ICC Wales has signalled its intention to attract more business from international associations, with the announcement of a new partnership with industry body IAPCO. Under the new agreement, the venue will work with the International Association of Professional Congress Organisers (IAPCO) as a designated Convention Centre Partner for 2026. The partnership aligns the £83.7 million venue with a global accreditation body whose 97 member organisations delivered a combined 21,322 events in 2024, generating an estimated economic impact of over €17.8 billion (£15.3b).

If you went to Event Tech Live last November and missed out on some of the sessions, you can now catch up and watch them on-demand.

The new 2026 Trends Report from asembl. identifies four trends, Connected Communities, Neurodivergent Marketing, AI Personalisation and Positively Playful.

Grassroots venues are to be the major beneficiaries of the first distribution by the LIVE Trust, while independent festivals are allocated £50,000. Launched in January last year, the LIVE Trust was pledged £500,000 within the first three months, with funds generated from a voluntary ticket levy of £1 per ticket sold for shows at venues with a capacity of more than 5,000. LIVE said that following the first distribution of £500,000, it will issue further funding rounds throughout this year.

To mark Neurodiversity Celebration Week, The Power of Events was commissioned by EICC to launch a new industry questionnaire to explore understanding and perspectives on neuro-inclusion in events. 

AGF Festival Sustainability Insights produced from aggregate analysis of all festivals who successfully completed AGF Certification or Sustainability Diagnosis in 2024. A culmination of months of data gathering, screening and number crunching from AGF assessors and analysts. This report provides insight into how festivals are performing against key sustainability metrics, across 16 countries and 4 continents.

Live Recruitment’s Diversity Report provides key diversity, equity and inclusivity (DEI) metrics for the UK Events Industry using our network of 40,000+ event professionals

Powering on from last year’s Covid re-bound, ABPCO members maintained the same high levels of activity and financial growth throughout 2024