Report:
Magic Quadrant for Event Marketing and Management Platforms
How does Gartner define the Event Marketing and Management Platforms market in 2025?
Gartner defines event marketing and management platforms as tools that enable B2B marketers to execute virtual and/or in-person events for external audiences. These platforms provide native capabilities to engage and communicate with prospective attendees, registrants and sponsors, manage logistics, deliver content and enable attendees to engage with other participants. Out-of-the-box integrations with sales force automation and marketing automation platforms are provided to track engagement. Features and capabilities are provided in a self-service model, with some platforms offering managed service support. The event technology market does not include webinars or internal meeting-specific solutions. These platforms help B2B event and marketing teams create events, tradeshows, conferences, roundtables and field marketing events for engaging prospective buyers, customers and partners via in-person and/or virtual formats.
Key Facts for Magic Quadrant for Event Marketing and Management Platforms in 2025
- Publication Date: 10-Jun-2025
- Document ID: G00813760
- Coverage: Global
- Authors: Christy Ferguson, Precious Ozokpo
- Core Purpose: Using comprehensive event technology is a necessity for marketers to effectively reach event audiences and deliver engaging experiences. Use this research to match your business requirements for virtual and in-person events and select technology vendors to deliver high-value event experiences.
Strategic Planning Assumptions
No strategic planning assumptions provided.
How was the Event Marketing and Management Platforms market evolved in 2025?
- This Magic Quadrant replaces the Magic Quadrant for Event Technology Platforms
- 77% of respondents include in-person hosted events in their marketing plan, up from 73% in 2024
- 45% of tech marketing leaders have actively used an event marketing and management platform in the last 12 months
- 9% added a platform and 6% retired platforms in the last 12 months
- Investment in in-person events has surpassed pre-COVID-19 levels
- Virtual events have declined, primarily limited to webinars and streaming of live in-person content
- Significant growth in field marketing events with smaller, regional in-person formats
- Rapid rise of event centers of excellence (COEs) in buyer organizations
- Market consolidation continues with mergers and acquisitions (e.g., Cvent acquired Splash, RainFocus acquired WebEvents Global)
- AI capabilities advancing beyond content generation to audience generation, custom reporting, and agentic AI concierge support
- Adjacent market vendors (meeting solutions, webinar providers) have retreated from in-person event market
What product features are required to be included in this year's evaluation?
- Attendee management — to facilitate registration and check-in processes and to support pre- and postevent communication.
- Attendee experience management — to communicate with attendees during an event, including through chat, Q&A moderation and gamification, and to deliver relevant content in a single dynamic experience across multiple concurrent sessions to support engagement with attendees before, during and after an event.
What are the common features of top products in the Event Marketing and Management Platforms space?
- Agenda management — to support call-for-papers activity, speaker management, session selection and content repository capabilities.
- Mobile experience management — to provide attendees with agenda access, venue maps, networking capabilities and real-time alerts for logistical changes via a smartphone or tablet device.
- Reporting and analytics — to track registration, measure event and session performance, and compare year-over-year insights, including integrations to the marketing technology (martech) stack.
- Admin access management — to provide administrative access rights, and build additional user/admin profiles to control user access to data and/or features/capabilities, and ensure compliance with corporate guidelines.
- Sponsor management — includes sponsor and exhibitor booth management and sponsor attendee engagement, including lead capture and tracking.
- AI automation — to inform and guide development of marketing promotional material, event content and workflow management. In addition, AI capabilities support predictive analytics, data insights and reporting.
- Role-based attendee experiences — to assign registrant and attendee roles and enable access to content and/or features/functions within the attendee-facing experience.
- Budget management — to manage venue, food and beverage, travel and promotional costs at the event level and across multiple events to support ROI justification.
- Martech and sales force automation (SFA) integrations — APIs or prebuilt integrations enable marketers to push data into the martech stack to provide visibility and transparency into event activity and results.
- Managed services — to support end-to-end development and delivery of events.
- Venue management — to manage location sourcing, room bookings and meal preferences for attendees.
Scope Exclusions
- The event marketing and management market does not include webinars, video/streaming services or internal meeting-specific solutions
- Use cases such as meetings with internal stakeholders and/or webinars are excluded
Inclusion Criteria
Vendors must, among other requirements:
- Proven ability to deliver event marketing and management technology functionality
- Purpose-built, stand-alone platform in General Availability (GA)
- At least $40 million in 2024 fiscal-year SaaS subscription revenue OR at least $10 million in fiscal-year SaaS subscription revenue and 45 net new customers
- At least 150 customers using the platform for event marketing and management use cases
- Support all use cases defined in the market definition (Hosted Conferences with Exhibitors, Hosted Conferences/Roadshows, Hosted Field Marketing Events)
- GA platform must support seven mandatory capabilities
Ability to Execute — Relative Weighting
- Product or Service - High
- Overall Viability - High
- Sales Execution/Pricing - Medium
- Market Responsiveness/Record - High
- Marketing Execution - Medium
- Customer Experience - Medium
- Operations - Low
Completeness of Vision — Relative Weighting
- Market Understanding - High
- Marketing Strategy - Medium
- Sales Strategy - Low
- Offering (Product) Strategy - High
- Business Model - Medium
- Vertical/Industry Strategy - Low
- Innovation - Medium
- Geographic Strategy - Low
FAQs
Q: What does this research cover?
A: This research covers event marketing and management platforms that enable B2B marketers to execute virtual and/or in-person events for external audiences. The platforms provide native capabilities for attendee management, attendee experience management, agenda management, mobile experience management, reporting and analytics, admin access management, and sponsor management. The research evaluates vendors across three core use cases: hosted conferences with exhibitors, hosted conferences/roadshows, and hosted field marketing events. This research does not include webinars or internal meeting-specific solutions.
Q: Who should use this research?
A: Event marketers and B2B marketing leaders responsible for marketing events to engage external audiences should use this research to: evaluate event marketing and management platform vendors based on their ability to execute and completeness of vision; assess vendor strengths and cautions; match business requirements for virtual and in-person events with vendor capabilities; identify which vendors align with specific use cases and goals; build business cases and RFPs; and select technology vendors to deliver high-value event experiences. The research should be used in conjunction with the companion Critical Capabilities for Event Marketing and Management Platforms research and Gartner client inquiry.
Q: What are the mandatory features of vendors included in this market?
A: Vendors must provide two mandatory capabilities: (1) Attendee management to facilitate registration and check-in processes and support pre- and postevent communication, and (2) Attendee experience management to communicate with attendees during an event through chat, Q&A moderation and gamification, and deliver relevant content in a single dynamic experience across multiple concurrent sessions to support engagement before, during and after an event.
Q: What are some reasons for not being included in this report?
A:
- Does not offer a purpose-built, stand-alone platform in General Availability
- Has prerequisite licensing dependencies (e.g., requires third-party streaming service or badge printing service)
- Provides event tech capabilities only as add-on modules rather than stand-alone offering
- Does not meet minimum revenue threshold ($40M in SaaS subscription revenue OR $10M with 45 net new customers)
- Has fewer than 150 customers using the platform for event marketing and management use cases
- Does not support all three required use cases (Hosted Conferences with Exhibitors, Hosted Conferences/Roadshows, Hosted Field Marketing Events)
- Does not support the seven mandatory capabilities in the market definition
- Focuses primarily on webinars or internal meeting solutions rather than external audience events
- Does not support multi-session or in-person event formats
Q: What differentiates Ability to Execute vs. Completeness of Vision?
A: Ability to Execute focuses on the vendor's current operational performance and delivery capabilities, including product quality, financial viability, sales effectiveness, market responsiveness, customer support, and operational efficiency. It evaluates how well vendors execute today. Completeness of Vision assesses the vendor's strategic direction and future planning, including market understanding, product roadmap, innovation capabilities, business model strategy, and geographic/vertical expansion plans. It evaluates where vendors are heading and their ability to anticipate and shape market trends.
Reference
- Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Event Marketing and Management Platforms, 10-Jun-2025, ID G00813760
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