About Event Partner

Event Partner

Event Partner is the German-language trade magazine for event marketing and live communication, published by the Ebner Media Group – the journal that has documented the professionalization of Germany's event industry since the mid-1990s. Appearing six times a year since 1995, it is one of the leading European communication platforms for intelligent staging, specialist information, background knowledge and opinion formation in event management. Since the merger with its sister magazine events at the end of 2020, Event Partner bundles the entire spectrum of live communication under one roof – addressing decision-makers in Germany and abroad, meeting and event-industry planners, and multipliers of the event business.

Overview

Event Partner is published by the Ebner Media Group GmbH & Co. KG – the Ebner Media Group, headquartered in Ulm with the event titles historically managed from Cologne, the Rhineland base from which the magazine has served the event industry for three decades. The magazine appears six times per year (ISSN 0949-9504) and is a member of the IVW circulation audit. The editor-in-chief is Martina Courth, who also led the sister title events.

The readership consists of decision-makers and planners in the event and live-communication industry: corporate event managers who commission brand experiences, agencies that conceive and produce them, event-technology companies that build the stages and light the shows, venues and locations that host them, caterers, trade-fair organizers and associations. The magazine addresses both the German-speaking market and international readers – incentive agencies and international industry associations among them – reflecting an industry that thinks in destinations and operates across borders. With the integration of the events magazine – the management magazine for live communication founded in 1986, appearing four times yearly with a print run of 10,750 copies – Event Partner's reach and editorial scope expanded to cover the full bandwidth of meetings, congresses, incentives and brand experiences.

The magazine is a member of all major industry associations – ICCA, EVVC, GCB and VDVO – anchoring it institutionally in the event industry's professional community.

History

Event Partner was launched in 1995 as a specialist magazine for event marketing – at a time when event marketing was emerging as a distinct discipline within corporate communications, when companies were discovering that a well-staged product launch or customer event could achieve what no advertisement could. Published by the Ebner Media Group, the magazine established itself over the following decades as the independent trade journal of the German-speaking event industry, documenting the professionalization of the sector: the rise of event agencies, the development of event technology, the growth of trade fairs and congresses, and the increasing strategic importance of live communication in the marketing mix.

A significant milestone came at the end of 2020: the events magazine – events – Das Management-Magazin für Live-Kommunikation, founded in 1986 – was merged into Event Partner effective 31 December 2020. The merger bundled the entire spectrum of live communication under the Event Partner roof, combining events' focus on meetings, congresses and incentive travel – the MICE world of corporate gatherings – with Event Partner's event-marketing core. The combined publication continued under the Event Partner name, serving the converged industry that the pandemic years had reshaped – with hybrid formats, digital events and the cautious, then triumphant return of live gatherings.

Since the merger, Event Partner has continued as the industry's leading print voice, while expanding its digital and event activities – including coverage of new industry formats such as the neo summit on artificial intelligence in the event business, where the sector debates how algorithms will change the staging of human encounters.

Content and Sections

The content of Event Partner covers all relevant aspects of live communication through its standing sections: Report, Business, Technik (technology), Porträt (portrait), Location, Messe (trade fair), Kolumne (column) and Forum – a structure that mirrors the industry's own division of labor. Reports analyze industry developments and marketing trends; the business section covers markets, companies and management topics; technology coverage addresses event technology from sound and lighting to staging and digital tools.

A signature series presents overviews of regional event venues – Munich, Berlin, the Ruhr region and others – mapping the event-services landscape city by city, a practical guide for planners choosing where to stage their next gathering. Portraits introduce industry personalities; the location section presents extraordinary conference destinations and event venues, from industrial monuments to castles; trade-fair coverage follows the industry's own gatherings. Until 2018, the magazine published an annual trade-fair catalogue for Best of Events International, the international trade fair for business communication, live marketing, event services and congresses – the industry's own marketplace, documented by its own journal.

Thematically, the magazine engages critically with global marketing trends and industry issues – from sustainability in events to the impact of artificial intelligence on event management, marketing and content production, from data protection and algorithmic bias to the future of creative professions and the meaning of human encounters in an increasingly automated working world. The October 2026 neo summit in Hamburg – 250 participants, 60 speakers, 35 sessions on AI in the event industry – exemplifies the forward-looking topics the magazine covers, with detailed reports published on the Event Partner platform.

The industry the magazine serves has become one of Germany's significant economic sectors. Live communication — the corporate events, trade fairs, congresses, and brand experiences the magazine documents — employs hundreds of thousands across agencies, technology providers, venues, and caterers, and Germany ranks among Europe's leading destinations for international association meetings. The pandemic years, which forced the industry into hybrid and digital formats, were followed by a strong return of live gatherings, a recovery the magazine chronicled issue by issue. Sustainability — from CO2 accounting for events to reusable staging — and artificial intelligence have become the sector's defining forward themes, debated at formats such as the neo summit and documented in the magazine's reports.

Publisher and Organization

The publisher is the Ebner Media Group GmbH & Co. KG, the Ulm-based specialist publishing house whose portfolio spans technology, trade and event media – from manufacturing journals to the event industry's leading titles. The managing director responsible for the event titles has been Marco Parrillo. The editor-in-chief of Event Partner is Martina Courth, who steered both Event Partner and its sister magazine events through the industry's turbulent recent years.

The Ebner Media Group's event-media activities combine the magazine with digital platforms, newsletters and industry events, serving the event industry as a 360-degree media partner – print for depth, digital for speed, events for the face-to-face encounters that are the industry's own product. The group's membership in the industry's key associations – and the magazine's IVW-audited circulation – underpin its credibility as the independent voice of the sector. The editorial team works from the group's event-media hub, maintaining close contact with agencies, venues, technology providers and associations across the German-speaking event landscape, from Hamburg's conference centers to Munich's trade-fair grounds.

Digital Presence

The digital presence of Event Partner centers on event-partner.de, the portal that extends the bimonthly print magazine into continuous coverage – because the event industry's news cycle does not wait for the next print deadline. The site publishes industry news, background reports, interviews and opinion pieces – including detailed reports from industry gatherings such as the neo summit 26 on AI in the event business. The platform serves as the digital meeting place for the event industry's professionals between print issues.

Newsletters deliver the industry's headlines to subscribers' inboxes, while social media channels extend the magazine's reach to the planners and producers who live on their phones between site visits. The digital offering includes the magazine's e-paper editions and an archive of past coverage. Through its combination of an authoritative print magazine – strengthened by the 2020 merger with events – a continuously updated news portal, newsletters and event partnerships, Event Partner functions as the information infrastructure of the German-speaking event industry: the medium through which the live-communication sector discusses its trends, technologies and transformations, and the chronicle of an industry whose business is creating unforgettable moments.