Start with the job, not the agency label
“Event agency” covers very different businesses. Identity lists brand experience, event management and production, content and broadcast, innovation and technology, and strategic advisory, and runs separate brands for travel, sport and health. DRPG describes itself as a group of creative marketing and employee-communications agencies. C2events specialises in healthcare meetings and delegate management. FIRST offers either a full-service partnership or specialist staff embedded in a client’s own team.
Those menus show why a shortlist needs a defined job. An agency’s record in brand activations does not by itself establish fit for a regulated professional meeting, and the reverse is also true. Ask for evidence of the work you actually need rather than a general showreel.
Who will deliver the work?
Ask who owns the brief day to day, who attends planning meetings and who can approve changes on site. In a group with several brands, ask which business holds the contract and which teams will do the work. Establish what is delivered in-house, through named partners or through suppliers chosen later. None of these models is wrong. An undisclosed division of responsibility is the problem.
Request a responsibility schedule covering content, registration, production, venue liaison, accessibility, supplier coordination and reporting, so the handovers are visible. Where your own team supplies something, state when it must arrive and what happens if it changes.
How does the price work?
Ask whether the model is a fixed project fee, a retainer, time-based fees, supplier mark-ups or a mix. Ask for agency remuneration to be shown separately from third-party costs, allowances and contingency, and ask how rebates or commissions are treated.
Then give every agency the same assumptions. A cheaper proposal may leave out rehearsals, registration support or post-event reporting that another includes. A fair comparison makes those differences explicit instead of treating the totals as like for like.
What does a change cost?
Agree when the concept is approved and how changes are approved after that. Identify who is authorised to spend and how a revised scope is recorded. Discuss cancellation and postponement obligations before suppliers are committed, not after a date moves.
Ask what you receive at handover: editable creative files where agreed, attendee-data exports, supplier information and the evidence behind the final report. Ownership and access should be written down, not inferred from who paid the invoice.
What will count as success?
Give the agency a business outcome and ask how its proposal contributes to it. A sales meeting, a member congress and a product launch need different evidence. Agree measures you can actually collect and who receives the report. Our guide to measuring an event beyond attendance sets out how to keep counts, outcomes and wider impact apart.
If sustainability is part of the brief, ask what is measured and on what basis. Agencies cite different schemes: DRPG says it is B Corp certified and C2events reports an EcoVadis Silver medal. Our piece on reading certification claims explains why the scope of each matters.
Agencies referred to here are profiled in our agency directory. Those profiles summarise what each agency publishes. They are not endorsements or independent checks of performance.
Sources
- Identity services and brands
- DRPG group overview
- C2events services
- FIRST agency overview
- Principal. Global Events services
Sources checked on 19 October 2026. Service descriptions are the agencies’ own; no agency was interviewed for this piece.
