Booked-meeting rate

Booked-meeting rate is the number that connects matchmaking activity to event value. Coverage tells you who joined the programme, acceptance rate tells you whether requests land, but booked meetings are what participants remember and what exhibitors cite at renewal time. An event where 70% of matchmaking users hold at least one confirmed meeting has a fundamentally different value story than one where a small cluster of power users books everything while most participants have empty diaries. That distribution point is exactly why the metric needs care: averages hide inequality. Twenty meetings booked by one exhibitor and zero by five others averages out to a respectable-looking figure and a retention problem. In practice, organizers track the rate by segment — exhibitors, attendees, hosted buyers — and set floor targets, such as every exhibiting company holding at least three confirmed meetings, then aim outreach at whoever sits below the floor while booking is still open. The common mistake is measuring only confirmed bookings and ignoring whether meetings actually happened; pair this metric with no-show tracking or you're reporting intentions, not outcomes. One honest nuance: a realistic ceiling exists — some registrants never intended to take meetings, so 100% is the wrong target.