As AI accelerates and brands increasingly turn to in-person experiences to build trust, connection, and momentum, events are having a cultural and business reawakening.

CMOs are shifting budgets. CEOs are watching closely. Events aren’t fighting for relevance anymore—they are the relevance.

But there’s a tension.

Even as events rise in importance, the industry is falling into a pattern of “smart sameness.” Bigger screens, polished activations, and flawless execution that still somehow feels predictable. 

That’s exactly the challenge Opus Agency’s EVP of Strategy and Solutions, Brent Turner, explores in his recent Smart Meetings Smart Leaders feature, It’s Time to Be Irrational: Reclaiming Experimentation in Event Strategy.

“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,” he says. “You'll find sameness at scale.”

According to Turner, 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,” he says. “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.”

Turner argues that right now, when differentiation matters most, we’re becoming less differentiated. 

The industry needs something bold, something uncomfortable. 

Not chaos. Not recklessness. Strategic irrationality.
The courage to try ideas without proof that they’ll work first.

That mindset shows up in five critical shifts Turner highlights:

• Invite outsiders in to reveal what insiders can’t always see.
• Look where no one’s looking, including liminal spaces like hallways, coffee lines, and transition moments.
• Try the opposite, because “the opposite of a good idea is often another good idea.”
• Make small bets instead of waiting for perfect certainty.
• Mandate experimentation, making innovation a requirement, not an aspiration.

“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,” he says. “But when sameness is the norm, playing it safe becomes the riskiest move.”

For Turner, this isn’t just philosophy. The next era of event leadership belongs to those willing to take creative risks, challenge defaults, and design experiences that feel truly distinct and deeply human.

We have the tools. We have leadership’s attention. What we need now is the confidence to champion the irrational.

Curious how Turner believes event leaders can push the industry forward? Read the full Smart Meetings Smart Leaders article here.