It’s Time to Be Irrational: Reclaiming Experimentation in Event Strategy

The Great Offline Rush is here.

As artificial intelligence reshapes how brands connect with audiences, in-person experiences are emerging as the last place where trust is built face-to-face, where human connection happens without mediation, and where presence still carries weight. CMOs are moving budgets. CEOs are paying attention. The industry that once fought for a seat at the table now has the whole table looking its way.

And yet.

Walk any major trade show floor. Scroll through industry award submissions. Attend the conferences that are supposed to set the standard. You won’t find breakthrough thinking or bold experimentation. You’ll find sameness at scale.

AI-powered photo booths. Gamified lead capture. Personalized swag stations. Activations that look impressive on Instagram but feel interchangeable in person. We’ve gotten remarkably efficient at incremental innovation, taking what worked last year and making it 10% more interactive, 15% more data-driven, 20% shinier.

The industry has become proficient at executing well-known ideas more effectively. We’ve lost the muscle for unknown ideas.

This momentum problem has been building for years, and now AI culture is accelerating it. Every algorithm suggests the logical next step. Every model optimizes for what worked before. The tools themselves remain neutral. The culture forming around them pulls us toward consensus, toward optimization, toward rational decision-making that feels safe.

We’re thinking on autopilot. We’re building for consensus, not futures.

And just as events become central to marketing strategy—just as the stakes get higher and the investment grows—we’re all reaching for the same playbook.

Here’s what that means: right when differentiation matters most, we’re becoming less differentiated. Right when brands need to stand out, everyone’s standing in the same place.

The word we need? Irrationality.

Not chaos. Not recklessness. Strategic irrationality.

The drive to outrun ordinary without proof that it will work first.

Right now, most event professionals are looking at the same things from the same angle. Keynotes framed by executive priorities. Booths filled with LED screens, mascot plushies, and laptop stickers. Networking receptions and braindate lounges that feel like 2018, still. And on and on.

When everyone’s looking in the same direction, no one sees what’s actually missing. Strategic irrationality requires both new perspective and new practice. Here’s how:

Invite outsiders in.
Your true stakeholders—your audiences—see things you don’t. They know what’s boring. What’s missing. What they wish existed but never say out loud. Ask them. Not in a survey. In actual conversations where you’re genuinely curious about what they’d change.
Look where no one’s looking.
Everyone designs the main stage. Who’s designing the hallway? The coffee line? The moment right after the keynote ends, when people are deciding whether to stay engaged or check their phones? These transition spaces shape experience as much as the programmed ones. Maybe more.
Try the opposite.
If everyone’s going loud, go quiet. If everyone’s scaling up, scale down. If everyone’s adding more, subtract. As Rory Sutherland says beautifully in his book, Alchemy, “the opposite of a good idea is often another good idea.”
Make small bets.
Not every experiment needs executive approval or a business case. What can you test at a small scale? One session. One corner of the expo. One evening event. Give yourself permission to try something that might not work. Small experiments build credibility.
Mandate the experiment.
Make trying something new a requirement, not an aspirational nice-to-do. Before the brief is finalized and the budget is locked, establish that every event will include one untested element.

The pressure event professionals face works directly against this kind of thinking. As events become more central to marketing strategy—budgets grow, stakes rise, scrutiny increases—the instinct is to play it safe and stick with what’s proven. The path to least resistance is to optimize what already works.

But when sameness is the norm, playing it safe becomes the riskiest move.

Forgettable is far more dangerous than experimental. Logic doesn’t make you memorable.

The experiences that will stand out in the next few years won’t be the ones with better AI photo booths or more gamified lead capture. They’ll be the ones willing to try something that might fail. The ones who understand that in an increasingly rational, algorithmic world, irrationality becomes a competitive advantage.

If it feels safe, it’s probably not irrational enough.

This doesn’t mean abandoning strategy or ignoring data. It means remembering that breakthrough ideas rarely come from following the most logical path. They come from shifting perspective. From looking where others aren’t. From being willing to experiment in the spaces between what’s expected and what’s possible.

The industry has the tools. And, as events become the number one priority for marketing, we have the attention of leadership.

What we need now is to champion the irrational.

A version of this post was originally published on smartmeetings.com.