Has the U.S. Exhibition Industry Finally Closed the Gap With 2019?

For as long as the exhibition industry has been rebuilding itself since 2020, the question planners keep asking their venues, their organizers, and each other has been simple: are we actually back yet? The Center for Exhibition Industry Research answered that question in the most detailed way it has in years this past May, when IAEE presented the 2026 CEIR Index Report, a full review of 2025 performance paired with a forecast running through 2028. The short version is that the U.S. B2B exhibition industry closed out 2025 within two percentage points of its full 2019 size, the closest it has come since the pandemic. The longer version, the one that actually matters for anyone budgeting a stand or negotiating a hotel block, is that "almost back" is hiding some very different stories depending on which sector, which metric, and which quarter you look at.

How CEIR Actually Measures the Industry

CEIR is IAEE's own research division, and it builds the Index together with Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics company, rather than relying on self-reported organizer surveys alone. The Index tracks four components year over year: net square feet of exhibit space sold, professional attendance, the number of exhibiting companies, and gross revenue, rolled up across 14 tracked sectors from industrial manufacturing to travel and entertainment. For 2026, CEIR also opened a new Index Dashboard, an interactive tool built on Tourism Economics' Symphony data platform that lets members query the underlying numbers themselves instead of waiting on the next quarterly PDF. That is a real change in how planners can use this data: sourcing teams can now check a specific sector's trajectory before a renewal conversation rather than working off last year's headline figure.

A Third Quarter That Went the Wrong Way

The recovery has not moved in a straight line, and 2025 was proof of it. CEIR's Q3 2025 report, released at the end of the year, found the Total Index running 11.1 percent below Q3 2019 levels, a slightly worse gap than the 10.7 percent shortfall recorded in Q3 2024. Marketing Charts summed up the mood at the time with the headline "B2B Exhibition Industry Recovery Hits Pause." Some of that is seasonal: CEIR's own data shows the third quarter has been the softest of the year in every year since 2023, so a dip on its own was not alarming. What made planners nervous was that the gap widened instead of narrowing, at a moment when tariff policy and higher costs were already weighing on exhibitor budgets.

Then the Fourth Quarter Closed Most of the Gap

The year finished very differently. According to CEIR's full 2025 data, the Index hit its highest point of the recovery in the fourth quarter, landing just 2 percent below full 2019 performance. That is a large swing in a single quarter, but not an implausible one: Q4 concentrates a heavy share of the year's largest conventions and trade shows, and a strong fall season can move the aggregate number quickly. It is the reason the full-year 2025 picture reads as far healthier than the mid-year numbers suggested, and it is the baseline CEIR is now forecasting from.

Who's Actually Caught Up, and Who Hasn't

The Total Index hides real unevenness underneath it. Only four of the 14 sectors CEIR tracks have fully overtaken their 2019 size: building, construction and home repair; transportation; government; and industrial and heavy machinery. The sectors furthest behind are consumer goods and retail, the categories most directly tied to household spending. The metric-level breakdown tells a similar story. Net square feet sold and the number of exhibiting companies are the strongest performing measures and are close to fully recovered, while professional attendance is still running about 6 percent below 2019 levels. The number planners should sit with the longest is real, inflation-adjusted revenue: it remains down more than 10 percent, meaning the dollars moving through the industry have not kept pace with the space and the exhibitor count, even where those look nearly recovered on paper.

What CEIR Expects for 2026

Building off that Q4 2025 base, CEIR is forecasting 2.1 percent growth in the Total Index for 2026, supported by continued gains in attendance, exhibitor participation, net square feet, and, notably, healthy forward bookings, which is one of the more reliable leading indicators the Index tracks. CEIR is not calling this an unqualified upswing, though. The same report flags trade policy uncertainty and elevated costs as ongoing drags on exhibitor sentiment, and it specifically calls out geopolitical tensions and higher international travel costs as risks to cross-border attendance and exhibiting, a detail worth flagging to any MICE program that depends on delegations flying in from outside the U.S.

What This Means for Your Next Show

If your sector sits inside those four that have already passed 2019 size, book space early and expect less room to negotiate: demand in construction, transportation, government, and industrial trade shows is genuinely tight right now, not just recovering. If you work in consumer goods or retail exhibitions, you are likely to find organizers more willing to talk on rate and terms, since those floors have the furthest left to fill. Either way, treat the revenue figure as the one to watch on your own budget line. A floor plan that looks fully sold and an attendee count that looks nearly back to normal can still sit on top of real spending that is down double digits once inflation is accounted for, which shows up as thinner margins for organizers and less room in a sponsorship package than the square footage alone would suggest. And if your program pulls attendees or exhibitors from outside the U.S., build in some slack this cycle. CEIR's own forecast names international travel cost and geopolitical friction as the specific risks to watch, not a generic caveat, so it is worth a real conversation with your international delegations rather than an assumption that last year's numbers will repeat.

Key Takeaways

• CEIR's 2026 Index Report, presented by IAEE in May 2026, shows the U.S. B2B exhibition industry finishing 2025 just 2 percent below full 2019 performance, its strongest point of the recovery so far.
• Q3 2025 actually underperformed Q3 2024, coming in 11.1 percent below Q3 2019 versus a 10.7 percent shortfall a year earlier, before Q4 2025 closed most of the remaining gap.
• Only 4 of the 14 sectors CEIR tracks, building/construction/home repair, transportation, government, and industrial/heavy machinery, have fully overtaken their 2019 size; consumer goods and retail lag furthest behind.
• Net square feet and exhibitor counts are nearly fully recovered, but professional attendance is still down about 6 percent versus 2019, and real, inflation-adjusted revenue remains down more than 10 percent.
• CEIR forecasts 2.1 percent growth in the Total Index for 2026, while flagging trade policy uncertainty, elevated costs, geopolitical tensions, and higher international travel costs as specific risks to watch.

Data sources: IAEE, IAEE Releases 2026 CEIR Index Report, Skift Meetings, Latest Exhibition Industry Forecast: Partly Cloudy, IAEE, CEIR Q3 2025 Index Report Shows Exhibition Industry Registers a Modest Decline Amid Broader Economic Concerns, Marketing Charts, B2B Exhibition Industry Recovery Hits Pause, Exhibitor Online, IAEE Releases 2026 CEIR Index Report, Tourism Economics, Symphony Data Intelligence Platform.