EventIntel Weekly

The intelligence briefing for senior event leaders.

Issue 001 — 23 August 2026Archive

The Five

The five most important developments event leaders should know this week.

01

Prevue Meetings · 2026-08-20

The shift to smaller meetings reverses — and F&B and production, not hotel rates, are driving the cost

The GBTA/ALTOUR 2027 Global Business Travel Forecast, reported on 20 August, finds the multiyear move towards smaller meetings reversing, with planners requesting larger room blocks again. Cost per delegate per day is forecast up about 3% in 2026 and 1.5% in 2027, held down by relatively contained negotiated group hotel rates, while food and beverage for managed programmes rises in the mid- to high-single digits, ahead of the 3.5% food-away-from-home index, with production and labour climbing at similar rates. GBTA characterises 2027 as normalisation rather than reversal, and advises organisations committing to international programmes to plan for a weaker dollar.

Why it matters

The headline per-delegate number is comfortable enough to get a budget signed and wrong enough to blow it. Your exposure sits in F&B and production — the two largest lines in most meeting budgets, both inflating at two to three times the blended figure — at the moment attendee numbers are being pushed back up. Re-forecast 2027 with F&B and production indexed separately from accommodation, fix menu pricing and AV rates at contracting rather than at final guarantee, and put a written currency assumption against anything committed overseas.

Keep reading EventIntel Weekly

Get the complete weekly intelligence briefing, including The Five, AI Watch, Steal This Idea, EventIntel Take, The AI Prompt and On My Radar.

Free. Delivered weekly. Unsubscribe at any time.

Already subscribed?

Prompt of the Week

One AI prompt worth stealing this week.

Challenge your event budget before Finance does

Copy + paste this prompt

Act as a commercially rigorous Global Head of Events reviewing the attached event budget. Analyse every cost line and identify: 1. Costs that appear unusually high or should be challenged. 2. Areas where spend could be reduced without materially damaging the attendee experience. 3. Costs most likely to increase between now and the event. 4. Questions I should ask the agency, venue, hotel or suppliers before approving the budget. 5. Costs, contingencies or financial exposures that appear to be missing. 6. Opportunities to renegotiate, consolidate or restructure spend. 7. Three alternative scenarios showing approximately 5%, 10% and 15% savings. For every recommendation, explain both the potential financial saving and the operational or attendee-experience consequence. Do not simply recommend removing items. Think like a senior corporate event leader balancing commercial discipline, brand experience, operational risk and stakeholder expectations. Finally, give me the five questions a CFO or Finance Director is most likely to ask about this budget and help me prepare a concise answer to each.

Why use it

Instead of simply asking AI to reduce an event budget, this prompt turns it into a commercial challenger. Use it before presenting a budget internally to identify vulnerabilities, potential savings and the questions Finance may ask before they ask them.

Before uploading budgets, contracts or confidential company information to an AI platform, follow your organisation’s AI and data-security policies.

EventIntel is exploring

Do you influence where events happen?

I’m exploring a new way to connect credible event-industry content creators with hotels, venues and destinations that want to reach actual event buyers.

This isn’t traditional influencer marketing. The idea is to connect suppliers with people whose audiences genuinely work in, buy and influence events.

For now, I’m simply testing interest from both sides.