Event & Meeting Planning

Designing and running gatherings: conferences, festivals, trade shows, marathons, product launches, and weddings, where everything has to go right on one specific day.

Top pay: highest pay, longest training

• Director of Events: Leads all events for a company, university, association, or venue. Typical pay $120k.
• Event Planning Company Owner: Owns an agency that plans corporate events, weddings, or experiential marketing activations. Typical pay $110k.
• Association Meetings & Conventions VP: Leads the giant annual conventions run by professional associations and trade groups. Typical pay $150k.

Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship

• Meeting & Convention Planner: Plans meetings and conventions: venues, hotel room blocks, speakers, food, and budgets. Typical pay $59k.
• Wedding Planner: Plans and runs weddings: vendors, budgets, designs, and the big day. Typical pay $55k.
• Convention Services Manager: Works for a hotel or convention center to make sure each booked group's event runs smoothly. Typical pay $62k.
• Trade Show & Exhibit Manager: Plans trade shows or manages a company's exhibit booths at them. Typical pay $68k.
• Incentive Travel Planner: Designs reward trips that companies give top employees, like a sales team trip to Hawaii. Typical pay $70k.
• Destination Management Company (DMC) Manager: Works for a local company that handles transportation, tours, and venues for out-of-town groups. Typical pay $65k.
• Race & Sports Event Director: Plans and runs races, tournaments, and sporting events. Typical pay $62k.
• Festival Producer: Produces festivals and large live events, from music festivals to food and art fairs. Typical pay $92k.
• Event Sponsorship Manager: Sells and manages sponsorships that fund events, from logos on banners to branded experiences. Typical pay $75k.
• Trade Show Exhibit Installer: Builds and takes down trade show booths at convention centers, often as a union carpenter. Typical pay $62k.
• Event Ticketing Manager: Runs ticket sales for concerts, sports, festivals, or conferences. Typical pay $65k.
• Meeting Site Selection Specialist: Finds and negotiates the hotels and venues for conferences and corporate meetings. Typical pay $70k.
• Virtual & Hybrid Event Producer: Produces online and hybrid events, running the livestream and digital audience experience. Typical pay $72k.
• Convention Housing Manager: Books and manages the thousands of hotel rooms needed for big conventions, matching attendees to hotels and protecting the group from penalties. Typical pay $70k.

Starter: fastest way in

• Event Setup Crew Member: Sets up and tears down stages, tables, tents, and decor for events. Typical pay $35k.
• Event Registration Coordinator: Manages attendee sign-ups, badges, and check-in for conferences and events. Typical pay $42k.
• Event Coordinator: Handles the details of events: vendors, timelines, rooms, and day-of logistics. Typical pay $48k.
• Event Production Assistant: Helps run live events behind the scenes, from setup to running errands during the show. Typical pay $36k.
• Event Staffing Coordinator: Hires and schedules the servers, ushers, and brand ambassadors who work events. Typical pay $46k.
• Rodeo Secretary: Runs the business office of a rodeo, entering contestants, drawing animals, tracking times and scores, and paying out prize money. Typical pay $40k.

Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.