What’s considered the geekiest conference in the event world could soon become the sexiest.

Imagine CEIR Predict in 10 Years—Now Read This Forecast

Nov 19, 2025

The Sexiest Room in the Industry? You Might Be Surprised.

How CEIR Predict—once the geekiest conference in events—might become its most influential.

By David Adler, for GatheringPoint.News

Let’s start with a prediction: By 2035, the one event every strategist, city leader, economist, behavioral designer, and event entrepreneur will want to attend… is the one they’ve overlooked.

It won’t be CES. It won’t be Cannes. It’ll be something called CEIR Predict—a gathering once known as the geekiest room in the industry.

Because CEIR Predict, if it follows its own trajectory, will become the cultural OS of the global events economy. A living rehearsal space for regulation, R&D, revenue modeling, and memory architecture.

Why? Because it has always had one job: telling the truth about what this industry thinks it knows—and what it doesn’t.

And no one has held that line more fiercely than Nancy Drapeau.

SIDEBAR: The Steady Hand Behind the Index
Nancy Drapeau grew up in Maine and began her career in publishing—where clarity, structure, and deadlines were the baseline. That discipline carried into her decades-long tenure at CEIR, where she became the institutional memory and conscience of the Index.
She didn’t arrive in the event industry to make noise. She arrived to make sense of it. While others made big claims, Nancy made the numbers legible. She has never chased hype—only clarity. Her role has never been about forecasting splashy trends. It’s been about making sure the foundation is strong enough to stand on.
Today, she remains one of the most trusted minds in the exhibition economy—an analyst with the editorial discipline of an editor and the ethical compass of a doctor reading vital signs.

She doesn’t forecast for drama. She builds tools to keep us honest. Her work has helped position CEIR Predict not just as a conference, but as the benchmark for how seriously the exhibition world wants to take itself.—measured, no-nonsense, allergic to hype—made her the perfect steward for the CEIR Index when others were distracted by flashier narratives.

2011: Rescue Mode

Back in 2011, CEIR’s flagship study, the Index, needed saving. The resource was drifting into irrelevance—its data underused and underfunded. That year, its Board, consisting of major players in the industry, sanctioned the creation of a new flagship event that could serve the C-suite and the policy world.

CEIR Predict was born out of that urgency. And today, it’s undergoing another transformation. CEIR, long structured as a standalone organization, is now being fully integrated into IAEE—not just as a subsidiary or research provider, but as a core strategic function of the association itself. This shift signals a deeper alignment: where data isn’t separate from the agenda—it is the agenda.

The integration means CEIR’s insights won’t just inform IAEE’s direction—they’ll shape it. Policy positions, member strategy, and even industry lobbying efforts are increasingly built around the credibility and continuity of CEIR’s research. In effect, Predict is becoming the institutional brain of IAEE’s long-view thinking.

The early conferences were tight, sober, invitation-only. The goal? Restore gravity to the industry. Bring economists, policy voices, and private-sector strategists into one place. Make it impossible to ignore the numbers.

Behind the curtain of it all was Doug Ducate and Cathy Breden, and later Nancy Drapeau—the woman who didn’t hold the top title but was doing the hardest work: keeping the Index real. While others played futurist, she played referee. She made sure the CEIR Index measured what mattered. No hype. Just truth.

2025: The Turning Point

By 2025, the vibe had changed.

The exhibition industry was no longer post-pandemic—it was post-certainty. Global attendance patterns were unstable. AI had invaded the agenda. Event formats were fragmenting. Cities were reconsidering how much they should subsidize conventions. DEI was under pressure. Climate math was getting serious.

And then came Jim Gilmore.

The co-author of The Experience Economy took the stage at CEIR Predict and asked one question:

“Is your event saving time—or spending it well?”

The room fell quiet. Because everyone knew: too many events were efficient, but empty. No emotion. No arc. No point.

That question reframed the next decade.

What We Got Wrong (and Right)

Let’s be honest. The industry got some things wrong:

Virtual trade shows didn’t take over. Hybrid didn’t replace in-person. AI didn’t eliminate breakout rooms. Attendees didn’t stay content with Zoom. CEIR’s research never overstated these promises—but others did.

What the CEIR Index showed—and Nancy insisted on measuring—was that people would come back. Not just for convenience. But for connection.

What we did get right?

Personalized experiences happened. Policy shifts reshaped participation. Measurement matured. And format fatigue forced a reckoning. CEIR tracked all of it—sometimes before the rest of the industry could name it.

Nancy didn’t predict trends. She verified them. She gave the industry the confidence to look inward and make real decisions.

“She treated data like a physician treats vitals,” one CEIR board member said. “You could lie to yourself. But not to Nancy.”

2035: The Forecast

So here we are. A decade after Gilmore’s challenge. What are we willing to predict now?

Let me be clear: I’m taking full creative license here. These predictions could be off the mark—or laughable in retrospect. But that’s part of the point. If we’re going to have a conference called CEIR Predict, maybe it’s time we bring forecasting into the room with more ambition and less fear of being wrong.

By 2035, CEIR Predict doesn’t feel like a conference. It feels like the operating system of the event economy itself. There are no rigid agendas or click-through expos. Instead, what you find is a living framework: adaptive studios, sensory design labs, and policy simulation theaters, all shaped in real time by the people in them.

In one room, city planners use predictive models to test how zoning and travel restrictions affect trade show health. In another, behavioral scientists calibrate session flow based on attendee movement and gaze. Neuroscience teams, hired by top organizers, are deployed to map delight and friction across the journey—not in post-event surveys, but live, on the floor.

There’s no stage. Just a Signal Deck—a soft-lit data wrap that updates by the minute. Attendees don’t “check in.” They sync. Their behavioral traces feed the system. Formats update. Tracks branch. Rooms breathe. It feels less like an event—and more like a rehearsal for the next era of intelligence.

CEIR’s Index is no longer a static report. It’s a forecasting grid connected to city planners, exhibitor dashboards, and live economic models. It tells organizers not just what worked—but what will. Every curve it shows is a strategy waiting to be claimed.

The makeup of the crowd has changed, too. No longer just industry insiders and association leads. You’ll see product designers tracking emotional resonance to shape R&D. Economic ministers from midsize cities shadowing predictive policy labs. Story engineers designing session arcs from sensory triggers. IP licensing agents acquiring successful event formats on spec.

Every room is a testbed. Every conversation is a live model. Every outcome is a datapoint.

And the companies powering those outcomes? They’re no longer vendors. They’re the infrastructure.

By 2035, CEIR Predict has become the convening hub for the companies building the backbone of the experience economy. Platforms like Vendelux don’t just monitor the market—they model it. Their real-time signals show shifts in exhibitor investment, speaker ecosystem patterns, and hidden category momentum. They don’t set up booths—they plug into the predictive grid.

Around them orbit a new ecosystem of intelligence providers. There are experience optimization engines helping organizers simulate outcomes before they commit budgets. There are format licensing studios that package successful session flows and emotional arcs as monetizable IP. And there are signal orchestration platforms—live systems that connect audience behavior, environmental variables, and commercial performance in real time.

These aren’t vendors. They’re co-pilots in the strategy. Their data doesn’t wait for dashboards. It acts in the moment. Predict has become their convening grid—where platforms don’t present, they perform. that connect audience behavior, environmental variables, and commercial performance in real time.

CEIR Predict isn’t just a conference. It’s the API layer of the event economy. And the companies showing up aren’t pitching—they’re piloting what’s next.

And here’s one more prediction I’m willing to make: CEIR Predict itself—yes, the conference once called the geekiest gathering in events—will become the sexiest event to attend in the industry.

Not because of celebrity speakers or spectacle, but because it will be the one room where the smartest people in the experience economy show up to think—together. Where policy meets product. Where formats get invented. Where the truth gets measured.

It will be the event where people don’t just attend the future—they help write it.

That’s not hype. That’s what happens when a conference earns its name.

Predict.

Learn More

CEIR Predict Conference: Explore the agenda, speaker line-up, and past insights from the annual event that inspired this story.
The CEIR Index: The foundational research tracking performance across 14 U.S. exhibition industry sectors.
Nancy Drapeau – CEIR Staff Bio: Meet the analyst behind the numbers—and the voice of clarity behind decades of event forecasting.
Jim Gilmore & The Experience Economy: The co-author whose one question redefined a decade of event design strategy.
Vendelux – Event Intelligence Platform: Discover how companies are using competitive signal tracking to navigate the global event economy.