Two opportunities are on the horizon for industry members to actively promote business events as an important and vital economic driver: Global Meetings Industry Day (GMID) and the Exhibitions & Conferences Alliance Legislative Action Day (ECA’s LAD). GMID takes place on May 6th (everywhere) and LAD is May 28th in Washington, DC on Capitol Hill.
WHY ADVOCATE?
If you think about it, business events and trade shows are the industry of industries. COVID taught the events industry that it had done a poor job in communicating its contributions and importance to both the government and public. As we know, business events have a multi-billion-dollar impact on local, state, regional, and global economies both directly and indirectly.
Since then, leading business events organizations and associations learned they can more effectively advocate for policy, investment, and recognition by syncing around a common theme on a single day.
Business events are a critical economic engine—supporting jobs, businesses, and local communities. They also enable knowledge exchange, innovation and long-term partnerships that extend far beyond the event itself. GMID and LAD share and celebrate these accomplishments.
Some quick facts about the Global Business Events industry (Via the GMID website):
- $1.6 trillion USD in economic contributions
- Supports millions of jobs worldwide
- Drives local economic activity across multiple sectors
- Connects 500,000+ professionals and 70,000+ organizations globally
WHO ARE EIC AND ECA?
The Events Industry Council (EIC) is a global federation of 34 Association Members representing 103,500 individuals and 19,500 entities, and 24 Corporate Members with global operations and event teams in countries around the world. EIC focuses on business events industry advocacy, research, professional recognition, and standards – and are the primary drivers of GMID.
As it explains on its website, “ECA is a coalition of leading business events industry associations comprising the unified public policy voice of the business and professional events industry. ECA supports policies at the local, state, federal, and international levels that positively impact our industry’s ability to create new jobs, reduce economic uncertainty, safeguard affordability for our small businesses and those we serve, and ensure that the U.S. remains the premier global destination for exhibitions, conferences, meetings, expositions, trade shows, and more.
In layman’s terms, ECA is the lobbying branch of the business events industry, funded by 8 associations.
GMID IS ON MAY 6TH
GMID is a day of global advocacy for the business events industry. Its purpose is to demonstrate the scale, value, and impact of business events to policymakers, business leaders and the public via in person and digital activations around the US and world. https://news.eventscouncil.org/gmid-events/#events-list ) Some of the events take place ahead of May 6th.
Groups celebrating/practicing GMID include associations, corporations, destinations and DMO’s, venues and hospitality partners, event technology providers (including SmartSource), exhibition and production suppliers, educators, and students. Participants are encouraged to reach out to legislators (local and national), media (through opinion pieces and stories on the impact of business events), social media #GMID2026 on all the usuals, and of course, host live events.
Thousands are expected to participate. For more information, go here.
LAD
Over 150 exhibition industry members will converge on Capitol Hill May 28. (Last year, 170 industry stakeholders from 30 states joined in.)
The events industry is impacted by decisions (or non-decisions) made by politicians and their legislative teams. Legislative staffers are subject matter experts who educate Congresspeople and Senators (their bosses) on policy topics. These face-to-face meetings with legislative staff are important for both education and persuasion.
Ahead of lobbying Congressmembers and Senators, a briefing is held on key areas of concern. This year (per the website), they are:
- Trade and tariffs — support trade policies that preserve affordability and reduce uncertainty for the industry and its customers.
- International travel —lowering barriers to attracting international exhibitors, attendees, and buyers, including reducing visa wait times, modernizing visa processing, and eliminating unnecessary fees and overly restrictive policies that deter travel to the U.S. for events.
- Taxes — support federal, state, and local tax policies that enhance industry competitiveness while opposing measures that disproportionately harm the U.S. business and professional events ecosystem.
- Workforce development — ECA supports policies that strengthen the industry’s ability to recruit, train, and retain its next-generation workforce.
- Sustainability — ECA supports common-sense policies and industry-led efforts that help ensure the industry maintains control of its path to Net Zero.
- Operating environment — ECA supports a competitive, predictable policy environment that supports innovation and growth throughout the industry.
Participants are divided by State – either where they live, or where their primary expos are held and appointments with legislative staff are made ahead of time. To sign up and participate in LAD 2026, go here.
CONCLUSION
Does it work? We think so! Last year, $6.5 billion in proposed nonprofit tax increases were removed from the “One Big Beautiful Bill” reconciliation package. The CIC Convention Industry Council (and ECA mobilized letters, meetings, earned media, advertising, and grassroots campaigns to educate legislators on the downstream consequences of taxing the nonprofit sector – who produce thousands of events impacting millions of people.
