5 Deals in 24 Hours: What’s Behind the Surge in Events M&A?

The events industry rarely sees a day like this. Five major deals were announced in a 24-hour window — activity that signals renewed confidence across agencies, organizers, and event-tech platforms.

• Encore’s second acquisition in less than two weeks, expanding into event planning by acquiring FIRST, a global brand experience company. 
• The Eventbrite-Bending Spoons deal eased years of Wall Street pressure on the long-struggling ticketing platform. 
• Unbridled and OrangeDoor revealed a strategic merger that creates a 234-person, transatlantic events agency.
• Easyfairs made its first North American acquisition by purchasing the Energy Projects Conference & Expo. 
• Spiro, the experiential agency within GES, announcing it had acquired 2Heads, the London-based creative agency with a strong footprint in North America and Europe. 

These deals cap off a year that began with heightened concerns about costs, geopolitics, and shifting U.S. policy. President Trump’s aggressive tariff policies in March fueled additional instability, sending portions of the industry into a tailspin.

Investments Ramping Up

Doug Emslie, chairman of Cuil Bay Capital, said the pause earlier in the year is now reversing, and that even larger transactions are coming in 2026. “A lot of things went on pause this year due to uncertainty, some things have not happened,” said Emslie. “Last year there were 63 global transactions and as of today, there have been 62 and there may be a few more.” 

He expects 2026 to bring “even bigger” deals fueled by increased private equity (PE) investment. “Confidence in the industry is coming through,” Emslie said.

Marco Giberti, founding board member of Events Venture Group and founder and CEO of Vesuvio Ventures, sees the same pattern. “There is a clear signal on strong M&A appetite from PE and strategics.” “All data is supporting sustained and attractive growth,” he added. 

Giberti also made it clear that founders should look out for opportunities to sell. “It will be a great time for founders and companies looking to analyze path-to-exit opportunities during the next 12–24 months, if they are able to showcase attractive growth trajectory,” he said. 

Uncertainty Remains, Just Now Accepted

One theme echoed across the industry is that volatility no longer appears to be slowing down dealmaking. Instead, leaders say it has become a constant that companies can no longer wait out.

“Uncertainty is now baked into the cake. Look at the stock market, we have a loose canon in the White House but we are powering forward regardless,” said events entrepreneur Howard Givner, who is now a senior advisor at investment bank Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips and runs his own event consulting company, Heathcote Advisory Group.

“No one is ignorant of the uncertainty and unpredictability we face, but brands need to get in front of customers, companies need to connect employees, and associations must bring their members together. Face-to-face events are a critical, powerful, irreplaceable vehicle.”

Givner pointed to Encore’s acquisition of global brand experience agency FIRST as particularly notable. “A number of companies are shifting onto the agency side as tailwinds drive face to face forward and they want to get closer to the client,” he said.

While confidence is rising, Emslie warned that industry consolidation could create upward pressure on prices — especially when buyers seek cost synergies or eliminate operational overlap.

“Increases in costs like AV that have gone up dramatically in terms of running events I worry will kill the golden goose,” he said. “We have a very good industry that curates a lot of value and if we keep taking money out to exhibit, to stay, to fly, to eat, people will say we're not getting the return anymore. To me that is the single biggest danger to our industry today. The pressure on our customers pertaining to costs.”

Global Expansion

Global scale has emerged as one of the strongest forces behind the recent surge in dealmaking. Late Tuesday, Spiro, a global experiential agency operating within trade show management company GES, announced it had acquired 2Heads, a London-based experiential marketing agency focused on North America and Europe. The move expands Spiro’s footprint in UK and European markets.

Easyfairs followed a similar path. Its acquisition of the Energy Projects Conference & Expo gave the European organizer a foothold in North America and extended its “geocloning” strategy, the same approach it used to launch Coiltech in the United States.

U.S. expansion is critical, said Emslie, whose firm Cuil Bay Capital invested in Easyfairs in April. Easyfairs’ acquisition in the U.S. will be the first of many, he said. “The target is to have 20% of the business from the U.S. which will be a tough challenge,” said Emslie . “There are a lot of brands in Europe that we want to bring to the U.S., the biggest market in the world for events.”

Bargain Valuations Driving Event-Tech Deals

Another catalyst for dealmaking is cut-price valuations, particularly in event tech, where companies continue to trade far below pre-pandemic highs.

Bending Spoons' acquisition of Eventbrite is an all-cash acquisition paying shareholders $4.50 per share — 82% over its 60-day volume-weighted average. Even with this premium, Eventbrite is still valued at roughly 70% below its 2018 IPO valuation of $1.76 billion.

This deep discount underscores the lingering distress among event-tech platforms. Buyers with capital can secure meaningful bargains relative to historical valuations, even when offering substantial premiums to current trading levels. Whether they can get value from the acquisitions is another matter.