Align with an events expert to elevate event technology from an essential service to a comprehensive business strategy.
SCHILLER PARK, Illinois ─ Interested in attracting and nurturing more event business this year? According to Encore Planner Pulse reports, meeting and event planners make purchasing decisions based on your venue’s available event technology. Ensuring that the venue has the capabilities to meet or exceed group travelers' increasingly sophisticated expectations is pivotal to the booking decision. In fact, the most recent survey showed that 46% of meeting planners feel that creating unique experiences/wow factors is a top priority in 2026. Unsurprisingly, so is managing budget constraints.
Finding a well-equipped event solutions partner with both technical expertise and strong customer-service skills can help you succeed in both areas.
Encore's team combed through the company's Planner Pulse reports, post-meeting Event Pulse surveys and insights from the more than 400,000 events they produced in the past year to identify winning strategies for finding the right partnership fit. The data also revealed inventive ways to surprise, delight and generate more profit from event customers.
Increase event spend with engaging, inclusive event technology
Maximizing audience engagement was a top priority for planners last year and, according to the Fall 2025 Encore Planner Pulse, it will remain top of mind this year. Without a doubt, AI is the hottest technology, but few planners understand how to use it optimally for events.
This is where your venue can take the lead by leveraging AI to increase event accessibility, inclusion and real-time engagement.
Give your venue a competitive advantage by treating AI-powered transcription, translation and summary services as the new elevated standard for meetings. Now, people of all ages commonly use captions to better engage with content on their mobile devices and home screens, making it an expected feature in the viewing experience.
According to Preply research, 74% of U.S. respondents say text on-screen helps them comprehend what’s happening, and 68% say it helps hold their attention. That’s why live captioning on large-format displays in events benefits everyone, not just people with hearing impairments.
Additional upside:
• AI transcripts and session summaries produce content far more accurate and comprehensive than any one person can capture on their own, especially with accented or rapid-fire speech.
• Because AI session transcriptions and summaries eliminate the need for notetaking, participants can stay present and engage fully.
• Transcripts and summaries shared post-event provide additional customer value. Their distribution helps combat the forgetting curve that usually sets in post-event, generating goodwill among attendees and FOMO among their colleagues.
• Real-time AI language translation opens sessions to multilingual audiences, breaking down language barriers and authentically enabling foreign presenters to engage with domestic attendees.
AI transcription, translation and summary services provide you with a goldmine of content. It can be repurposed into blog, social media and marketing content to generate additional sponsored revenue, reward attendees and grow attendance for future events, all reinforcing the value of choosing your venue.
“I’m a note-taker by habit, but let’s be honest: finding that note years later is impossible,” said Encore Customer Relationship Director Gus Capone. “With AI session summaries people can pull up summaries and key takeaways instantly, and the content lives far beyond the session.”
Providing AI session summaries also enhances the guest experience, Capone said. “Attendees told us they loved being able to double-check what they heard or catch up on what they missed without chasing down a speaker. That’s real empowerment.”
Other engagement tools include interactive event tech like Polling+ Q&A, which gives everyone a voice by empowering participants to ask questions, vote on important topics and contribute to the conversation, whether they’re in-room or joining remotely.
Text-on-screen can be a differentiator in light of trends showing most people say it improves content engagement.
Increase venue revenue with multipurpose event technology
Striking digital displays, LED digital banners and billboards give your venue eye-catching ways to attract event business. Planners can use them to display event branding, amplify sponsor involvement and provide directional signage. When not in use for events, these permanently installed LED walls and banners can generate incremental revenue by promoting guest services, venue offers or sponsored messages.
Simplify the process by having a partner who collaborates with you and your customers to co-create dynamic, memorable experiences.
“Our focus is on delivering content that moves with the audience,” explained Encore Video Production Senior Product Manager Kyle Cartland. One of the ways to do this is to coordinate content display across multiple platforms with a centralized content management system, like Content Everywhere.
“Whether on LED walls, mobile apps or virtual platforms, Content Everywhere ensures planners can reach participants anytime, anywhere, creating continuity and deepening engagement across the event journey,” he added.
Build brand loyalty with exceptional experiences
Top priorities for planners this year will include finding suitable venues, creating unique experiences and increasing attendance levels, per the Fall 2025 Encore Planner Pulse.
Technologies that can help your venue deliver on these needs include:
• A vibrant Welcome Wall that dynamically greets participants individually upon check-in, makes everyone feel like a VIP and creates a memorable sense of arrival and group belonging.
• Scalable, immersive scenic and lighting solutions, like modular LED walls, Backdrop Pro modular sets and tube lights, that put “wow” moments in reach of all event professionals.
• Directional sound that “moves” from one side of the room to the other to amplify the multisensory and immersive impact of event storytelling
• Pinpointed audio “zones” to create intimate, engaging experiences tied to specific areas of your venue.
• Dynamic event platforms like Chime Live, to connect in-person and hybrid audiences to each other and engage with essential event information.
• Column speakers to replace multiple audio components with a single, streamlined high-quality portable audio unit.
Increase event spend with innovative, educational sales tools
Helping planners understand the available options can increase their overall event spending. One team member used the interactive Encore Event Solutions Explorer to educate and empower event customers to make informed purchasing decisions. The visualization tool helped the planner realize that their initial order wouldn’t be enough to bring their vision to life. After seeing what was possible, the planner increased their event order from a $15,000 services-only inquiry to a $70,000 full-service order with scenic design.
AI is the hottest technology, but few planners understand how to use it optimally for events.
This is where your venue can take the lead by leveraging AI to increase event accessibility, inclusion and real-time engagement.
Darius Vaskelis
Offering personalized solutions and excellent customer service cements customer loyalty. Planners see event technicians as an extension of your venue. They expect them to deliver hospitality-minded service and customization consistent with your brand promise. It’s crucial to understand the investment your technology partner is making in both training and inventory to ensure alignment.
Maximize venue performance with the right technology partner
The following questions will help you evaluate potential in-house partners:
• How much do you invest in refreshing existing inventory and new technology?
• Do you have access to regional warehouses or is your entire inventory confined to what’s in-house?
• What safety training and certifications do your technicians complete?
• What kind of hospitality training do your technicians undergo?
• How can I be sure your team will reflect our venue’s brand values?
This checklist provides key points for comparison as you investigate potential matches. It helps you see crucial differentiators such as the fact that Encore invested $75 million in new event technology in 2025 to amplify their existing $500-million-plus inventory. The company serves as the in-house partner with 2,100 venues globally. Their local teams can pull from a network of 68 regional warehouses worldwide (26 in the U.S.).
This global leader in events technology also invests more than $100 million annually in service excellence and safety training for their team members, which is one of the reasons Encore is annually recognized as a Great Place to Work® and as the Official Event Solutions Company by Forbes Travel Guide.
Tech can give your venue an edge, but it’s really the power of your in-house partnership that drives your competitive advantage.
“The right partner knows what’s reliable, what brings the wow and how to shine a light on what makes your venue unique,” said Jill Hunt, Vice President of Customer Experience. “For example, we constantly gather feedback on event success and areas to improve. These insights inform our technology portfolio and help us set the standard for event technology solutions. The right partner, aligned with your brand standard for excellence, can increase venue revenue and event spend.”
“True innovation is more than new features or tools,” explained Encore VP of Marketing Taqi Mohiuddin. “It’s about anticipating what planners and participants will need next. At Encore, technology is a bridge to creating more inclusive, inspiring and transformative events.”
Darius Vaskelis is Chief Product & Digital Officer for Encore.
The views and opinions expressed in this content do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel Investment Today by Northstar or Northstar Travel Group and its affiliated companies.