Philosophy

I have spent nearly forty years in public relations, communications and live events, and a great deal of that time in rooms full of people: summits, conferences, investment forums and receptions. A large share of the business I have won over those years began with a conversation at an event.

As Sales & Marketing Director of HP:ICM, the event production company, we won Microsoft and Nokia as clients after I met their communications people at a major IT trade fair in Germany. We won GSK after I met its CEO at a business school event. He was not the buyer. But he told me who to talk to in his organisation, and without his referral that buyer would never have taken my call.

Some of the work of which I am most proud had effective networking at its heart. As a communications adviser to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), I offered the commercial directors of media companies help to meet the right people at WTTC events; and, in exchange, I extracted substantial amounts of media space and airtime for promotional use by WTTC. On that basis I recruited more than two dozen highly regarded media partners, including the BBC, the FT and the Wall Street Journal; and just before the pandemic, WTTC’s media partners were contributing over $7m/year in media inventory to go networking.

So, when I look at research on why people go to business events, the answer does not surprise me.

Why people go

In a 2025 survey of 250 working professionals by Talent Bureau, ‘networking and building relationships’ was the most common reason given for going to work events, ahead of learning. In Bizzabo’s 2025 research, 83% of attendees said the chance to network affects whether they go at all. Some studies put learning first, with networking close behind. Either way, meeting the right individuals is a major reason why people go to events and come back the following year.

When it goes right, networking is where the real value of an event lies. One good conversation can lead to a deal, a partner or a new hire. Freeman’s attendee research found that the contacts people value most are talking to experts (81%) and meeting new people (68%). What they said helps most is meeting others who face the same challenges (52%).

What goes wrong

People stick with who they know. Researchers at Columbia Business School watched about 100 executives at an evening mixer, a drinks event held so that people could meet. 95% said they wanted to meet new people. Yet although each guest knew only about a third of the room, half of their conversations were with familiar faces.

The room works against them. Ken Holsinger, who leads research at Freeman, sums up the typical networking event as ‘alcohol, dim lights, loud music, and nowhere to sit.’ Nobody wears a sign saying what they need or what they can offer. So people guess, drift, or head for the bar.

The host cannot be everywhere. Ask any organiser who likes to introduce people at their own events, and the answer is nearly always the same: they would love to walk more people over to each other. There is just no time, and nobody on the team can know everyone in the room. So delegates leave, and only later – over email, or never – do they discover the valuable new contact who was standing just twenty feet away.

Hasn’t software solved this?

Partly, and mainly at the biggest events. Matchmaking software (apps that suggest who you should meet and book meetings in advance) was built for large trade fairs: thousands of people, buyers and sellers, several days, and months of planning. There it can fill diaries. Converve, which sells such software, reports one event of 1,800 people where 893 meetings were booked in advance.

But the software needs three things to work: a big enough crowd, a long run-up, and time in the programme for booked meetings. Converve advises opening profiles eight to twelve weeks before the event. Its founder, Mark Kessels, writes that below about 100 attendees, ‘structured matchmaking often adds friction without proportional benefit.’

Many of the events I know best – association conferences, one-day summits, investment forums, evening receptions – have none of those three. The guests are senior and busy. Many will not fill in a detailed profile weeks ahead, and a one-day programme leaves few slots to book.

Even at the big fairs the results are mixed. In a 2019 study by UFI, the global association of the exhibition industry, 45% of organisers said no-shows at booked meetings were a problem, and a third said customers were matched with the wrong people. One matchmaking expert in that study observed that people filling in long sign-up forms take ‘the shortest route to the badge’, so the software ends up working from thin information.

And the apps are often ignored. In Bizzabo’s research, 42% of organisers said use of their networking features was low or very low. Swapcard, looking at 9 million requests on its own platform, found that two in three connection requests went unanswered. A UFI and Explori study of 13,000 exhibition visitors found that only 14% had ever used a matchmaking tool to book meetings.

Above all, these tools are built for meetings booked in advance. They do little for the moments where, in my experience, much of the real business of an event happens: the reception, the coffee break, the five minutes before the next session.

Time to reimagine networking

None of this is a failure of effort. Organisers work hard, and delegates want to meet. The real problem is information: nobody in the room can see who should meet whom.

The latest technology can change that. AI could now figure out what each delegate wants from the day and what they can offer, and work out which people would genuinely benefit from meeting, with a plain reason for each. A phone can then help delegates find those people in a crowded room – at the reception and the coffee break, exactly the moments that meeting-booking tools do not reach – and help the organising team make the introductions that matter most.

I have seen what one good introduction can do. Networking is why people come. It is time we stopped leaving it to luck. That is why I have built Who2Meet.

Sources

1. Talent Bureau, ‘What Makes a Great Conference? 2025 Survey Results’, 250 professionals, October 2025.
2. Bizzabo, ‘The Future of Event Networking: What 300+ Industry Pros Told Us’, June 2025.
3. Experience Institute with IAEE and PCMA, survey of over 7,000 attendees, 2014 (education rated important by about 90%, networking by 75%), reported by BizBash, February 2015.
4. Freeman Trends Report, nearly 2,100 respondents, November 2023, reported by PCMA.
5. Paul Ingram and Michael W. Morris, ‘Do People Mix at Mixers?’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 2007; summary by Columbia Business School.
6. Mark Kessels, ‘Event Networking vs Matchmaking: The Real Difference in 2026’ and ‘Business Matchmaking at Events: 18 Success Factors’, Converve.
7. UFI, ‘Matchmaking at the heart of the exhibition industry’, white paper, 2019.
8. LineUpr, ‘Event App Adoption: The Download Problem Behind Low Rates’, quoting a Clutch survey of 476 smartphone users.
9. Swapcard, ‘6 Key Networking Trends from 9M Trade Show & Conference Requests’.
10. UFI and Explori, Global Visitor Insights 2018/19, 13,000+ visitors in 135 countries.