Host your B2B events for your fans, not your pipeline

Most B2B events are planned backwards. We start with the sponsor list, the lead targets and the badge scans, then hope a crowd turns up. I think the better event starts with a group of people who already care about something, and builds the day around them.

What's happening

Mumbrella reported this week that Sophie Greiner and Bella Filacuridi, the organisers behind Sydney's Domefest, have launched Dome: The Fandom Agency. According to the report, the agency will offer strategy, media and live-experience work to help brands reach podcast and creator communities, with brand marketer and creator Ailish Silvester joining as an equity partner and chief commercial officer.

The founders told Mumbrella that brands started asking how to reach podcast audiences after the first Domefest, which brought together 10 Australian podcasts and creators with Red Bull and Rode as partners. Filacuridi framed the shift as moving "out of the attention economy into the trust economy." Domefest is due back for a second edition in 2027.

My view

This is a consumer story, but B2B marketers should pay close attention, because it describes exactly where most of our events go wrong.

Dome didn't start as an agency. It started with a community, then an event for that community, and only then did brands come looking for a way in. That order matters. The brands arrived because the audience was already there and already trusted the people on stage.

Compare that with the typical B2B conference or partner event. The agenda gets shaped around who paid for a speaking slot. The audience is whoever the database could be persuaded to register. Success gets measured in leads scanned at the door, and half of those never hear from anyone again. People can feel when they've been invited as pipeline rather than as guests, and they behave accordingly: they turn up for the keynote, skip the sponsor sessions and leave before the networking drinks.

I'm not saying commercial goals don't belong at events. They do. Sponsors make events possible, and a good partner should get real value from being there. But the value comes from being part of something people chose to show up for, not from a logo on a lanyard.

For Microsoft partners and B2B tech firms, the "fans" already exist. They're the customers who use your solution every day, the admins who answer each other's questions in forums, and the people in your user groups who'd happily share what they've built. That's your community. Most companies only talk to them when there's something to sell.

What founders and marketers should do

• Find the community first. Before you book a venue, work out who already gathers around your product, your category or your local market, and where they talk.
• Put customers on stage. People trust peers more than vendors. A customer explaining how they solved a problem will hold a room longer than any product demo.
• Bring sponsors in as hosts, not ads. Give partners a role that adds to the day, like running a hands-on session or hosting a table on a topic they know well.
• Keep the conversation going after. An event should be one moment in an ongoing community, with a space where people can keep talking once they've gone home.
• Measure what lasts. Track who comes back, who brings a colleague and who starts talking to each other, not just how many badges you scanned.

The test I'd put to anyone planning a B2B event next year is simple: if you removed every sponsor and every sales target, would anyone still want to come? If the answer is no, the problem isn't the venue or the speakers. It's that there's no community at the centre of it.

So I'm curious: when was the last time you went to a business event because of the people, not the program?

Source

This article is Alvin Paronda's opinion on Domefest founders launch creator-focused fandom agency, published by Mumbrella on 19 October 2026. All rights in the original belong to its publisher. Trade marks and product names belong to their owners.

Alvin Paronda is the Founder & CEO of UBE Marketing, a Sydney marketing agency for B2B and Microsoft partners.