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According to Carats & Cake’s First B2B Survey, 87 Percent of Event Venues and Vendors are Optimistic About the State of their Industry Coming Out of the Pandemic

According to Carats & Cake’s First B2B Survey, 87 Percent of Event Venues and Vendors are Optimistic About the State of their Industry Coming Out of the Pandemic

NEW YORK–()–Carats & Cake, the financial operating system for the events industry, today announced findings from its first quantitative B2B survey of event venues and vendors. The results revealed that 2022 restored optimism for the events industry and the wedding market is not slowing down heading into 2023. The Carats & Cake B2B Study gathered intelligence from wedding and events industry venues and vendors to better understand the landscape and priorities coming out of the pandemic.

While the pandemic affected the wedding and events industry greatly, the survey results revealed that 87% of respondents are optimistic about the current state of the events industry. In fact, 67% of respondents are fully booked for 2022 and 78.6% are already booking up for 2023, further showing that this year’s wedding boom is not slowing down. 89.9% of respondents did note that they feel helping their customers manage their budgets is somewhat to very important, making flexible payment solutions of great value given rising inflation.

Coming out of the pandemic, consumers are more cautious as they plan for big events with 57.3% of survey respondents revealing that new contract terms around cancellations are becoming common. 79.1% of vendor and venue respondents have not canceled or rescheduled any 2022 weddings pointing to a renewed sense of stability and confidence in moving forward with large scale events.

The results also revealed that:

  • 87.4% of respondents are primarily booking events with over 75 guests
  • 67.3% of respondents are working on weddings with a combination of indoor and outdoor settings
  • 59.9% of respondents feel the wedding market is “very hot” right now
  • 41.2% of respondents added new service offerings in light of the pandemic

“It’s clear that large scale events are back and bigger than ever. In this market, however, consumers are being even more conscientious about how they spend their budgets and venues and vendors are stepping up to ensure they’re part of the solution,” said Jess Conroy, Founder and CEO, Carats & Cake. “Our venue partners and industry vendors are getting heavily booked and are busy years in advance. Our survey results show that couples, while more aware of potential risks and ways to mitigate them, are feeling confident with booking and making their events come to life.”

To access the full results of the Carats & Cake survey, please visit: https://caratsandcake.com/articles/2022-wedding-industry-survey

About Carats & Cake

Carats & Cake is the financial operating system for the events industry. Built by industry leaders, Carats & Cake has cultivated nearly a decade of trust with best-in-class businesses. Founded in 2013 and backed by 1Sharpe Ventures, Acrew Capital, Founders Fund, Moore Specialty Credit, Correlation Ventures, GMO VenturePartners, and others, Carats & Cake delivers purpose-built sales tools and financial solutions to transform the $100B events industry.

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Meetings and Events Show Significant Growth of 334 Percent Over June 2021

Meetings and Events Show Significant Growth of 334 Percent Over June 2021

Knowland, the world’s leading provider of data-as-a-service insights on meetings and events for hospitality, today released its monthly meetings and events data for June reporting a significant increase of 334 percent over June 2021. June 2022 rebounded from May 2022 with a 16.6 percent increase month over month.

  • Average attendees per event continue to outpace 2019 – The average number of attendees per event for June 2022 was 117, compared to 59 in June 2021 and 89 in June 2019.
  • Average space used per person lower than 2019 – The average space used in June 2022 was 3,073 sq. ft. Meetings in June 2021 averaged 2,509 sq. ft. and 3,710 sq. ft. in June 2019. Proportionally from a per person (p/p) perspective, 2022 meeting space used averaged 26 sq. ft. p/p as opposed to 42 sq. ft p/p in 2021 and 42 sq. ft. p/p in 2019.
  • Top five market growth compared to May 2022 – The top five growth markets compared to May (in order) in June were Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Salt Lake City.
  • Corporate meetings continue as the dominant segment – The corporate segment represents 62.2 percent of meeting and event business with Technology, Healthcare, and Financial/Banking taking the lead as the largest industry groups. From a recovery standpoint compared to June 2019 levels, Online Retailer, Urban Infrastructure, Sports Entertainment/Media, Packing/Shipping, and Tobacco are the segments at the highest level of recovery capture in June of 2022.
Corporate meetings continue as the dominant segment representing 62.2% of meeting and event business— Photo by Knowland
Corporate meetings continue as the dominant segment representing 62.2% of meeting and event business— Photo by Knowland

Kristi White, chief product officer, Knowland, said: “June continued the growth we have seen in the past few months. Typically, there is a minor decline in event volume from May to June. So a 16.6 percent growth month-over-month illustrates the continuing strength of recovery for the U.S. Additionally, the biggest growth appeared in the Top 25 Markets and smaller markets outside the tier-one cities which indicates growth is being seen all across the country and not just in the biggest metro areas.”

About the Data: Insights presented are a result of the analysis of meetings and events data acquired through Knowland data collection and aggregation methods, including field reporting and automated methods of customer and non-customer data collection in primary, secondary, and tertiary markets, as well as its large historical database. View the Knowland hospitality industry meeting activity forecast, the U.S. Meetings Recovery Forecast, on its website.

About Knowland

Knowland is the world’s leading provider of data-as-a-service insights on meetings and events for hospitality. With the industry’s largest historical database of actualized events, thousands of customers trust Knowland to sell group smarter and maximize their revenue. Knowland operates globally and is headquartered just outside Washington, DC. To learn more about our solutions, visit www.knowland.com or follow us on Twitter @knowlandgroup.

Kim Dearborn
+1 909 455 4316

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