This summer has marked an exciting new chapter for The Sponsorship Team, welcoming Brightelm and MCI Suisse as new clients. Our Commercial Division model gives associations and event agencies access to an experienced sponsorship and partnership team without the need to build one in-house - providing the strategy, expertise and commercial resource to turn audiences and events into meaningful revenue.  You deliver the event. We commercialise it.

2025 a year of success across industries

Across four key events in 2024, we achieved 91% of our clients’ combined sponsorship sales targets, in 2025, we increased that result to over 95%. Spanning ITSM tech, computer imaging, animal health, and sound & acoustic speech, this shows how well-versed our approach is to significantly different industry landscapes.

Audience profiling for life sciences conference
 

Many of our clients offer a truly comprehensive event that hits a broad spectrum of potential attendees. While this is a great selling point for registrations, sponsors like to know that their target audience is well represented before committing to an investment. For one of our largest clients, we’ve undertaken a considerable audience profiling project to better identify exactly who the conference attracts, and consider how this might help us better approach new organisations.

Be brave! Buying cycle timescales are reducing

We constantly analyse buying behaviour to spot the changes.  From 2024 to 2026, we’ve noticed a significant uplift in the proportion of companies that book sponsorship in the three months leading up to an event. Bigger sponsors that know an event will be ready to purchase in the early stages (often benefiting from early bird rates), but beyond this, we’re seeing a shift in momentum to mitigate risk.

Buying cycles used to be strongly driven by yearly budgets, but it’s not the case now. With research and our own statistics to prove this, we’ve been working with clients to restructure sponsorship models to fit this trend and ensure that bigger sales are still possible closer to an event.

Sponsor retention continues to grow

Across varying sectors, we’ve seen an average of 64% retention in sponsors for our clients over 2024 and 2025. With many clients coming to us with no consistency in their sponsors, this uplift presents real promise for their future event plans and we strive to push it higher with every year.

When we consider annual conferences that remain in the same/similar geographic region year on year, that retention rate increases to 70%.

Be inventive, offer creative solutions

When contemplating new partnership opportunities, we always prioritise flexibility and adaptability – not just for budget and entitlements, but for delivery deadlines and resource restrictions. The fee to exhibit at an event is expensive, and that’s before marketing collaterals, travel, staff resource, and accommodation are considered.

We recently supported a long-term partner who didn’t have the resources for an exhibition stand, but wanted to be seen at a big upcoming exhibition. After brainstorming creative solutions, we arranged for them to co-brand a professional headshot booth – something attendees in that industry often want to update.

The sponsor enjoyed a vast brand presence through the booth itself and via digital promotion, while the conference benefited from offering attendees extra value.

It’s all about considering the opportunity and desired outcome from all angles, and trying to meet what your sponsor hopes to achieve.