After 50 years of serving the meetings and events industry, the Meetings & Events Australia (MEA) board announced its closure on Thursday, March 27th.
The largest and oldest association for event professionals in Australia, MEA represented the broader events sector which employes more than 229,000 professionals who stage, produce, manage, support and supply the 480,000+ events held nationally each year.
The annual MEA National Conference—which was to be held in Sydney in June—has been canceled as the association goes into the U.S. equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
In a statement, MEA chair Vanessa Green said, “Despite increased member engagement, growing ticket sales, strong award entries and the introduction of exciting new education offerings, MEA is no longer in a financial position to continue operations… we have been unable to secure the significant cash sponsorship required to sustain MEA’s activities.
“Historically, MEA has relied on the generous support of sponsors and government partners to help us keep membership accessible to small businesses, individual professionals and larger corporate clients.
“In recent years, funding and sponsorship from state and federal government agencies and bureaus have been withdrawn, and our core base of SME and corporate members, also facing tighter margins, have been unable to bridge the gap.”
Green went on to say that MEA’s financial struggles reflect those of the broader events industry and community at large, as rising costs and reduced external support impact MEA and other such organizations.
Green also pointed to the emergence of new industry groups who are siphoning financial support away from MEA and others, singling out the Australian Business Events Association (ABEA), formed in mid-2023 by the merging of three existing organizations, whose consolidation might now take a bigger share of the AU$36 billion Australian business events industry.
“These new industry bodies… have led some traditional supporters, including convention centers and government agencies, to redirect funding away from MEA,” Green said.
As reported in Spice, an Australian industry news source
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