UK Events Industry - M&A Update 2026

2025 was a good year for the events sector, as rising demand for events, increasing commercial/investor interest and shifting strategic priorities combined to drive an increase in M&A activity and in the overall value of the industry.

Across the year, the UK sector’s total estimated value was reported to have increased by more than 10 per cent, while the global industry recorded the highest levels of dealmaking since prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This strong growth throughout 2025 culminated in a flurry of activity during December, with the UK seeing five deals within the space of a week, including four significant transactions being announced in a little over 24 hours.

As in any sector that is currently experiencing growth, the events sector’s strong 2025 occurred against a backdrop of adverse underlying trading conditions, economic uncertainty and rising geopolitical tension.

Heading into 2026, the salient question to ask when looking at the events industry is whether this growth can be sustained and, if so, whether M&A activity will continue to play such a prominent role.

Growth and resilience in 2025
During 2025, the events sector solidified the impressive recovery it has undertaken since the understandable devastating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and its immediate aftermath, a time when in-person events were, at best, tightly restricted and often completely banned.

According to the UK Events Report 2025, the estimated value of the UK events industry increased from £61.6 billion in 2024 to more than £68.7 billion in 2025. That’s an increase of around £7 billion in a year, or roughly 11.4 per cent.

Analysing the factors that had bolstered the sector’s growth in 2025, Identity Group CEO Michael Gietzen highlighted the strong performance of regional venues and London’s continuing status as a global hub for corporate events.

However, Gietzen also strongly emphasised the challenging backdrop the sector is operating in, amid geopolitical tensions, rising costs and talent shortages. According to Gietzen, the very real positives the industry has seen are occurring “in a geopolitical environment that is more complex than anything the industry has faced in decades.”

Another key factor has been the major resurgence in in-person events since the COVID-19 pandemic, with this impressive resilience seen as helping to attract significant investment into the sector.

The sector’s strong performance also extended into the M&A market. According to an end-of-year report from Mayfield Merger Strategies, analysing dealmaking across the global events market, the sector saw 73 transactions during 2025, the highest number since before the COVID-19 pandemic (83 transactions in 2019).

This surge in dealmaking accelerated towards the end of the year, with Mayfield Merger Strategies reporting that there were 12 deals globally in December, while, in the UK, the sector made headlines with a flurry of five deals in quick succession.

On December 3, US corporate events firm Unbridled and UK agency OrangeDoor announced a merger and London firm 2Heads was acquired by global agency Spiro. The following day, event marketing and brand experience agency FIRST was acquired by global event tech and production company Encore and global comms group Havas acquired London-headquartered creative experience agency Bearded Kitten.

This is not to say that December was an isolated period of intense dealmaking. There were significant levels of M&A seen across the year, with notable UK-related deals including ImpactXM’s acquisitions of B2B events agency Touch Associates in March and London agency Shelton Fleming in August, Freeman’s acquisition of Tag Digital and Encore’s November acquisition of Eclipse.

Overall, 2025 was described by Charlie Hepburn, Chief Growth Officer at immersive experience provider Populate, as “a year of frenzied M&A activity”, following “an unprecedented string of mergers and acquisitions among event and brand experience agencies.”

This M&A surge featured a broad array of transactions, including major deals, smaller acquisitions, cross-border deals and extremely strong private equity investment. According to Mayfield Merger Strategies, there were 37 different buyers across the 73 global deals in 2025, with the top six consolidators all being private equity-backed firms.

The key factors driving M&A

Private equity
Perhaps unsurprisingly in such a risk averse investing environment, the resilient events sector is attracting strong interest from private equity investors. As reported by Mayfield Merger Strategies, private equity backed consolidators dominated dealmaking last year, led by Nineteen Group (eight deals in 2025), Emerald, CloserStill, Easyfairs (five deals each), Hyve and Marketplace Events (both four deals).

Overall, Mayfield’s figures put the total number of events sector acquisitions involving private equity-owned buyers at 42 for 2025, 57.5 per cent of the year’s total.

Looking at private equity involvement in the UK’s experiential marketing sector last year, Populate’s Charlie Hepburn states that a similar percentage of transactions (56 per cent) featured private equity involvement, with a wide range of deals including platform acquisitions of event agencies themselves and bolt-on acquisitions by private equity portfolio companies.

Hepburn cites the easing of interest rates, high levels of dry powder, lower borrowing costs and improved business confidence as critical factors in the strength of private equity interest in the sector.

In addition, he states that the recurring corporate client relationships that several UK agencies have built are highly attractive to global investors, who see the opportunity to scale this internationally.

In November 2025, Illinois-headquartered event production and technology company Encore, a portfolio company of private equity firm Blackstone, acquired UK-based event production company Eclipse.

Eclipse, which was founded in 1988, has developed strong relationships with a number of venues, including major stadiums and London hotels, in addition to marquee direct client partnerships, providing production, scenic and creative services. In 2024, the firm reported turnover of £20.7 million, up 35 per cent year-on-year, with a gross margin of 51.3 per cent.

The deal enabled Encore to expand its network of hotel and venue partnerships into the lucrative London market and venues including ExCeL London, London Stadium, London Park Lane Hotel and the Royal Opera House.

Financial terms were undisclosed, but public filings indicate Eclipse employed roughly 120 staff in 2024, supporting its high-margin growth profile and capacity to service multiple large venues in parallel. For Encore, the acquisition delivers immediate, embedded access to London’s highest-value sites, effectively converting Eclipse’s in-house and preferred-supplier positions into a durable pipeline of corporate, association and hospitality events.

Strategically, the deal deepens Encore’s UK platform in three ways: (1) venue footprint and brand permission in London; (2) incremental creative and scenic capability that complements Encore’s global inventory and show control systems; and (3) stronger enterprise relationships with blue-chip end-clients and luxury hotels. Integration benefits are expected from unified procurement, equipment redeployment across peak calendars, and a common tech stack for show design, ticketing/data capture and post-event analytics.

For Eclipse, Blackstone-backed scale brings faster kit refresh cycles, access to specialised crews, and the ability to bid for larger, multi-site programmes without diluting service levels. Management framed the tie-up as preserving Eclipse’s client relationships and creative culture while unlocking broader solutions and international reach. This positioned the combined operation to capture post-COVID demand recovery and defend margins in a tightening supplier market.

Economic pressure
While the events industry is performing strongly, recording double-digit growth last year and solid levels of M&A activity, there is little denying the harsh economic climate that this is taking place in.

For events companies, this is particularly being felt in the form of rising prices. As Michael Gietzen outlined in a recent article, critical elements of the events industry, from audiovisual equipment, to staging, decor and catering, have increased in price amid customs friction, geopolitical tension and energy price volatility, while there have also been significant wage cost increases.

In addition, insurance premiums are increasing, especially for large-scale events such as festivals and exhibitions, further adding to the cost burden facing events organisers.

This is all occurring while events firms are contending with a host of other headwinds. Attendance is being impacted by slower, more stringent Visa processes for non-UK and non-EU markets, while sustainability considerations and geopolitical concerns are having a material effect on the crucial long-haul corporate travel market.

Like many industries, the events sector is also facing talent shortages, with Michael Gietzen naming production, AV, security, crew and catering as areas of the industry in which recruitment pipelines are being constrained.

As a result of these financial and operational challenges, many companies are being forced to think about how they can improve their resilience. For some, this means pursuing M&A, or being acquired by a larger competitor.

Unbridled President Stan Bullis commented: “From an economic perspective, many boutique agencies are seeking exit strategies in a climate where raising fees is difficult. Inflationary job markets make it more expensive to operate, yet there’s limited opportunity to pass those costs on to clients. As a result, acquisition becomes one of the more viable ways to achieve economies of scale.”

Strategic growth
Of course, it isn’t purely economic pressure that’s driving events sector M&A, many are undertaking dealmaking in order to advance their strategic ambitions. Dealmaking can become an especially effective route to growth in a marketplace in which organic growth opportunities are more constrained and client expectations are evolving rapidly.

As Charlie Hepburn states, events agencies are using M&A “to fast-track what would otherwise take years of organic growth”. As such, deals are being used to expand global reach and enter new geographies, add new capabilities, service lines and specialisms, gain scale and add new technologies and talent. As well as leading larger companies to target smaller businesses, this is also prompting mergers between companies of a similar size.

Along with a greater appetite for M&A activity, there are also a wealth of acquisition opportunities coming to the market, as the sector’s strong performance emboldens owners who had perhaps delayed exits during the COVID-19 pandemic to bring their businesses to market.

According to the Mayfield Merger Strategies report, 67 per cent of businesses acquired in the sector globally last year (49 companies) were acquired from their founders, indicating a strong exit environment for owners seeking to sell.

At the same time, the influx of private equity investment into the events sector means that companies seeking to grow through M&A have a chance to attract funding that can enable them to undertake ambitious buy-and-build growth strategies.

One of the more prominent M&A trends in the sector last year were acquisitions of smaller, specialised businesses by larger agencies. Such smaller companies, Stan Bullis explains, offer abundant creativity and agility, as well as close client relationships.

Amid growing client expectations and the need for agencies to produce engaging, original events, these characteristics often make smaller agencies highly attractive acquisition targets.

Bullis explains: “Their agility enables them to deliver fresh ideas fast, and that responsiveness combined with a deep understanding of local markets and cultural nuance is exactly what clients are demanding today.”

Inbound and outbound activity
During 2025, the UK saw a recovery in M&A activity, driven by a massive surge in inbound dealmaking. Across the broader dealmaking market, international buyers have been attracted to the UK by favourable valuations, the huge scope for consolidation in many sectors and the world-leading status of many UK industries.

In the events sector, this state of affairs is also noticeable. As Michael Gietzen explains, London’s “remains a gravitational centre” for events, boosted by its “unique position” between the US and EU and its diplomatic prominence. This combination, Gietzen says, makes the UK, and London in particular, “a natural host for major summits, think-tank gatherings and soft-power moments.”

“If geopolitical turbulence continues – and all indicators suggest it will – the UK’s value proposition sharpens. It becomes Europe’s safe harbour: stable, globally connected, internationally intelligible, with world-class venues and mature event governance.”

This has extended into M&A, with 2025 seeing a number of acquisitions of UK companies by overseas buyers. These included Impact XM’s entry into the UK market through the acquisition of Touch Associates, US firm Encore’s acquisition of Eclipse and Freeman’s takeover of digital events marketing agency Tag Digital.

However, 2025 wasn’t just a story of overseas giants targeting UK events businesses. The strong performance the sector saw in a difficult environment also enabled UK businesses to gain scale and tap into new markets by making international acquisitions.

UK events companies completed a number of significant acquisitions in the US, including Hyve’s acquisition of US-based healthcare events platform the Health Growth Advisory Network (HGAN) and CloserStill Media’s acquisition of cybersecurity events firm Billington Cybersecurity and business exhibition and conference provider PARCEL Forum.

However, perhaps the most notable flurry of UK activity in the US was undertaken by UK-based events firm Nineteen Group, a company backed by private equity firm Phoenix Equity.

Nineteen Group is a London-headquartered international events business that has established itself as a fast-growing exhibitions and media firm, producing major-scale events across sectors including manufacturing, security and facilities management.

In December 2025, the company unveiled a raft of US acquisitions that marked its first steps into the region. In quick succession, Nineteen Group closed deals for reliability engineering events portfolio ReliabilityWeb, executive-level brand and retail leadership events provider The Lead and subscription commerce conference firm SubSummit.

The deals were described as supporting the group’s continuing US expansion across core verticals including retail, founder-led and manufacturing events.

Looking ahead through 2026
The question for any industry that records strong growth amidst adverse economic and geopolitical conditions is whether this can be sustained. While it is hard to predict anything with a high degree of certainty in such an environment, the resilience of the events sector has been clear to see, while the strong interest that private equity investors have shown suggests that the industry is perceived as a relatively safe bet.

Overall then, it seems that the sector’s impressive performance is set to continue during 2026, something that will provide successful operators with the ability to target growth through acquisitions, whilst also attracting further M&A and innovation funding into the sector through outside investment.

This could also enable UK events companies to continue targeting the overseas acquisitions that became a feature of dealmaking during 2025. Meanwhile, the prominence of the UK as a global events hub and the growth of the UK events industry should help to ensure a steady, potentially increasing, flow of inbound activity.

It is also important to note that adverse trading conditions could also continue to act as a major tailwind to activity. According to Michael Gietzen, rising costs are a structural feature of the industry, rather than a temporary trend. As such, consolidation will remain an invaluable way of building strength and resilience in the face of mounting uncertainty.

Strategically, M&A is also set to remain vital to the industry in the face of increasingly complex client needs. Such considerations emphasise that M&A isn’t simply about scale or financial resilience, but something that will only deliver true strategic success if integration, cultural alignment and talent retention are prioritised.

While there is no doubt the industry is facing a significant number of major challenges, from declining corporate travel and more onerous Visa processes to rising costs and talent shortages, the sector appears in a strong position to continue meeting these issues head on.

Going into 2026, the key role M&A has played in this appears set to continue, with Mayfield Merger Strategies reporting that the first two weeks of the year saw five significant M&A transactions. This year, then, M&A should continue to help events agencies build resilience in the face of persistent challenges and secure growth at a time when organic expansion is likely to be challenging.

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