Reimagining Small Meetings: A Playbook for 2025–2026

GoldSpring Consulting
Aug 28
6 min read

Updated: Oct 9

It really feels as though every industry is being redefined these days. Meetings and events (M&E) are no exception. Over the past few years, the rules have pretty much changed completely. What worked in the past just doesn’t seem to cut it anymore.

Shirley Craven, Senior Consultant at GoldSpring Consulting, has looked at what’s driving those changes, how suppliers are adapting, and what to watch as we move into 2026.

Why Demand Is Being Rewritten

People are craving genuine, face-to-face connections again. After years of remote calls and online conferences, the chance to shake hands, have an impromptu passing chat, or sit down over dinner feels more valuable, more engaged, real. For many, these moments are the essence of meetings – a way to create in-person connections again.

Unfortunately, at the same time, meeting owners are being asked to do more with less: smaller audiences, tighter budgets, and all against higher expectations. As a result, agendas need to be sharper, content more curated, and networking more meaningful. In addition, personalisation, smart technology, and data privacy are topping the list of priorities.

According to Cvent, 52% of planners expect to run more meetings in 2025 than in 2024, and 79% say events are now more valuable than other marketing channels.

Demand is being driven by a hunger for depth rather than scale, and guess what? This requirement is changing the way the end-to-end M&E supply chain operates.

How Are Suppliers Evolving?

We need to look across the entire supplier landscape, to agencies, hotels, airlines, DMCs, and conference organisers, and see how each is responding to this revisited way of working.

Global Meeting & Event Agencies

The big meeting management agencies are well on their way to becoming data-driven consultancies. They are finally fully integrating meeting spend with travel programmes, providing real-time visibility dashboards, and embedding compliance rules early in the planning process as standard.

With small meeting budgets often spread across HR, marketing, or regional teams, these agencies are beginning to offer tools that can be easy to use (not always though!) to allow or maintain global oversight, even down to small meeting level, with the autonomy for ‘managing’ small meetings remaining with the EAs, marketing teams, etc. as it always has been, but now pulling info from these previously under-reported events into the quarterly/annual data reporting. The cost of purchasing these add-ons must be budgeted for, though this budget item is often seen as a cross-department cost.

Hotels and Venues

Flexibility has become a key selling point. Hotels are thankfully adapting with more forgiving attrition policies, modular rooms, and hybrid-ready spaces. This is something small meeting planners need to take advantage of.

However, room rate increases are generally modest, with Smart Meetings forecasting around a 1.8% rise in 2025.

Airlines and Group Air Travel

Group travel availability remains limited, and deep discounts rarer. Airlines are offering more flexible contracts and premium options, but reliability continues to be a critical concern. Travel for small meetings remains separated from meeting spend, and is largely

still made via personal company card or individual expense accounts.

DMCs (Destination Management Companies)

DMCs are now focusing more on the value-added items they see undermanaged: risk management, compliance, and local logistics, in addition to creative programming. They are essential partners for international meetings where local regulations and safety considerations are seen as critical in today’s geopolitical environment.

Small Meeting Budgets for 2026

Budgets are holding steady/rising slightly, but it’s fair to say that how they are spent is shifting. Costs tied to staffing, technology, sustainability, and insurance are pushing per-person costs up, even when overall meeting numbers remain stable.

Smaller meetings feel this most. Fixed venue and AV costs mean each attendee represents a larger share of spend. Companies now formalise small-meeting programs with pre-negotiated rates, approved suppliers, and smart booking tools, to maximise savings where possible.

Lead times are tighter, and contingency budgets for disruptions are now essential.

Smart Meetings projects a 4.3% increase in the average cost per delegate per day and this will be higher for the attendees of small meetings.

How AI Is Transforming Event Planning

There’s a LOT of discussion on artificial intelligence (AI) across all aspects of life and business right now. It’s worth mentioning that it’s been around for a lot longer than most people realise but the difference now is that it’s accessible by us, and boy, are we embracing it! It’s safe to say that AI is moving from interesting concept to essential tool in meeting and event planning land…

In terms of M&E, here are some of the ways AI is getting a foothold on how our industry works, particularly with small meetings that are traditionally managed by executive/personal assistants, marketing associates, employees.

Before the event

AI can recommend/source venues; draft agendas and content; it can model costs and propose rooming lists; it can develop registration sites and deliver smart reminders for a personalised experience, all of which can save small teams significant time and precious budget.

Onsite

Adding a chatbot to handle FAQs; providing smart check-ins to track attendance, and setting up engagement dashboards to monitor audience feedback, are all real time tools that are available to meeting planners today and can be very useful for small meetings where human resource is lower for cost reasons.

Post event

Smart tools are automating reports, summaries, lead scoring, and ROI analysis. These are value adds for busy planners, particularly when their small meetings program often covers a large number of events over a year.

In 2024, only 4% of planners rated AI as critical. In 2025, it is up to 14% and this will likely continue to increase over the coming months/years.

For smaller meetings and the planner that sits behind them, AI acts like an invisible co-planner, quietly taking care of repetitive work, often reducing risk and allowing budgets to be used more efficiently.

What To Watch In The Next 12 Months

Small meetings are often overlooked by corporations because the spend is less visible and often fragmented due to multiple payment methods. The cost per event is typically below procurement spend thresholds, so it doesn't trigger any flags, and company policy is often bypassed since the smaller number of attendees may not seem to meet the criteria for governance.

However, in most large organisations, most meetings held are small. While each meeting tends to have a smaller budget, the overall total annual cost of this meeting type can be significant.

Therefore, with reference to small corporate meetings, the following points are relevant to help manage this potentially substantial spend area:

Data and AI governance
It’s worth checking that vendors comply with GDPR and company privacy standards: small meetings can mean even more personal information is collected, particularly if they are high-touch events.
Uneven cost growth Smaller meetings are more expensive per attendee than large ones, and this likely needs governance to ensure negotiations, contracting and savings targets are met/adhered to.
Flexibility as standard Contracts must accommodate cancellations and last-minute changes, so who is ensuring this in your organisation?
Resilience and risk Climate events, political instability, and travel disruption are inevitable, so are these points catered for in your meeting policy? If not, why not?
Hybrid-ready design Make sure there are options for both in-person and online participation, even for small meetings – not everyone has returned to business travel yet…
Sustainability and social impact Corporate responsibility is increasingly scrutinised: small meetings can be susceptible to higher spend per attendee, which can be perceived in the wrong way.
ROI and attendee experience Smaller, well-designed meetings can deliver better ROI than large ones, and tracking/measuring metrics for this event type is key to optimising results.
Integrated technology Event tech must connect seamlessly with CRM and travel systems: yes, even for small meetings!

Small Meetings, Big Results

Finally – it’s worth saying that even meetings with fewer than 20 attendees deserve expert attention, and that it’s often the small meetings that can offer big opportunities for engagement, results, and to create the strongest connections.

GoldSpring Consultancy is THE partner to help you maximise the impact of every small meeting.

References and Further Reading

*The title ‘small meeting’ in an organisation is not standardised, but generally involves fewer than 20 attendees, and/or without external guests, and/or without overnight accommodation.