The big theme of the International Corporate Events Network (ICEN) Corporate Events Benchmarking Report 2026/27, published 21 October, is measurement. Based only on responses from in-house event professionals in the UK, Germany and the USA, the new ICEN report has conducted annual benchmarking research for the past six years. Fieldwork for the 2026/2027 report closed in September 2026.
With corporate event teams being asked to prove their value using digital marketing measures, ICEN detects a measurement problem, not a value problem.
Some of the key findings of interest to corporate event teams include:
Infrastructure beats ownership. Teams with engagement scoring and CRM integration prove pipeline far better, so suppliers who help capture better event data help them win budget.
Volume, not headcount, drives the approval gap. The number of events a team runs predicts budget friction better than team size, so suppliers who make delivery easier are highly valued.
AI is wide but shallow. 97% of teams use AI, but only 13% have it embedded across their work. It’s augmenting teams, not cutting them: only 2% are reducing headcount.
The suppliers corporates trust most lead with the client’s problem, not their product.
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