In the events industry, growth often means more attendees, larger venues, and broader programs. As participant numbers increase, an event’s reach expands, sponsorship value grows, and the organization gains greater visibility. However, particularly in highly specialized sectors, another question is becoming increasingly important: Does every meeting really need to become bigger?
PCMA’s 2026 research on the healthcare and life sciences sector approaches this question from a different perspective. While the combined size of the pharmaceutical, medical device, and life sciences markets is expected to reach $2.6 trillion by 2030, this growth is not necessarily expected to make events larger by default. Budget pressures, professionals’ limited time, and demand for more specialized knowledge are pushing some organizations toward smaller and more targeted meetings.
Bigger Does Not Always Mean More Value
The importance of large congresses to the industry is not disappearing. Bringing thousands of professionals together in one place, sharing new research with broad audiences, creating international business connections, and shaping the wider industry agenda are advantages of scale that are difficult to replicate. However, as events grow, it can become harder for participants to access content directly relevant to their own field of expertise. Particularly in healthcare and life sciences, smaller meetings focused on specific diseases, treatments, or technologies are gaining importance alongside broader general sessions.
The European Society for Medical Oncology is one example. With more than 50,000 members, the organization runs specialized meetings focused on specific tumor types, treatments, and technologies alongside its major annual congress. At some of these gatherings, attendance can fall to around 400 people, with the aim not of building a larger crowd but of enabling deeper interaction among professionals working in the same field.
From Participant Numbers to the Quality of Engagement
This shift is not being driven by participant preferences alone. Closer scrutiny of event budgets and sponsor investments is also influencing event formats. In the healthcare sector, pressure on corporate marketing budgets and professionals’ limited time are increasing the need to measure the outcomes of meetings more concretely.
In this environment, practical workshops, roundtable discussions, advisory boards, and invitation-only events that bring together specific participant groups can become more valuable than delivering the same message to hundreds or thousands of people. For organizers, the question is no longer simply, “How many people attended?” but rather, “Did the right people attend, and what did the meeting produce?”
This approach is also changing how event success is measured. Alongside traditional indicators such as attendance and the number of sessions, learning outcomes, participant engagement, and the professional connections generated after the event are becoming increasingly important.
An Event Portfolio Instead of a Single Major Congress
The shift does not necessarily mean the disappearance of large events. Instead, it may lead to a structure in which a single flagship event is surrounded by meetings of different sizes. An organization may hold a large annual congress while also creating smaller meetings for specific areas of expertise, executive gatherings, technical workshops, or closed-group sessions throughout the year. In this way, the reach provided by a major event and the depth offered by a smaller meeting can become parts of the same event strategy.
Similar models are also emerging on the corporate side. Johnson & Johnson’s training centers in India organize more than 850 educational events each year, reaching around 25,000 healthcare professionals across 20 specialties. This scale demonstrates how a large number of targeted meetings can collectively reach a broad professional network without relying on a single mega congress.
Venue Capacity Alone May Not Be Enough for Destinations
The shift affects not only organizers but also event destinations. Cities have long competed for international congresses through convention center capacity, hotel room supply, air connectivity, and large-event infrastructure. These criteria remain important. However, the growing prominence of more specialized meetings is also making a destination’s sector-specific ecosystem more visible. Strong hospitals and research institutions for healthcare meetings, local startup and investment networks for technology events, and university infrastructure for scientific congresses can all become part of a destination’s proposition.
Under this model, a destination is no longer simply the place where an event takes place. Local expertise, research institutions, and professional networks can directly contribute to the event’s content and to the value participants gain from attending.
The Right Scale Is Different for Every Event
Mega events will remain an important part of the business events industry. The visibility, broad professional networks, and ability of major international congresses to bring participants from different sectors together cannot be fully replaced by smaller meetings. However, the growing interest in more specialized gatherings suggests that the industry may need to reconsider the assumption that size and success are synonymous. For some objectives, 10,000 participants may be the right scale, while in another meeting, having 400 of the right people in the same room may create greater value.
The question facing the events industry, therefore, is not whether to choose large or small. The real issue is finding the right scale for the purpose of each event.
