2012 Agency It List

The Top 100 Event Agencies: Who's Who, What's What and Who the Hell does What

In the 10 years we've been publishing the It List, never has our annual roster of the top 100 EVENT agencies been turned on its head as much as it was this year. The last three years brought sweeping change to the agency side of the event industry. Your roller-coastering budgets changed how you reviewed, searched, hired and paid your agencies. You also changed what you look for in an agency and began to demand more creativity, more strategy and more ROI.

As a result, agencies reinvented themselves. Those clamoring to become more strategic traded new operations and execution hires for strategic and metrics chiefs. And the rise of the digital age fundamentally changed event agencies forever, with upwards of 90 percent of EM readers saying they expect event shops to concept and offer live and digital.

Meanwhile, the dozens of former agency execs who started their own companies are beginning to heat up, which brings a new crop of players to the market. At the same time, some of the agencies that graced this list for years are no longer on it, signaling a recovering economic tide that has not risen all industry ships.

With that said, this is our strongest It List in a decade and the collective work of the 100 agencies on the roster has never been better. Totally strategic, heavily integrated, digitally anchored-the roller coaster of the last three years may have been the best thing to happen to the agency sector. Presenting the It List, this year's Top 100 Event Agencies. Editorial Bonus: Check out the first-ever AgencySelect 2013 research on how brands and procurement teams are developing and fielding RFPs and what brands look for in agencies.