AEV annual Conference confirms Leadership & AI Keynotes

The Association of Event Venues (AEV) has announced that human-performance specialist Alexandra Forsyth will deliver the opening keynote at its 2026 annual conference, taking place at ICC, Olympia in London on Thursday 26 November 2026. The session will set the tone for a programme expected to address leadership, organisational resilience and the operational impact of artificial intelligence on venue businesses.

Forsyth, known for work at the intersection of leadership, performance culture and sustainable ambition, has been invited to explore how venue leaders can navigate AI-driven transformation while maintaining high-performing teams and safeguarding wellbeing. Her keynote, titled “Leading …” in preliminary materials, is positioned as a framing session for subsequent discussions across the one-day event.

Introduction

Table of Contents

The AEV annual conference brings together executives and operational teams from arenas, exhibition centres, convention venues and stadia across the UK and internationally. With the next edition scheduled at ICC, Olympia in London, the association is focusing its content on the changing demands placed on venue leaders as digital tools, automation and data reshape the event environment.

The decision to spotlight a human-performance expert in the opening session reflects growing recognition that technology adoption in venues is as much a people and culture issue as it is a systems and infrastructure challenge. Forsyth’s inclusion signals an emphasis on equipping venue professionals to manage both the strategic and human dimensions of AI-driven change.

Background & Industry Context

Venue operators are under sustained pressure to modernise their technology stacks, integrate digital services for organisers and attendees, and respond to shifting expectations around hybrid and in-person experiences. At the same time, workforce dynamics are evolving, with teams required to balance traditional venue operations with data analytics, cyber security awareness and increasingly automated processes.

In this context, industry conferences are moving beyond purely operational topics such as health & safety or space utilisation to cover leadership capabilities and organisational culture. The AEV annual conference has become one of the key forums where venue leaders examine how macro trends & technologies translate into day-to-day management practices.

Artificial intelligence, in particular, is influencing areas such as crowd management, energy use optimisation, smart ticketing, real-time customer service, and predictive maintenance. While these developments promise efficiency and new revenue streams, they also introduce skills gaps, role redefinition and potential concerns around employee workload and psychological safety.

Key Developments & Announcement

Within this landscape, the AEV has confirmed that Alexandra Forsyth will open the 2026 conference with a keynote focusing on leadership and human performance in an era of AI transformation. Forsyth’s work centres on four core themes that will be woven into the session:

Leadership: how senior teams in venues can set direction, communicate change and model behaviours that support effective technology adoption.
Resilience: strategies for individuals and organisations to manage continuous disruption, from new tools and workflows to market volatility.
Performance culture: methods to build environments where teams can experiment with new technologies while maintaining operational reliability.
Sustainable ambition: approaches to growth and innovation that avoid burnout and support long-term performance rather than short-term spikes.

By placing this keynote at the start of the conference, the association aims to anchor technical and operational sessions that follow within a broader conversation about the human factors that determine whether AI and digital initiatives succeed.

The choice of ICC, Olympia in London as the host venue underlines the conference’s focus on large-scale, multi-purpose spaces that are themselves navigating the integration of new systems, from digital signage and access control to data platforms that track visitor behaviour across events.

Industry Impact

The prominence given to a human-performance expert at a venue-focused conference illustrates a wider shift in the sector. Historically, event venue forums have concentrated on infrastructure, regulation, sales, and technical production. The 2026 programme signals that leadership and culture are now viewed as critical levers for innovation.

For venue organisations, this may encourage greater investment in leadership development alongside capital expenditure on technology platforms. It also reflects a recognition that employee engagement and learning are essential when deploying tools such as AI-powered scheduling, resource allocation or guest interaction systems.

As AI capabilities extend into areas like predictive crowd flows, automated incident detection and dynamic pricing, decisions about governance, ethics and data use increasingly sit with executive teams. A keynote that links performance culture with AI transformation could help venue leaders approach these decisions with a structured mindset rather than treating them as purely technical issues.

The conference is likely to act as a reference point for how venues discuss the intersection of technology, people and process over the next cycle of investment. Insights shared from the opening session may influence training priorities, change-management frameworks and collaboration between venue IT teams, operations departments and HR functions.

Why This Matters for Event Professionals & Technology Providers

For event professionals working within or alongside venues, the themes flagged by the AEV keynote have several practical implications:

Strategic alignment around AI: Organisers, venue managers and suppliers will need shared language and expectations about what AI-enabled tools are supposed to achieve and how they will affect staff roles.
Focus on workforce capability: Successful deployment of new systems is likely to depend on continuous learning and cross-functional collaboration, not just on procurement and installation.
Resilient operations: With live events highly sensitive to disruption, leadership approaches that support resilience—both technical and human—will be central to risk management.
Balanced performance targets: Venue and organiser teams may need to balance ambitious data and revenue goals with guardrails that protect wellbeing and prevent overload as digital workloads increase.

For technology providers serving the venue and event markets, the conference programme offers signals about buying priorities and decision criteria. Solutions framed purely around features or automation may face increasing scrutiny regarding their impact on team workflows, culture and skills requirements.

Vendors that can demonstrate how their tools support clearer communication, fairness in task allocation, improved training experiences or better feedback loops may find greater traction with leadership teams who are deliberately considering the human-performance dimension.

Conclusion

The Association of Event Venues’ decision to open its 2026 annual conference with Alexandra Forsyth’s keynote on leadership and performance in an AI-driven era underscores the sector’s recognition that technology change is inseparable from people and culture. By foregrounding resilience, performance culture and sustainable ambition, the conference is positioning venue leaders to engage with AI adoption not only as a technical upgrade, but as a long-term organisational shift.

As venues and their partners prepare for the November 2026 gathering at ICC, Olympia in London, the announced keynote signals a conference agenda that will connect strategic leadership with operational practice. For event professionals, venue managers and technology providers, this creates an opportunity to examine how human-centred approaches can shape the next phase of digital evolution in live, hybrid and business events.