit to find tall cardboard “light posts” manned by staffers who offered a three-minute overview of LG’s corporate missions across sustainability, the environment and inclusion. After collecting stickers at all the kiosks, attendees could turn in their stickers for the plush prize (which included a poster).

During IMEX America, with the IMEX People & Planet Pledge explicitly requiring exhibitors to “only offer sustainable gifts or giveaways,” sponsors aimed to leave attendees with something that had staying power. Take Visit Seattle, which in the past offered posters and desk calendars, but this year introduced a vending machine that let attendee pick their own swag, ranging from Seattle puzzles to energy gummies.

And over at Canva’s Creative Cabana, activated during Cannes Lions, the brand provided a Towel Service welcome moment featuring a keepsake tote bag stocked with items designed to beat the heat, helping to alleviate the pain point of schmoozing on the Croisette while battling blazing temps.

Editors Anna Huddleston and Rachel Boucher contributed to this story.

Photo credits: LL Productions; Anna Huddleston; 2Heads; Canva

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