The Theme Advantage: Creating Events People Actually Remember

Themed events, period. Events that are not only fun but also produce a great ROI.

Hello, MPI family. We are going to talk about one of my favorite things: themed events. Themed events, to me, definitely create an experience that not only makes an event more fun but also more memorable. One of the things that's pretty important about themed events is their transportive effect.

They create a psychology; they already set a mood and atmosphere for people to come to. Think about it.

Coming up is Valentine's Day. You do a Valentine's event. What do you think? Red hearts, Cupid, roses, love, and couples. You get it. It already sets the mood and the expectation. This is a great way to set up for an event that will help you create something memorable and deliver a strong return on investment.

Using Google Trends, I collected data showing that, from 2024 to 2025, the top trending themes were future AI, wellness sanctuary, and nostalgia. These are some of the top events people were searching for, or that were happening during that time period. With Google and AI, an event that's easily searchable can be extremely helpful, especially when you're trying to get more people to show up.

By The Numbers: Why Themes & Immersion Matter in 2025

If you need to convince stakeholders to approve a budget for a themed event, use these statistics to back up your pitch.

The "Content" Factor

• 98% of consumers create digital or social content at live events, meaning a strong theme guarantees user-generated marketing (Source: EventTrack 2025).
• 72% of event attendees actively capture and share content online, with Instagram and TikTok being the top platforms (Source: EventTrack 2025).

The Budget Shift

• 74% of Fortune 1000 marketers plan to increase their event budgets in 2025 to prioritize these experience-led campaigns (Source: EventTrack 2025).
• $128.35 Billion: The projected global spend on experiential marketing for 2025, surpassing pre-pandemic levels (Source: Marketing Charts).

The "Immersive" Requirement

• 64% of attendees now explicitly prefer "immersive, hands-on experiences" over static technological elements like simple apps or screens (Source: Freeman).
• $473.9 Billion: The projected value of the global immersive entertainment market by 2030, proving that "futuristic" and "tech-heavy" themes are a long-term industry shift, not a fad (Source: Yahoo Finance).

All right, let's think of some more pros, and we'll also think of some cons when it comes to themed events. One big pro of themed events is that they give your guests a natural way to break the ice. If there's a theme event, say, a futuristic one, sometimes people think, "I'm going to come as a character or dress a certain way." When someone wears an interesting costume or outfit. One of the easiest conversation starters is “Oh, I love your dress or " Wow, that's an amazing suit.” Thinking of ways to help our guests naturally connect with others is powerful.

Now, if you think of yourself as an actor, you don't have to be yourself. You can be this persona, and it helps you have more fun and be more interactive with the event. Next, I guess the best way to put it is that the Instagrammability or the content creation aspect of themed events is super high.

Everyone's going to be talking about it, and everyone's going to want to take pictures. Not only will you have your own photo and video team collecting content, but your guests will be excited to get pictures of themselves in their costumes or theme designs. Your guests will post pictures of themselves, where you will need to remind them to tag the event, your client, or your company. The eyes on the event is the better ROI.

You can also add other aspects to it. Think of it, the food, the music, the decor, all of these different things help direct a special idea.

Now let's think of some of the cons. One of the toughest parts of a themed event is that it takes much more time to set up. You probably need to plan for 8 to 12 weeks just to get to the save-the-date stage and do all your marketing, because if you have a special theme, people are going to have to think, wait, where am I going to get this?

Where am I going to get this costume? You're going to be thinking, what about all this special decor? And it's not something you can just run to a store; you probably have to order a special shipper or create one.

That's where it starts to get like, these take so much extra work. But at the end of it, once all the work is done, it will be very beneficial.

So it might be too late to plan that amazing Valentine's event, but you could use some of this information to present to your corporate clients and educate them on how important it is to add a little more flair to their next big conference. This could make their conference go from simple to magical and memorable, for sure. As always, as event professionals, we're not just creating an event. We're creating an experience, transforming an event into its own world.

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