So much work goes into planning an event schedule, which makes it all the more disappointing to see thin attendance in individual sessions when overall registrations were strong. According to the 2026 Freeman Trends Report on the future of adult learning at conferences and tradeshows, the fix may not be a better schedule at all. It may be building an attendee journey instead.
This week we came across that report and got interested very quickly, thinking about how speakers are such an integral part of the learning process at conferences, and dove straight in to see how we can better support planners to pick the best speaker for the job.
Getting the right speaker for the job is only one part of building a learning environment for attendees. We were surprised to find just how many other factors go into supporting attendees to get the most out of an event. And, as we read on, it all made a lot of sense.
Everyone knows the feeling of leaving a conference exhausted instead of energized. It might have a little to do with the late nights and early mornings, but mostly it’s from the schedule. There were too many sessions, too much content, all coming at you too fast, with no room to network, ponder or take action on the insights and learnings.
So, halfway through day one, you’re already triaging. Attend this session or answer the emails that are piling up? Sit through another back-to-back block or find the one person you actually came to meet? Push through one more dense topic or step outside for some reinvigorating sunlight and fresh air?
You’re not imagining it, and you’re not the only one weighing up those trade-offs. Freeman’s research on event attendees found that roughly half end up skipping sessions, including keynotes, just to take a break, connect with someone, or catch up on work. What the study found is that the problem isn’t disengagement or disinterest, but actually what they termed an overstuffed agenda.
So, with this overstuffed agenda problem front of mind, the question becomes: how do you create a journey that will inspire, enlighten and energize your attendees?
Attendees aren’t rejecting learning. They’re rejecting overwhelm.
New research backs this up. Freeman’s 2026 Learning Trends Report, based on nearly 5,000 attendees and organizers, found that only 27% of attendees return to the same event year after year. That is a staggeringly small percentage. They point to one of these key causes being a disconnect between organizer and attendee perception. 83% of organizers believe their learning sessions make attendees want to come back, while only 42% of attendees agree, despite 55% saying “discover take-home, implementable ideas/practices” are their reason for attending.
That gap isn’t about attendees losing interest in learning. It’s pointing to scheduling that leaves too little room for rest, reflection, networking, and choice. When every slot is packed and every session competes with three others in the same time block, attendees don’t experience “a lot of great content.” They experience overload, and overload is what erodes the desire to return, not a lack of expertise on stage.
The good news is that the fix isn’t more sessions. It’s curated sessions, structured thoughtfully.
A schedule is a to-do list. A journey is a curriculum.
An event schedule treats every session as an independent unit chosen on its own merits, slotted wherever there’s room, judged by whether it started and ended on time.
An event journey treats the day the way a good curriculum treats a semester: each session builds on what came before it. Attendees move from foundational ideas to applied ones to the finale that ties it all together with breaks built in to allow them to absorb it.
According to Victoria Matey, a live events researcher, the idea that attention spans are “shrinking” doesn’t hold up. People focus deeply on things that hold their interest all the time. What’s changed is the environment competing for that attention. When sessions lack structure, move too fast, or stack too much complexity at once, they exceed what people can actually process. Even motivated attendees check out. The problem isn’t attention, it’s design.
There are two parts to this design: the high-level event journey, and individual session design. Both have a big impact on how much each attendee gets from their participation. And both impact whether each attendee will be one of the 27% that come back.
How to craft a thoughtful attendee journey
Sessions grouped by topic, category, and track label. Attendees want this made explicit – a majority say grouping sessions by category, topic, or track is one of the most useful ways to guide them through an agenda, and most want to build their own schedule around that structure rather than guess their way through a program.
A thoughtful build across the day. Start with the basics, move into real conversations about applying them, and save the “bringing it all together” moment for later in the day once the foundations have been laid.
Down time placed on purpose. Nearly all attendees say access to on-demand recordings is valuable, and the reason is telling: it takes the pressure off trying to catch everything live, freeing them to prioritize the in-person moments like conversations, networking, the sessions that give way more value from in the room. And, don’t forget: rest and reflection aren’t detracting from the learning experience. They’re part of what makes it stick.
Fewer sessions, deliberately curated. Attendees consistently say the problem isn’t a lack of content, but too much of it, all competing for the same slots. A tighter, more intentional program beats a packed one every time.
Place the Keynote where it has the most impact. An increasing number of attendees are looking for speakers with real industry expertise, and what makes a session valuable isn’t production value. It’s a clear objective up front, real-world examples, and a takeaway people can apply to their own work. A keynote earns its place in the curriculum by being right for the audience and the goal, leaving the audience with actionable takeaways and memorable moments..
Different formats for different attendees. Scheduling alone only solves for when people learn something, not how they learn. Attendees are fairly evenly split on the format they prefer: 24% favor a lecture, 22% want hands-on interaction, 19% prefer workshops or roundtables, 18% respond best to a live demo, and 17% prefer a moderated panel. No format wins by much, so an agenda built entirely around one style only works for a quarter of the room at best. A deliberate mix of formats is part of what makes learning accessible to everyone.
How to create space for attendee connection
Remember the trade-off from earlier: sit through another session, or step out to connect with someone? A well-built journey doesn’t force that choice. It gives attendees a purpose built destination for the moments when they need a break from content, so stepping out doesn’t feel like giving something up.
HubSpot’s approach to its 2026 UNBOUND conference is an inspiring social experiment to draw inspiration from. In addition to scheduling a handful of one-off meetups, the team built three permanent networking hubs, called The Exchanges, staffed and designed around the different reasons people actually want to connect: shared industries, shared roles, and shared identities. The vision is an “always-on” home base that attendees could return to throughout the conference, whether or not there was anything officially scheduled there at the time.
Their design choice tracks with what the data says attendees actually want. Freeman’s research found that half of all attendees say successful networking is their number one reason to return to an event. Giving attendees an intentional place to go between sessions becomes part of the learning journey. The break becomes as valuable as the session it replaced, instead of a moment attendees feel they have to justify.
Getting the best value from your speakers
It’s time to start treating speaker decisions as an event narrative decision. The right speaker for the opening slot is rarely the right speaker for the closing session. Some speakers are brilliant at delivering foundational context while others have the ability to bring case studies and real-world examples, or actionable take-aways.
Speaker selection is still crucially important to attendees. 59% of surveyed attendees want to hear from industry experts during the keynote versus 24% preferring a motivational speaker or celebrity. This doesn’t come as a surprise when you see that over 80% of respondents place high importance on speakers providing real-world examples and implementable key takeaways.
Matching a speaker to where they fit best in the day’s journey (and understanding how much room they need in the agenda) is just as crucial as scheduling for their availability, but much, much harder. Understanding how they prefer to structure sessions, deliver information and how well they engage the audience can affect where they go in the day’s curriculum. Understanding this requires a great deal of knowledge about each speaker and this can be where working with a bureau, who has that knowledge of each speaker, becomes invaluable.
Building your own event journey
Before you start planning your next event, start by answering two questions: how do you want the room(s) to feel? And what do you want attendees to know by the time they walk out?
Everything else – sequencing, pacing, where the keynote sits, where the breaks fall, should be part of the answer to those questions.
If you’re building your next event and want a speaker chosen for where they’ll do the most good in the day, not just for the topic on their bio, that’s exactly the conversation to have with us. Tell us the story you’re trying to tell, or the skills or takeaways you’re trying to teach, and we’ll help you find who fits best.
