InEvent Reflects on the Value of Face-to-Face Industry Connections Following Connect Marketplace 2026

ATLANTA, Georgia, August 2026 — InEvent is reflecting on the value of face-to-face industry connections following its participation in Connect Marketplace 2026, where CEO and Founder Pedro Góes and CRO and Founder Vinni Neris spent three days meeting with corporate and association event professionals in Tampa Bay, Florida.

Connect Marketplace brought together meetings and events professionals for curated appointments, networking, education, and business development. The format placed direct conversations at the center of the experience, giving planners, suppliers, and industry partners opportunities to discuss upcoming programs and build relationships in person.

For InEvent, those conversations became the most important part of the experience.

Across meetings in Tampa Bay, Góes and Neris spoke directly with event professionals about the programs they are planning, the challenges their teams are navigating, and what they need from the technology supporting those experiences.

The discussions ranged from conferences and association programs to customer events, executive meetings, and other live experiences. Registration, attendee journeys, onsite operations, engagement, measurement, and the complexity of managing event technology were among the practical topics brought into conversations with the InEvent team.

“Connect Marketplace gave us something incredibly valuable: time across the table from the people actually doing this work,” said the InEvent team. “You hear the realities behind an event differently when someone can walk you through what their team is trying to accomplish, where they are losing time and what they want the attendee experience to feel like.”

Face-to-Face Conversations Still Matter

Tampa Bay also reinforced a broader reality for an industry built around bringing people together.

Even as technology changes how event professionals communicate, plan, and operate, exchanging ideas in the same room still has significant value.

Connect Marketplace is intentionally structured around that principle, with pre-scheduled appointments and networking designed to create purposeful connections between meeting professionals and potential partners.

For InEvent, that meant conversations could begin with an actual event challenge rather than a standardized product presentation.

One event professional may be evaluating how to simplify registration and check-in. Another may be trying to understand performance across several programs. Others may be reconsidering a fragmented technology stack or looking for ways to create a more connected attendee journey.

Those discussions give both sides an opportunity to ask better questions, understand different approaches, and determine whether there is a genuine fit.

They also reflect something InEvent had emphasized ahead of the show: understanding where event teams are losing time, what attendees increasingly expect, and what organizations need to measure from their events.

A Small Thank You for Making Time to Connect

InEvent also wanted the Tampa Bay meetings to leave attendees with something tangible.

Qualified event professionals who completed meetings with the team received a Premium InEvent Tumbler as a thank-you for making room in already packed Connect Marketplace schedules.

For a limited number of qualified meeting attendees, that thank-you will go a step further. Selected recipients will also receive a YETI Rambler® 30 oz, shipped directly to them following the event.

The gifting element was never intended to become the reason for the conversation. It was designed to recognize the time event professionals chose to spend discussing their programs, challenges, and priorities with InEvent.

That distinction matters.

For InEvent, a successful meeting at Connect Marketplace was not simply one that ended with a product demonstration or a next step on the calendar. It was one where an event professional left with a useful idea, a clearer perspective on an operational challenge, or a better sense of what might be possible for their next program.

The Premium InEvent Tumblers became a small extension of that experience, while the YETI Rambler added an extra reward for a limited number of qualified conversations during the show.

“We wanted the meeting itself to be worth the time,” the InEvent team added. “If someone walked away with a new idea, a useful question to take back to their team, or a clearer way to think about their event strategy, that was the real value. The tumblers were simply a way to say thank you for making the time to connect.”

Taking the Connections Beyond Tampa Bay

The end of Connect Marketplace does not mean the end of the conversations that began there.

InEvent will continue connecting with event professionals it met in Tampa Bay as teams move forward with upcoming conferences, meetings, and event programs.

The experience also offered a timely reminder for an industry increasingly focused on demonstrating the value of in-person events: sometimes that value is clearest in the conversations happening between scheduled sessions, across meeting tables and throughout the show floor.

Technology can make those moments easier to plan, manage and measure. But ultimately, people give them their value.

“Event professionals spend so much of their time creating opportunities for other people to connect,” the InEvent team added. “Connect Marketplace gave us the opportunity to do some of that ourselves. We came home with new relationships, useful conversations and a better understanding of what event teams are thinking about next.”

And for the professionals who made time to meet with InEvent, the experience also came with something to remember the conversation by: Premium InEvent Tumblers already in hand, with a limited number of YETI Rambler® 30 oz tumblers still making their way directly to selected qualified attendees.

About InEvent

InEvent is an enterprise event technology platform that helps organizations plan, manage, and scale in-person, hybrid, virtual, and webinar experiences worldwide. InEvent supports event registration, attendee management, onsite operations, engagement, networking, analytics, integrations, and AI-powered event management for modern enterprise event programs.

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