01Introduction
the question, and why it is measurable
When a conference day ends, its attendees remain in the host city, professionally primed and socially available, for several hours each evening. Whether that time converts into business depends on whether anyone hosts it. Around crypto, tech and marketing conferences, a dense market of side events emerged to do exactly that. Around iGaming’s largest weeks, it has not yet. This analysis treats after-hours attention as a quantifiable resource: how much exists per week, how much the side-event calendar can absorb, and how capture rates compare across industries.
02Data & Method
two metrics · uniform assumptions · stated sources
We define two metrics. Attendees per side event (A/SE) divides unique attendance by side-event count; higher values mean less competition per host. Attention capture rate (ACR) divides the hours side events can absorb (events × 150 guests × 2 hours) by the hours available (attendance × conference days × 4 evening hours). Averages are held uniform across all weeks; the two-hour engagement figure follows our sponsorship ROI research.
A/SE = U / E attendees per side event
S = U × D × h available after-hours attention (hours)
C = E × g × t attention absorbable by side events (hours)
ACR = C / S attention capture rate
U = unique attendees · E = side events · D = conference days
h = 4 evening hours · g = 150 guests/event · t = 2 hours/eventTwo properties justify treating evenings as genuinely available: these audiences are overwhelmingly travellers (83% of ICE’s attendance is international, hotel-based professionals without evening obligations), and most arrive the evening before day one, so a four-day conference offers five free evenings. We count conference days only, making every capture rate conservative. Official daytime programming (in-venue meetups, summits, floor tours) is excluded throughout, as it draws on show-hours attention, not evenings.
| Conference Week | Industry | Attendees | Exhibitors | Days | Side Events / Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EthCC 2025 · Cannes | Crypto | ~6,500 | 72 (official sponsors) | 4 | ~580 |
| TOKEN2049 2025 · Singapore | Crypto | 25,000 | 500+ | 2 | ~1,000 |
| Cannes Lions 2026 · Cannes | Marketing | ~12,000 | n/a (festival partners) | 5 | ~1,281 tracked |
| SXSW 2025 · Austin | Culture & Tech | 309,300 | n.d. | 9 | 260+ tracked · 450 brand activations |
| Web Summit 2025 · Lisbon | Tech | 71,386 | 2,000+ startups | 4 | 400 official meetups · 200–300 citywide |
| MWC 2025 · Barcelona | Tech | 109,500 | ~2,700 | 4 | hundreds reported |
| VivaTech 2025 · Paris | Tech | 180,000 | 3,500 | 4 (2 pro) | 120+ (official, Paris Region) |
| CES 2026 · Las Vegas | Tech | 148,392 (audited) | 4,500+ | 4 | n.d. (large) |
| ICE 2026 · Barcelona | iGaming | 62,988 | 794 | 3 | ~100 |
| SiGMA 2025 · Rome | iGaming | 30,000 | ~1,000 | 4 | 30–50 |
| SBC Summit 2025 · Lisbon | iGaming | ~30,000 | 700 | 3 | official summits & awards · independent n.d. |
Table 1. Attendance and exhibitor figures are organiser-reported; ICE and CES are independently audited. Side-event counts: CH3 conference tracker (EthCC, TOKEN2049, ICE, SiGMA), Native Spaces’ festival tracker (Cannes Lions, 1,281 events), Portugal Tech Week listings (Web Summit), organiser press materials (VivaTech’s 120+ Paris Region events), and curated guides for MWC, CES and SXSW, where hundreds of events are described but no total is published; those weeks enter the analysis as conservative estimates (hatched in Figure 1). SXSW’s 309,300 spans consumer music and film audiences and is treated as illustrative. Private, unlisted gatherings are undercounted everywhere, which affects levels, not the cross-industry comparison.
03Results
how much attention is still available, and what it costs to claim
Figure 1 · Share Of After-Hours Attention Still Available, Per Week
Figure 1. Columns show the share of each week’s after-hours attention still available to hosts. In absolute terms: CES ~2.1M hours (est.), MWC ~1.6M (est.), VivaTech ~1.3M (est., professional days only), Web Summit ~1.03M, ICE ~0.73M, SiGMA ~0.47M, SBC ~0.34M (est.), against ~16K at TOKEN2049, ~8K at EthCC and under 10K at Cannes Lions. iGaming keeps 96 to 97% of its attention open. Fully developed weeks show the endpoint in two industries at once: crypto’s 580 to 1,000 events per week and Cannes Lions’ 1,281 both capture over 90%, with remaining openings concentrated in breakfasts, arrival evenings and closing days; SXSW’s unofficial calendar grew dense enough that the organiser petitioned Austin to limit permits for parallel events. A/SE tells the host’s-seat version: ~10 at Cannes Lions, 11 at EthCC, 25 at TOKEN2049, ~250 to 350 at Web Summit, 630 to 750 at ICE and SiGMA.
Figure 2 · Cost Per Attention Hour, By Channel
Figure 2. Expo stands sit between these poles depending on size and build, with all-in costs for a modest stand at a major show benchmarked at $30,000 to $70,000 before staffing. The channels are not substitutes; Figure 4 positions them.
Worked Example · SiGMA Flagship Week
ICE follows identically: 62,988 × 3 days × 4 hours yields ~756,000 available hours against ~30,000 absorbable, a 96% unclaimed share.
Since iGaming holds the most available attention of the weeks measured, the rest of the analysis is denominated in the unit that matters there: attention per person, by channel.
Figure 3 · Attention Per Person: Expo Stand vs Side Event
a_stand = (v × D) / X attention per stand, per attendee, whole show
v = 3.6 h/day exhibit viewing (8.3 h ÷ 2.3-day avg show, Exhibit Surveys / CEIR)
D = show days · X = exhibitors
ICE: 3.6 × 3 / 794 = ~49 s · SiGMA: 3.6 × 4 / 1,000 = ~52 s · SBC: 3.6 × 3 / 700 = ~56 s
iGaming average ≈ 52 s per stand · side event: ~2 h (7,200 s) per guestFigure 3. Exhibit-viewing time is day-adjusted (8.3 hours over the average 2.3-day US show, pro-rated to each show’s actual length), so a stand is credited with attention across every conference day, while a side event counts a single evening. Per-stand figures remain upper bounds that assume all viewing time is spent at stands; in practice average dwell at a visited booth is ~4.2 minutes and any single stand is visited by only a fraction of attendees. Cost follows the same asymmetry: our sponsorship ROI research measured hosted events at ~$48 per attention-hour and co-hosted formats near $40 per guest, versus ~$272 per attention-hour for headline sponsorship tiers.
Figure 4 · The Reach–Depth Frontier: Every Format Is A Position, Not A Compromise
Figure 4. Reach is the median guest count per format from CH3’s contracting database, plotted on a logarithmic scale; depth weight d is a defined 1–8 scale for the share of dialogue a format sustains per guest, from expo walk-bys (seconds) to a private executive dinner (d = 8). Dashed curves are iso-relationship-capital lines, RC = N × d: positions on the same curve build equivalent relationship capital through opposite means. The log scale makes room for the expo stand, whose reach is thousands of walk-bys rather than a guest list, at a depth measured in seconds (effectively d < 1, ~52 s per attendee per whole show, the trade Figure 3 quantifies). The shaded zones mark how efficiency moves with headcount: each tenfold gain in reach is paid for in depth, from hours of dialogue below 30 guests, to sustained conversation up to ~100, to minutes of presence up to ~1,000, to seconds of exposure beyond. Formats are positions chosen for an objective, not better or worse per se; in a 3% capture-rate market, nearly every position above RC = 100 is unoccupied.
04Interpretation: A Maturity Curve
one market at three points in time
The endpoint is not industry-specific: Cannes Lions, a marketing festival, reached the same fully developed state as crypto, 1,281 tracked events for roughly 12,000 delegates. At that end of the curve, over 90% of prime-evening attention is captured and hosts compete for every invitation. Tech occupies the middle at roughly 90% still available. iGaming sits at the start, and at the top of the opportunity: 96 to 97% available, one host per 630 to 750 attendees, and a calendar still largely composed of the organisers’ own programming, a structure we document at both SiGMA and SBC.
The curve is traversed quickly. In CH3’s tracking, EthCC’s calendar grew from ~40 listed events in 2022 to ~580 at its 2025 peak, and TOKEN2049 Singapore’s from ~180 to ~1,000: order-of-magnitude growth within three years, both starting from roughly where iGaming stands today.
05Implications
an allocation framework for budget holders
The practical question is not which format is best but which position on the frontier the objective requires. Four rules follow from the research. Match depth to deal stage: 81% of trade-show attendees hold buying authority and 92% attend to discover products (CEIR), which stands and large formats serve; converting authority into commitments happens in high-depth formats, per our event-ROI framework. Buy attention where it is cheapest per hour: ~$48 hosted versus ~$272 for headline tiers, with co-hosting near $40 per guest. Weight spend toward uncontested markets: the dinner that competes with a thousand alternatives at a fully captured week faces thirty at SiGMA, roughly a hundred across all of ICE, and an organiser-dominated calendar with few independent rivals at SBC. Secure the recurring slot early: the oversubscribed institutions of mature weeks were, without exception in our tracking, established early and repeated every edition.
The positioning holds across all three iGaming anchors, not just one: ICE’s January week in low-season Barcelona, SiGMA’s Rome and Malta editions, and SBC’s September slot in Lisbon each leave the off-floor calendar effectively open, and each serves an audience built for evening formats: international, hotel-based, 81% with buying authority, and roughly 47% C-level at SiGMA by the organiser’s account. Few industries are as structurally well positioned to capture off-the-floor attention. On the observed three-year maturation timeline, the window is open but finite, and a brand can hold the recurring slot at all three weeks for less than the cost of a single headline sponsorship.
06Limitations
what this model does and does not claim
The model is directional. Attendance figures are organiser-reported except the audited ICE and CES; side-event counts capture only listed events; the four-hour evening and two-hour engagement assumptions are uniform simplifications; the 8.3-hour exhibit-viewing benchmark derives from US trade-show research. Halving the evening window or doubling event counts leaves iGaming capture rates below 15%. The conclusion survives any reasonable assumptions: the overwhelming majority of after-hours attention at iGaming’s anchor weeks is currently uncaptured.
07References
SiGMA Group (2025), Rome flagship post-event reporting and event pages, sigma.world · World Gaming (2026), ICE Barcelona audited attendance report (51,996 audited; 62,988 World Gaming Week) · Consumer Technology Association / Alliance for Audited Media (2026), CES independently audited attendance (148,392) · GSMA (2025), MWC Barcelona attendance (109,500) · Web Summit (2025), organiser attendance figure (71,386) · Portugal Tech Week (2025–2026), official event listings · VivaTech / Paris Region (2025), press materials incl. 120+ ecosystem side events · SXSW (2025), organiser attendance (309,300) and City of Austin permit reporting · SBC (2025), SBC Summit Lisbon programme and attendance · Cannes Lions (2026), delegate figures · Native Spaces (2026), Cannes Lions festival-week event tracker (1,281 events) · Exhibit Surveys, Inc. / CEIR, exhibit-viewing time benchmark (8.3 hours per show) · CEIR, attendee research: buying authority (81%), product discovery (92%), booth dwell (~4.2 minutes) · CH3 Agency (2026), conference tracker of publicly listed satellite events · CH3 Agency (2026), “What Crypto Conference Sponsorships Actually Cost, And Where The ROI Is”, sponsorship dataset of 340+ packages vs 242 delivered productions · CH3 Agency (2026), “Measuring What Events Actually Do”, event-ROI measurement framework · CH3 group dataset: 1,900+ priced event budgets across 51 cities, 2022–2026.
What Conference Sponsorships Actually Cost · And Where The ROI Is
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Dietrich Moens, CFA · Co-Founder & CEO, CH3 Agency
Dietrich launched his events career at age 20 on global-scale productions including Tomorrowland and White Sensation in Belgium. A CFA charterholder with a background in investment management, he co-founded CH3 in 2020 to bring those production standards, and capital-allocation discipline, to tech, gaming and crypto events. He leads CH3’s key client relationships and its proprietary research programme spanning 1,900+ event budgets across 51 cities.