Pay Without a Playbook: Why Event Industry Salary Data Doesn't Add Up
By Tracy Judge, Founder & CEO, Soundings
Skift recently dug into a question we deal with on a regular basis: why does salary data for event professionals look so inconsistent? Barbara Scofidio at Skift raised the topic in a story on confusing salary benchmarks in the events industry (Meeting Planner Salaries: Why They Never Agree), and it's worth unpacking here.
The issue isn't which source is "niche." It's that most sources aren't measuring the same thing. Some report averages, others medians or range midpoints. Some track base salary, others total compensation. Some pull from federal data, others from job postings, self-reported numbers, or voluntary surveys. Mixing all of that together, across different sectors, experience levels, locations, and data years, is why the numbers look all over the place. It's important to check the methodology before you trust a number, not just the source name.
There are a lot of factors that go into salaries that make it hard to benchmark. Salary data in this industry hasn't matured. We're combining apples and oranges and calling it a benchmark.
Here's what's driving the confusion
Title alone won't get you there. The same title can describe very different jobs. A meeting planner doing logistics coordination might sit around $50,000. A meeting planner running strategy with budget and team ownership can clear $116,000 or more. Scope matters more than title. Ask: Do I own the budget? Do I lead a team? Am I making strategic decisions or executing someone else's plan?
Industry and department matter. An event role inside marketing or sales often gets tied to revenue, pipeline, or brand strategy. That role gets paid differently than one seen as operational support.
Company type matters too. Large tech, pharma, financial services, and consulting companies tend to pay more than associations, nonprofits, hospitality companies, or small agencies.
Location creates a real spread, and it's getting more complicated. Overall prices run about 27% higher in California than Arkansas. A $100,000 salary in Arkansas needs to be roughly $127,000 in California just to buy the same amount. Housing costs can widen that gap further. Work-from-home culture has made this even more complicated. Someone can live in a lower cost-of-living market and work for a company headquartered somewhere far more expensive, which muddies any straight regional comparison.
This isn't getting solved fast
Sources aren't going to agree on methodology anytime soon. And AI is going to widen this gap further. Companies with more sophisticated internal AI systems won't want to pay as much for roles that AI can already do. The more advanced a company's AI adoption, the less it will value the parts of a job that AI has absorbed, and the roles and teams themselves may look very different. That means the same title at two different companies could carry very different pay and competencies, depending on how far each has gone with AI.
What I'd tell industry professionals
Choose the point of reference for the salary range that most aligns with the role you're looking at or considering. Then negotiate based on scope, deliverables, and the value the role adds to your life outside of pay, including growth opportunities. Build your own personal standard for what makes a role worth it to you. Pay is one input, not the whole answer.
What I'd tell companies
Build your own compensation framework. Decide what a role is worth based on the value it delivers, not just what a chart says the market pays. This is especially true for agencies. Clients ask for salary ranges and benchmarks constantly, and it's a hard ask to satisfy honestly. The real answer is rarely a single number. It's a range shaped by what the work is worth to that specific company, what it takes to retain that specific person, and the company's pricing strategy.
Thanks to Barbara at Skift for bringing this topic to the surface. Read her full piece here: Meeting Planner Salaries: Why They Never Agree