Strategic event management. Doug Rowell knows a thing or two about it. As President & Co-Founder of Advertising Week Latin America, Rowell has researched, launched, & scaled AWLATAM into Latin America’s largest ad industry event, reaching 10,300+ attendees and 30% annual growth. Portada recently had the opportunity to discuss the latest trends in industry event management with Rowell.
Industry Event Management Advice for 2026
How does Rowell, in a relatively big organization like Advertising Week, be agile enough to adapt to different scenarios and sponsor requests? According to Rowell, “part of being adaptable to changes in the market is also being on top of your insights and trends. So, a lot of times before we enter a year, as we did in 2025, we try to understand what our sponsor partners will be most interested in.” “So, we tend to look and say, okay, this will be a year of activations, right? Or this will be a year of thought leadership, or this might be a year of special events. With the World Cup coming to Mexico, the United States, and Canada in 2026, 2026 will be a heavy year of special events. Yes, for Advertising Week as well, because it’s a once-in-a-generation event to have the World Cup hosted in your country. So, when we look at logistics, we first figure out where the trends will be for the event that year, who the best partners are to support those trends, whether it’s thought leadership, activation, programming, or special events. And then from there, like any event company, we create an approach to an RFP, and we start to develop it so it caters to what we know our clients will need in that specific year.”
“Where events can separate themselves is the experience: double down on your experience. Double down on your client service. Everything else will fall into place.”
In terms of advice for event management executives for 2026, Rowell says that “what I would say going into 2026, I think one of the most essential things is to look at the trends with AI and what’s happening. Additionally, I would say that where events can separate themselves is the experience: double down on your experience. Double down on your client service. Everything else will fall into place.” According to Rowell, if event operators understand their clients’ needs. If they understand how to create a unique and engaging experience, they will win.”
In-person Events, It’s Where It’s At
During and after the pandemic, the event management industry had doubts about how experiential marketing would evolve in a post-COVID world and the suitability of in-person events.
According to Rowell, “in-person events are everything right now. That is what separates us. If you’re a brand or a platform, why do you do an event? Because there are plenty of ways to get reach now across digital, across offline campaigns, across you name it. But what you can’t do is make that human connection that reinforces your brand equity and reminds people what they enjoy about your brand and the experience. That’s in-person. That’s irreplaceable. And it seems almost as if the ascent of digital has reinforced and grown in-person events. I have seen live events and in-person events more in demand now than ever before.”
I have seen live events and in-person events more in demand now than ever before in my career.”
In an age when most sales efforts are conducted via Zoom, in-person contact has become even more critical. Rowell stresses that “if you are on the sales side, ideally, you want to see the person in person; human relationships are the key to most sales being successful.”
Event Management: 2026 Challenges
In terms of challenges for the event management industry going into 2026, Rowell singles out geopolitical risks: “I would say geopolitical turmoil is real. Especially in an event that sits on the border of the U.S., having some understanding of how to manage some of the political challenges that will come up between countries, I think that, as exciting as it is for Mexico with the World Cup, we do have to be mindful of a pretty bumpy economy. At the end of the day, we live in a global world. So, we’re not in a place where isolationism works anymore, right? So, what happens to Mexico affects the U.S.; it affects Canada. We’re trade partners.”
“Balancing and understanding geopolitical risks and being mindful of that in your planning is going to be very important in the next couple of years.”
Advertising Week: A Short History
Rowell has been with Advertising Week almost since the very beginning. The event was founded in New York City in 2004 by Matt Scheckne. Rowell, who became a partner and later launched Advertising Week LATAM. explains that Scheckner was Advertising Week’s chairman and founder, the visionary of the event, along with his partner Lance Pillersdorf, and that came out of a relationship with the 4As (American Association of Advertising Agencies). “They built that from the ground up, for over 20 years, into a global marketing event platform which grew to six locations globally.” “My wife is from Mexico, so I have a 30-year business relationship, a familial relationship, and a personal relationship with Latin America”, Rowell adds. This made him the ideal executive to run Advertising Week’s Latin American operation.In 2022, Advertising Week became part of Emerald, a live events and marketing platform that delivers 142 events across 16 media properties. And we’ve just been scaling and growing ever since,” Rowell notes. He adds that they are now looking to expand in the Middle East.
Emerald operates in 200 industries, including marketing, allowing it to gain best practices from each. Rowell notes that “Advertising Week is a particular type of event. I say we feel more like a festival in the way that we have the exposition, we have the lounges where people can get drinks, there’s a restaurant, you know, there’s a wrap party, there’s comedy hours, all these things. So it’s like a mini South by Southwest; this is how I would think about Advertising Week. Whereas Emerald has a lot of traditional exposition events that are very specific to industry verticals.” “But we’ve had this amazing relationship with Emerald, where we’ve been able to get tons of learnings on what works about centralizing capabilities, the trends of analysis, and finding greater efficiencies on how we approach setting up inventory. So I think there’s always something to learn.” So I think there’s a lot of crossover and support that is really the good thing about joining the Emerald family. And you know, we get exceptional talent from around the globe for all the Advertising Weeks. And now we work with other Emerald events to help them.”
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Image by Larry White from Pixabay
