Episode
Is Everything You Know About Gen Z at Events Wrong?
- Published
- Jul 31, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2834
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Summary
The events industry keeps publishing research about Gen Z. Nobody thought to read it back to one. So Megan brought her assistant Sierra Siebulrud to Cvent CONNECT 2026 for her first-ever industry conference — and her first major conference of any kind — then sat her down and read out thirteen published Gen Z stats to her face. Some of them held up. Several of them did not. The ones that fell apart are the ones your agenda is probably built on. This is a different kind of Aftershow. So this is net-new: a fact check, a first-timer debrief, and a straight-answer session on the things everyone wants to ask a Gen Z and doesn't. What you'll learn: Why the "Gen Z avoids in-person networking" stat gets pushback from an actual Gen Z, and who she thinks is really responsible for the shift The real reason a first-timer will sit through your hour-long session, and the one thing that guarantees she won't remember it What actually pulls a Gen Z attendee to a booth (hint: it is not the tote bag, and the answer will annoy your swag budget) The 30-second rule she uses to accept or ignore every LinkedIn request after a conference Where Gen Z goes to learn how to network before an event, and why it isn't Google and isn't AI The exact sentence that predicts whether a Gen Z hire stays a year or bails How she verifies whether "great company culture" is real before she applies, using nothing but LinkedIn Approximate chapters: 02:40 — Fresh Eyes: walking into CONNECT completely blind 04:15 — What surprised her most: the rebrand as a full factory reset 06:15 — The purple badge and the partner reception panic 11:05 — Her advice for first-timers, and it takes ten seconds a day 12:05 — The acronym problem 14:55 — A brief and necessary Bravo detour 18:50 — Stat Check: thirteen…