The Confidential: The Power Index Behind the Velvet Rope

Q-4 2025 Vendelux Report

Each quarter, Vendelux releases what has quietly become the most influential ranking in the live-events business: a data-driven index revealing where influence truly flows. Not who posts the most, but who closes the most.

This season’s Power Index reads like a tour of ambition. At the top sits Money20/20 USA — fintech’s annual convergence of commerce and charisma. In the same Las Vegas orbit, HLTH USA turns healthcare into a high-gloss ecosystem, while ITC Vegas reminds everyone that even insurance can throw a proper party.

Technology still holds the mic. AWS re:Invent, Microsoft Ignite, and Dreamforceremain corporate pilgrimages disguised as conferences.

Across the Atlantic, Web Summit has completed its post-controversy rehabilitation in Lisbon, Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo continues to attract the decision-makers, and The AI Summit New York keeps testing the limits of the hype cycle. Global Gaming Expo (G2E), GITEX Global, EDUCAUSE, Advertising Week New York, TechCrunch Disrupt, AFP Annual Conference, and KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North Americaround out the second wave. SuiteWorld keeps the enterprise set disciplined, and Slush Helsinki proves that innovation doesn’t require sunlight.

What’s striking is not who made the list, but the precision of who did. The mega-expo era is waning. The rooms are smaller now, the guest lists sharper. The velvet rope no longer guards the keynote stage; it defines the invitation itself.