CEMA Newsletter: October 2024

Member Spotlight: Angie Smith, Invision

This month, we had the pleasure of connecting with InVision Communications CEO and long-time CEMA member, Angie Smith. She openly shared what CEMA means to her as well as the challenges and opportunities she believes the events industry will see in 2025.

How long have you been a CEMA member, and what has your involvement been?
I’ve been a proud CEMA member for 15 years. I started as a regular member and gradually became more involved, contributing content and speaking 10 times over the last decade. As I was volunteering for some committees for several years, I was then invited to join the board, where I served as a Board Member at Large, moved up to Vice Chair, and eventually took on the role of Chairwoman. I loved those five incredible years on the board and felt it not only opened my eyes to the power of community but taught me a lot as a leader.

What do you like most about CEMA?
CEMA has always been a community I could rely on. Whether I needed to connect with trusted vendors, find a partner for a project, or even explore new job opportunities, CEMA has consistently delivered. More than a professional network, it’s become the organization I’ve chosen to stand beside. Over the years, I’ve built relationships with many industry colleagues and partners who have become trusted advisors and friends. It’s that combination of professional support, personal connection and community that keeps me committed to CEMA.

What opportunities has CEMA brought you?
One of my absolute favorite aspects of CEMA has been the Study Tours. I’ve had the pleasure of both hosting and attending these behind-the-scenes tours, which offer an in-depth look at how large-scale events and programs are executed. It’s fascinating to see brands, agencies and even competitors come together to learn, share, and collaborate. I’ve been involved in some incredible experiences, from the NFL Draft show, to Cisco Live, Atlassian Team to the Nashville experience. These opportunities have allowed me to dive deep into the logistics of building programs at scale, driving strategic growth, and creating moments that tell a corporate story in unique and memorable ways. The access CEMA provides to cross-industry insights is unparalleled and I think truly a part of our secret sauce.

As an industry leader, what opportunities do you see for the industry in 2025?
I think 2025 holds a lot of promise, particularly in how we go beyond traditional lead generation and focus on the total value of an attendee, which is defined along additional factors that, taken together, measure total impact. Factors such as brand awareness, advocacy, and path to purchase.

Additionally, inclusion will continue to play a critical role, with a growing focus on neurodivergence and other forms of representation and accessibility. There’s also an exciting opportunity to diversify how we deliver content.

Finally, I see mini docuseries, podcasts, and other non-traditional shorter formats becoming essential tools for content atomization. Planning for this in advance will allow teams to extract more value and efficiency from their content. This ties back to what CEMA has always done well—offering behind-the-scenes perspectives, just like their study tours, but applied to how we build content experiences.

What challenges do you see for the industry in the coming year?
One of the biggest challenges is the commoditization of events. This isn’t happening in every industry, but there is a growing perception that events are becoming a checklist item rather than a strategic tool, which we need to combat.

Talent retention is another issue, especially as younger professionals increasingly prioritize work-life balance, something the industry has often been challenged to deliver. We need to attract new talent to this industry and career and know how to combat the work horse < balance as humans.

Scaling client programs while nurturing talent will require some creative problem-solving too. The most repeated words in the first 8 months of 2024 by my own team and our roster of clients is “how do we scale for the future”.

Another item that is super clear is that audiences have fundamentally changed since the pandemic. People are traveling less and are much more selective about the events they attend. They are also far more digitally savvy, with higher expectations for engagement across all touchpoints. This means we need to deliver experiences that go beyond what they can access online.

So, while the challenges are real, the opportunities to innovate are really exciting. This is our time as an industry to shine!

Angie Smith, CEO of experiential marketing industry leader InVision Communications, is a connector of ideas, a catalyst for conversations, an agent for growth, and a designer of experiential moments. Angie has been suiting up for the win in the brand experiences space for 25+ years and as a pioneer in the digital event space, a culture builder of high-performing teams, and is an admitted student of life. Prior to InVision, her career includes notable tenures at industry giants such as Atlassian, Cisco and INXPO. Harnessing her brand-side experience, she is focused on leading InVision into a new era of accelerated growth through a strategic shift in approaching client business rooted in holistic, campaign-driven marketing strategies that aim to enhance audience engagement programs and brand experiences for InVision’s Fortune 100 clients.