By Karim Radwan
September 11, 2025
The Event Industry is Emotionally Bankrupt
You’ll attend countless events throughout your life, but only a few will leave a lasting impression. Every year, billions are poured into conferences, galas, concerts, and summits, yet only a select handful truly land with their audiences. Corporate events are no exception and Cvent estimated this arena alone to be worth $325 billion as of 2023.
The difference between forgettable and unforgettable isn’t budget. It’s perspective. Rethinking the way you approach event management can unlock experiences that resonate deeply with attendees and with your bank account.
This article reveals a simple shift that transforms ordinary gatherings into memorable moments and in turn generate greater returns.
Most event organizers chase greatness. They throw money at venues, lighting, catering and hope the stars align for a flawless outcome. The goal? Attract new customers, thank the loyal ones, flex a little, launch something shiny, build relationships, raise funds or just pass a message. Sometimes all of the above.
But none of it matters if memories of your event vanish faster than the free champagne. If people forget it overnight, you’ve missed the mark and likely just burned a pile of cash for nothing.
How to Become Unforgettable
To leave a strong impression, your event must be remembered in a positive way. To achieve this, you must shift your focus from trying to create the perfect event to crafting memories.
You may now wonder, how do you craft sticky memories? The answer lies in the way our brain is wired. It was not designed attend black tie events and sip champagne from a flute. It was designed to survive in the savanna. Back then, remembering which berry your late cousin ate, or which animal stung your uncle before he lost his arm was a matter of life or death.
So, like the bouncer at your event keeping out unwanted guests, your brain runs a tight door policy for memories that he keeps in storage. Only the most emotionally charged experiences pass security and access your internal hard drive. Just like a VIP pass that gets you straight to the front of the queue, emotions are your safest bet to access your brain’s exclusive memory club. Thus, your events must trigger emotions to be remembered.
Indeed, studies show that emotional experiences are far more likely to be recalled. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman explains this beautifully in his TED Talk The Riddle of Experience vs. Memory, where he breaks down how our brain doesn’t just record what happens, it records how it felt when it happened.
Intent Over Features
Making deliberate choices to evoke specific feelings in an audience through design, communication, or experience is called emotional intent. And this is exactly what you must use to create a successful event.
Let me illustrate what emotional intent looks like with two weddings I attended. Both couples were wealthy. Both wanted the day to be unforgettable. But both delivered wildly different outcomes.
Wedding 1:
Dress code: Black tie
Venue: A top-tier 5-star hotel
Organization: Impeccable. Gourmet food, fine wine, live atmosphere music, unlimited champagne.
Total budget: $150,000
Emotional intent: Unclear. Luxury is not an emotion.
Guest feedback: Boring evening. Black tie in the heat was torture (negative emotions stick more vividly in memories).
Wedding 2:
Dress code: Relaxed, with swimwear encouraged for the bold.
Venue: Public beach by the lake
Organization: Barbecue with quality cuts, original beers and wine, temporary setup.
Emotional intent: Surprise and pleasure. The grooms arrived in an amphibious car that guests could later test drive (it was lent by a friend at no cost). Drinks were unique, not the usual supermarket lineup. The vibe was clear, enjoy the scenery, the company and the moment. Some guests even dipped in the lake.
Total budget: $1500
Guests feedback: One of the best weddings ever. Genuine, personal, unforgettable. First time in an amphibious car. Full of surprises and joy.
Same wealth. Different purpose. One tried to impress. The other made people feel. Guess which one people still talk about.
This does not mean you must organize your next event in a public space. Rather, you must view the event through the lens of your new trade — memories.
Emotion Is Your New Strategy
For a product launch, it is tempting to showcase every technical feature of your latest innovation. Sadly, this often leads to a parade of slides and jargon that puts half the room to sleep before the coffee break because product features do not trigger emotions.
Apple are masters at emotional intent. Their product launches are emotional theatre disguised as tech demos. They do not lead with features like megapixels or RAM. They lead with what you’ll feel.
In their article “Behind Apple’s product launch event: storytelling strategy”, Brand Minds explain that Apple videos will always show positive moods that people wear—they are highlighting aspirational states that you want and would be able to reach by acquiring their products. They create anticipation. The stage, the lighting, the pacing are all engineered to build suspense. Even the pauses in speech are deliberate. You are not watching a keynote. You are joining a tribe. And when they flip the spotlight to real users doing extraordinary things, it is emotional validation at scale. That is not marketing. That is memory making.
For your next event, start with emotion. Decide what you want your guests to feel, and make sure it aligns with your product and purpose. Then build everything around that feeling. The venue, the music, the invitations, the uniforms, the activities — each element must contribute to the emotional goal. Don’t spend for spectacle, spend for impact.
If you’re launching a new 4×4 electric vehicle, you might choose excitement and awe as your emotional anchors. Everything should align to evoke those feelings. The soundtrack, staff uniforms, event invitation, activities all working in harmony to trigger excitement and awe. Especially the venue must support the emotional intent. It could be a tree-top lodge, a floating platform in the middle of a river, or a quarry pit carved into the earth. Every element should work in harmony to amplify the experience.
The Blueprint for Unforgettable Events
All of this leads to one clear framework: the Blueprint for Emotional Event Design. We distils the blueprint give actionable principles.
- Start with Emotions, Not Logistics
Define exactly what you want your guests to feel. Awe? Excitement? Belonging? This is your emotional anchor — everything else serves it. - Align Emotions with Brand and Purpose
Your chosen emotions must reflect your product, your business, and your strategic goal. - Design Every Element to Trigger These Emotions
From the soundtrack to the staff uniforms, from the invitation wording to the activities — all elements should reinforce the emotional intent. - Choose a Venue That Triggers These Emotions
The venue isn’t just a backdrop. It’s part of the emotional architecture. The space must amplify the story. If it is not possible ensure the fit out of the venue portrays your emotional anchors. - Audit Every Dollar for Emotional ROI
Every currency should be assessed by how well it contributes to generating the chosen emotion. If it doesn’t serve the feeling or an essential item such as security, cut it or invest it in something that better reflects the emotional intent.
When your event is cohesive and emotionally charged, you’re no longer just hosting. You’re crafting memories. That’s how you turn fleeting moments into unforgettable ones and guests into loyal fans.
Karim is a distinguished PMO and Transformation leader with over 15 years of experience orchestrating strategic, high-impact initiatives across industries. Through his writing and advisory services, Karim supports governments and corporate leaders in navigating strategic transformation, regulatory alignment, and enterprise-wide change.
