Epic Events Podcast with
Kit Hamilton

Why Most Events Fail (And How Fast You Can Fix Them)

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  • Kit Hamilton

    Kit Hamilton is an event and marketing leader with 25+ years of experience at Gartner, Forrester, Pitney Bowes Software, IBM, and other major organizations. She has guided event and product portfolios through periods of growth and, more notably, through turnarounds. Most recently, as a consultant, she revived Forrester's B2B conference after years of decline.

About the Episode

What do you do when your conference has been running for years and the numbers keep slipping?

In this episode, Muhammad Younas sits down with Kit Hamilton to talk about what it actually takes to turn an event around. Kit’s view is simple: most events don’t fail because of content, audience size, or quality. They fail because no one figured out what was really broken. She explains what she looks for when she walks into a struggling conference, from goals and year-over-year trends to the growth opportunities teams tend to miss.

The conversation covers the decisions event teams wrestle with every day. Should you go bigger or more intimate? Is a celebrity speaker worth the fee? One large conference or a series of small dinners? Kit also makes the case that networking needs a rethink, because dropping people in a bar and telling them to mingle isn’t working, especially for introverts.

You’ll also hear why 500 booth scans mean nothing on their own, how to agree on what success looks like before the event, and where AI is already saving event teams time. If your event is stuck in a slow decline, this episode is a good place to start.

Key Takeaways

  • Diagnose before you fix by reviewing your goals, year-over-year trends, and what sponsors, attendees, and the market are telling you.
  • Set multiple objectives for one event, such as winning new logos, shortening deal cycles for clients already in play, strengthening partner relationships, and getting time with media and analysts.
  • Don’t assume bigger is better; senior executives prefer intimate settings, so create smaller spaces within larger events.
  • Redesign networking around a shared purpose, like an activity or pub quiz, so attendees can join in naturally instead of walking into a room alone.
  • Book celebrity speakers only when their story fits your theme and matters to your audience; a strong story arc is worth more than a famous name.
  • Choose venues people can reach with one flight, and keep C-level events out of convention centers.
  • Use small dinners for senior executives who need the right people more than a full agenda, and larger conferences for bringing entire teams together.
  • Skip the backpacks and water bottles; pick useful swag that suits your audience, even if it doesn’t carry your logo.
  • Use AI to automate repetitive work like speaker bios, photos, and schedule checks, and to enrich the lead data you capture.
  • Agree upfront on what counts as a lead, how follow-up works, and what pipeline you expect, so the cost conversation is about results rather than scan counts.