Freeman’s pre-event research separates attendance decisions from registration timing Freeman released The Pre-Event Edition on 13 October. Organisers often interpret late registrations as a sign that customers are hesitating. The report suggests that this timing is better understood as late decision-making. Before deciding to attend, customers look for evidence, and how early organisers provide that evidence can shape when they register. Author: EVENTODIT Editorial Team Published: 2026.11.02 Updated: 2026-11-03T09:15:23Z Original URL: https://eventodit.com/en/stories/freeman-2026-pre-event-decision-registration-gap.html Practical summary Key decision: Distinguish interest, registration and payment, and actual attendance when reading sales signals, and decide who bears the costs of information disclosure and cancellation flexibility. Responsible roles / intended readers: Leaders of international professional exhibition and conference organisers and agencies, and sales, finance, registration and data-service leads Basis of information: Based on Freeman’s official announcement of 13 October 2026. It describes a September 2026 survey of more than 3,400 attendees and exhibitors. Sales-signal distinctions and operational choices are editorial analysis. Editorial review: 2026-11-02 Customers look for evidence before deciding to attend Freeman’s report follows three stages in how attendees and exhibitors discover, evaluate and prepare for events. Before registering, respondents were already looking for evidence that an event would meet their goals. Recommendations from colleagues and vendors, along with AI searches, were part of this process. On that basis, Freeman proposes viewing the concentration of registrations near the deadline as late decision-making, rather than simply late registration. Explaining the programme, the people attendees can meet and what they can gain earlier may help customers decide to attend sooner. This is the report’s interpretation. The announcement does not state how much earlier registration becomes when this approach is applied. Provide information when customers begin planning Some 54% of attendees start planning what they will do onsite at least three weeks in advance. In some cases, they do this while still deciding whether to attend. If organisers try to persuade people only at the registration screen, customers may learn about an event after they have already planned their schedules. Sales information therefore needs to be ready when customers begin planning, rather than immediately before registration. This includes information they actually ask for, such as the programme outline, sessions and speakers, the intended audience mix, and opportunities for meetings or networking. Attendees need evidence they can share with decision-makers and peers Only 18% of attendees approve their own attendance funding. Most need to explain the reasons for attending to a manager or budget holder. Evidence they can use in an internal proposal may matter more than benefit statements on a registration page. The report identified colleagues and vendors as the most influential information sources for attendees. It also found that 58% of registered attendees encourage colleagues to sign up even without an incentive. A referral structure should consider both what organisers tell customers and what customers can explain to their colleagues. Cancellation flexibility and early discounts create different costs The report said that about seven in ten attendees would move their registration closer to the event if a strict cancellation policy applied. This is respondents’ stated expected behaviour. It does not measure how much registration increased after refund conditions were changed. Early discounts and cancellation flexibility create different costs. A discount reduces the price the organiser can receive. Cancellation flexibility means the company carries the possibility of returning money it has already received. This survey alone cannot establish which is preferable. Actual cancellation rates, the customer mix and responses to existing prices must also be considered. In particular, refund deadlines promised to attendees may differ from the dates after which costs already committed to venue, production and staffing suppliers can no longer be changed. Before sales staff propose flexible conditions, finance and operations staff need to review committed spending alongside the funds available for refunds. Give exhibitors evidence they can use to explain a purchase Among exhibitor respondents, 56% said they most wanted to see what types of organisations and companies would attend. By contrast, only 16% considered events very effective at explaining the return on exhibiting or sponsoring. The editorial team reads this as a request for evidence that exhibitors can use to explain a purchase internally, rather than a signal to promise greater returns. For example, organisers can specify the types of organisations expected to visit, the meeting opportunities provided and what can be verified after the event. If past event data are available, their collection scope and timing should be clear, without exaggerating them into a guarantee of sales for an individual booth. This work has a cost. Aggregate data need to be organised, disclosure boundaries checked, and sales explanations and website information updated together. If an organiser assigns the work to a supplier, the contract needs to cover how often information will be provided and how revisions will be handled. Distinguish interest, registration and payment, and actual attendance This distinction is an editorial proposal for sales forecasting, rather than an official Freeman classification. If a company has records from past events, it can compare registration patterns at the same point in time with subsequent cancellations and actual attendance. It should also examine whether free and paid registrations, and first-time and returning visitors, are mixed together. Estimating final attendance from registration speed alone can omit these conditions. Earlier information also brings forward the work of maintaining it Publishing the programme and audience mix early also means starting earlier on the work of updating and explaining that information. The important task is to keep communicating what is confirmed and what may change, rather than simply posting a list once. For example, the audience mix at a past event, the mix of people currently registered and the groups an organiser aims to attract are different datasets. Combining all three into one expected audience figure can lead exhibitors to treat them as customers already secured. Stating the aggregation date, population and elements still subject to change helps prevent sales staff from making excessive promises from the same material. Use the findings with the company’s own customers and contracts Freeman’s survey covered attendees and exhibitors. Corporate invitation-only events, paid professional exhibitions and free festivals differ in who decides to attend and who pays. These findings therefore cannot be transferred directly into a registration curve for Korean events. Korean organisers and agencies can examine which information their own customers sought at each stage, linking registration and cancellation records with actual attendance. The starting point is to avoid counting unconfirmed interest as confirmed sales. Discussions should go beyond promotional budgets to include the cost of preparing information early and keeping it updated, the capacity to carry cancellation risk, and the cost of delivering confirmed orders. Application conditions This material concerns attendees and exhibitors surveyed in September 2026. The detailed regional distribution was not established. Do not apply it directly to Korean events or a particular sector; assess it against the company’s own contracts and customer mix. Unconfirmed information The detailed respondent composition, including separate attendee and exhibitor counts and regional distribution, valid response counts for individual questions, and sampling and weighting methods were not established in this review. The material also does not establish registration-to-attendance conversion, the actual effects of refund policies, or improvements in company-level costs and revenue. Sources Freeman, “New Freeman Trends Report Finds ‘Late Registration’ Is Really Late Decision-Making,” press release, 13 October 2026 https://www.freeman.com/about/press/freeman-trends-report-pre-event-edition/ Freeman, “The Pre-Event Edition: How People Find, Choose, and Prep for Your Event,” official report information https://www.freeman.com/resources/trends-report-pre-event-edition/