Investor conferences in 2025

Insights

Singletrack was proud to sponsor and attend TWST Events’ MeetMax User Day in New York City again this year. It was an outstanding event with three particularly insightful panels, a great venue, and lots of friends from both the buy side and sell side. Here are some of the key takeaways.

Corporate access formats continue to evolve

As we heard last year, in-person events are back, but the variety of formats now available mean that maintaining energy and engagement requires constant iteration – conference organisers can’t rely on repeating tried and tested formats.

Virtual events are here to stay, but big, in-person conferences are preferred. The buy side value opportunity to have lots of team members attend and to book plenty in-person meetings with C-level executives. Grouping events together and planning around key industry dates is also helpful because it means more return on travel spending. Buy side attendees also made it clear that they love events in warm climates and exciting locations!

There is nuance here however, especially when it comes to tracking preferences at a firm or individual level. While a particular hedge fund, for example, might demonstrate that they place a higher value on in-person meetings, attendees described cases where key portfolio managers within that hedge fund actually prefer to avoid travel by attending virtual meetings. Keeping track of these preferences at a range of levels is crucial to providing a great service that clients will value at a firm and an individual level.

Balancing cost and value

On the sell side, these large, in-person corporate access events are especially valuable because without them, there are few opportunities to engage with large numbers of clients efficiently. It can be challenging to quantify the return on such events, but attendees agreed the relationships that come out of these gatherings are invaluable.

Cost is a factor, particularly for the sell side, but leadership accepts that it’s essential to invest in a great attendee experience. Sell side firms do attempt to measure and quantify ROI for the events they host, although it can be difficult to attribute trading commissions to specific conferences. But it’s clear that big hedge funds are willing to pay into the tens and hundreds of thousands for the kind of quality access they can get by meeting in-person.

Multiple panels as well as some audience contributions stressed the importance of collecting event feedback and implementing it to support incremental improvements over time. This is a great way to foster event growth, but we also heard how it supports repeat attendance to maintain a customer base too.

Delivering a great in-person experience

This time around, MeetMax User Day provided an insight into the logistics of managing in-person events, with a particular focus on maintaining consistent branding. In these areas, the technology and hospitality industries are leading the way, influencing how events are run with fresh ideas for engaging with clients in-person.

The issue of managing costs was also relevant to this discussion, and we heard innovative ways firms are putting on high-quality events efficiently. Some are now experimenting with inviting sponsorship for conferences, and others are investing in reusable branded equipment to support in-person events to ensure a consistent experience across dates and locations.

Data: ensuring access remains a challenge

The discussion of data between buy and sell side participants illustrated continued teething problems which still require resolution. On the buy side, there’s a desire to be able to pay fairly, promptly and easily to ensure continuous access to on-demand resources. It’s also clear that the buy side considers payment to be an important way to communicate value back to the sell side. Buy side participants stressed that a lot of careful attention goes into their payment approach.

But sell side participants indicated that it’s challenging to respond to these requirements across a fragmented buy side: there has been significant investment in meeting buy side requests for data across a range of areas including interactions, readership and events, quickly and efficiently, but a continued lack of standardisation on the buy side creates difficulty and inefficiency. It’s clear that capital markets CRM tools like Singletrack, which significantly reduce the administrative burden of managing these complex relationships, can deliver a lot of value.

Singletrack has a purpose-built suite of tools for arranging, tracking and building on conferences and other events to ensure the best outcomes for clients and the best returns for you. We’re proud to partner with MeetMax on our industry-leading integration which helps accurately and efficiently deliver conference data to the buy side. To find out how we can help you, get in touch .

Brian Bock
Published: 11/03/2025