Association conference attendance has moved in several directions at once. The share of associations reporting higher in-person conference attendance rose from 26% in 2022 to 62% in 2024, while 56.7% planned hybrid events for 2024 and beyond. Meeting size also varies sharply: 25% of organizations said their usual major international association meeting attracted 50 or fewer delegates in 2024, while 1% reported more than 7,000.
Table of contents
- In-person attendance recovery
- Hybrid and virtual participation
- How large are association meetings?
- International meeting activity
- Which event formats engage members?
- Attendance risks and planning signals
In-person attendance recovery
The recovery in association conference attendance has been visible across three consecutive years. In the 2024 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, 26% of associations reported increased in-person conference attendance in 2022. That share rose to 58% in 2023 and 62% in 2024. The same report recorded the opposite movement among associations reporting declines: 53% in 2022, 22% in 2023, and 15% in 2024. These are survey responses about direction of change, not a count of delegates or a universal attendance growth rate.
The year-by-year pattern is useful for event planners because it shows a changing balance of association experiences rather than a single industry-wide total. In 2022, the largest reported movement was downward. By 2023, increased attendance was reported by more than twice as many associations as in 2022, and by 2024 the increase signal was stronger still.
The report also tracked in-person professional-development events. In 2024, 53% of associations reported increased attendance at those events, compared with 44% in 2023. This places professional-development attendance slightly below the 62% reporting increased conference attendance in 2024, but both measures point toward stronger in-person participation than the earlier period.
Virtual annual conferences and trade shows did not disappear from the attendance picture. In 2024, 48% of associations reported increased attendance at virtual annual conferences or trade shows, according to the same 2024 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report. The coexistence of rising in-person and virtual attendance suggests that planners should track each channel separately instead of treating virtual participation as only a substitute for onsite attendance.
| Measure | Earlier period | Later period |
|---|---|---|
| Associations reporting increased in-person conference attendance | 26% in 2022 | 62% in 2024 |
| Associations reporting declining in-person conference attendance | 53% in 2022 | 15% in 2024 |
| Associations reporting increased in-person professional-development attendance | 44% in 2023 | 53% in 2024 |
Source: 2024 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, covering the periods shown.
Hybrid and virtual participation
Association event planning has settled into a mixed-format environment. The 2024 Association Benchmarking Report found that 56.7% of associations planned to host hybrid events in 2024 and beyond. By comparison, 41.5% planned live-only events, and 1.7% planned virtual-only events. The categories describe planned event approaches, not the percentage of attendees expected in each channel.
The same report measured perceived member-engagement value. In 2024, 43.0% of respondents rated virtual conferences or events as very or extremely valuable for member engagement. The corresponding figure for hybrid events was 25.4%. These ratings indicate that virtual and hybrid formats were not evaluated identically, even though hybrid planning was more common than either live-only or virtual-only planning in the reported outlook.
Virtual access was also applied unevenly across conference components. In 2024, 36.8% of associations offered an opening keynote to a virtual audience. Breakout sessions were offered virtually by 31.4%, while 18.2% offered pre-conference programs to a virtual audience. An expo hall was offered virtually by 14.9%.
That spread matters when an association defines “hybrid.” A hybrid event may include a livestreamed keynote without making every workshop, networking opportunity, or exhibitor interaction available online. Attendance reporting should therefore identify which sessions or experiences were accessible remotely.
During the disruption of 2020, the shift was much more abrupt. At least 51% of organizations reported modifying face-to-face conferences, expos, or events into virtual events, and 92.5% offered virtual events to members. Those figures come from the ASAE Association Impact & Policy Snapshot: Final Report and describe 2020, rather than the later planning outlook.
How large are association meetings?
International association meetings cover a broad range of attendance sizes. The UIA Survey on International Association Meeting Issues – 2024 reported the following usual major-meeting sizes in 2024:
| Usual major international association meeting size | Organizations |
|---|---|
| 50 or fewer delegates | 25% |
| 51–100 delegates | 17% |
| 101–250 delegates | 24% |
| 251–500 delegates | 14% |
| 501–1,000 delegates | 9% |
| 1,001–2,500 delegates | 5% |
| 2,501–5,000 delegates | 4% |
| 5,001–7,000 delegates | 1% |
| More than 7,000 delegates | 1% |
The largest single category was meetings with 50 or fewer delegates, at 25%. The next largest was 101–250 delegates, at 24%, followed by 51–100 delegates at 17%. At the other end of the distribution, 1% reported 5,001–7,000 delegates and another 1% reported more than 7,000.
These figures are reported organization shares, not a global delegate total. They are most useful for choosing planning benchmarks: a small international association meeting and a large convention may both be called conferences, but their registration, room-block, staffing, and participation assumptions will be very different.
The 2020 ASAE snapshot also linked meeting size with event disruption. Among organizations with meetings under 75 attendees, 4.8% reported having no events in 2020. The share was 23.2% for organizations with meetings of 251–500 attendees and 43.5% for organizations with meetings above 1,000 attendees. These percentages describe organizations reporting no events in that year; they do not measure the likelihood that any individual conference was canceled.
International meeting activity
The UIA International Congress Calendar recorded 9,491 international meetings in 2023. Earlier counts were 11,200 in 2022, 10,404 in 2021, and 10,041 in 2020. The calendar recorded 15,835 meetings in 2019, followed by 14,810 in 2018, 14,823 in 2017, and 15,109 in 2016.
| Year | International meetings recorded |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 15,109 |
| 2017 | 14,823 |
| 2018 | 14,810 |
| 2019 | 15,835 |
| 2020 | 10,041 |
| 2021 | 10,404 |
| 2022 | 11,200 |
| 2023 | 9,491 |
The calendar count reached 15,835 in 2019, then recorded 10,041 in 2020. The later values do not form a simple year-by-year return to the 2019 count: 2022 was recorded at 11,200, while 2023 was recorded at 9,491. Because these are calendar records, they describe international meeting activity captured by the UIA rather than total attendance across all association events.
The UIA Yearbook listed 30,927 active international bodies with some form of meetings activity in its 2024/2025 edition. The data was collected in 2023. That measurement should be kept distinct from the annual meeting counts: one describes active international bodies, while the other describes meetings recorded in particular calendar years.
Which event formats engage members?
Traditional face-to-face events remained the strongest-rated format in the 2024 Association Benchmarking Report. In 2024, 91.4% of respondents rated traditional conferences, trade shows, or face-to-face events as very or extremely valuable for member engagement. The comparable 2023 figure was 91.5%, making the two reported percentages nearly identical.
Other event types received lower, but still substantial, value ratings in 2024. Networking events were rated very or extremely valuable by 71.6% of respondents. Committee meetings reached 66.1%, and training and development events reached 65.4%. Annual or regional meetings were rated that highly by 56.6%.
The report also showed narrower value ratings for specific audience or commercial formats. Young-professional events were rated very or extremely valuable by 36.5% of respondents in 2024. Appointment-setting events reached 24.7%.
These figures measure perceived value for member engagement, not attendance volume. A format can be highly valued without being the largest event, and an event with many registrants may serve different goals from a smaller networking or committee meeting. For planning, attendance counts and engagement ratings should be reported as separate indicators.
Attendance risks and planning signals
Recent attendance signals are not uniformly positive. In ASAE’s 2025 Insight Update, 50% of association CEOs reported decreased meeting attendance. In the same update, 66.9% of associations reported no change in exhibitor participation, while 14.5% of trade associations reported increased meeting attendance. These measures concern different respondent groups and outcomes, so they should not be combined into one attendance rate.
The 2025 figures are a reminder to monitor exhibitors and delegates separately. A meeting may hold steady in exhibitor participation while attendance falls, or a trade association segment may report growth while CEOs overall report declines. Registration totals, exhibitor participation, and segment-level attendance each answer a different planning question.
The 2020 size-based figures also show why a single recovery benchmark can mislead. No events were reported by 4.8% of organizations with meetings under 75 attendees, 23.2% of organizations with meetings of 251–500 attendees, and 43.5% of organizations with meetings above 1,000 attendees. Those shares describe the 2020 disruption and should not be treated as current cancellation rates.
One 2024 evaluation offers another channel-specific attendance signal. The EAA 2024 Annual Evaluation Survey reported that 91% of respondents attended its annual meeting onsite, online, or both. The measure combines onsite and online attendance, so it is not directly comparable with statistics that count only physical delegates.
For an association conference dashboard, the most useful minimum set is therefore: onsite attendance, online attendance, hybrid access by session type, exhibitor participation, and the share of respondents rating each format highly for engagement. Keeping the measurement period, geography, audience, and event format visible alongside each percentage makes year-to-year comparisons easier to interpret.