Why Learning is About More Than Listening

As The Meetings Show unveils the Education Programme for the 2025 show, Samme Allen, CEO The Attendee Experience Company (atex) and our guest editor for this newsletter, explores the need to challenge the status quo for education delivered at industry events, encouraging a more experiential learning format to create a more lasting impact.

Traditional education sessions at industry shows often follow a predictable format: a speaker on stage, a panel discussion, and an audience listening passively. While these formats have their place, they don’t always foster deep engagement or lasting impact. Learning isn’t just about absorbing information, it’s about interaction, creativity, and application. Hence we are redefining our educational offering for The Meetings Show and turning it into a programme of knowledge.

We believe knowledge should be immersive, thought-provoking, and, most importantly, accessible to all. That’s why we actively follow diversity and neurodiversity guidelines, working with experts to create inclusive content that ensures every attendee can engage meaningfully. We are putting accessibility front and centre with the introduction of captions for all stages and an AI tool to deliver the key insights from our knowledge programme that can be accessed in real time.

Post-show, we will be distributing our playbook, created in partnership with Lim – a global studio of visualisers –  providing a visual round-up of key insights.

For this year’s The Meetings Show, we’ve shaken things up, introducing more hands-on, dynamic, and experiential learning formats that inspire attendees and encourage active participation. Take The Blank Canvas, for example, our space where attendees shape discussions in real-time, ensuring relevance and engagement. This year, we’re introducing our version of The Human Library, where attendees connect one-on-one with industry experts in an open, conversational format, in the process, making the learning stick.

As The Meetings Show is the place where the industry meets, we have listened to the sector and are in the process of designing a kick-off Thursday All Industry session with a difference. As a collective, we are hoping this will challenge, champion, and redefine the future of the meetings and events industry. Expect hard-hitting conversations, unapologetic perspectives, and forward-thinking collaborative dialogue designed to move the industry forward.

At The Meetings Show, education isn’t just something you sit through, it’s something you experience. See you there!