We last caught up with Professionals for Association Revenue, the now-four-year-old membership organization whose mission is explicitly defined in its name, in November 2023, when Executive Program Director Jen Smith had just come onboard.
At that time, the group, known as PAR, was still building traction. Its main conference, called RevUP, was just about to convene for its second year. Now, with two more years under its belt, Fox Tales thought the time was perfect to check back in with PAR. We caught up with Sean Soth, founding president of PAR and current leadership advisory board chair.
Sean Soth.
Sean is a recognized business-development expert, and has led multiple sales portfolios in a variety of industries. In addition to his role with PAR, he’s owner of Hi-Fidelity Group Inc., a sales and marketing firm focused on exhibit and sponsorship sales, and a co-founder of Webvent, a platform for webcast management and online directories for associations.
Here’s a transcript of our conversation.
Fox Tales: Tell us about RevUP 2025.
Sean Soth: The theme is “Taking Care of Business.” The program leans into associations creating a space for business development, how this work is being done, and why associations matter in the commercial markets they serve. PAR has a wonderful community of folks curious to improve their work.
Fox Tales: What is the size of the event now? Attendees, sponsors.
Soth: 2025 marks our 4th RevUP. We expect over 300-plus association executives from organizations of all sizes. Most of our attendees are revenue producers or c-suite leaders looking to improve their organizations. We have an amazing community of solution providers exhibiting, each committed to improving association business, we have already surpassed last year’s totals and look towards a 100% sold-out floor plan.
Fox Tales: And speaking of age, PAR was founded in 2019—obviously you found a need in the association space. Tell us about the PAR journey in membership growth, revenue, mindshare.
Soth: It took a few years to qualify the idea of business development in the association market. Of course, associations have been selling exhibits, education, and membership for decades, but business development has changed drastically over the past few years. What got us here won’t get us there, of course. Membership has leapt forward, particularly for organizational members—many up to 50 seats. We passed the 500-member organization mark this year, and look to grow more than 20% as we approach 2026.
Fox Tales: How have you refined the mission of the association or the event?
Soth: We like to say we are building the home for association business development. Our resources continue to refine: Programs, cohorts, toolkits, social learning, partners. We refine often, but in the end we are a community of association executives who need the resources and ideas to help our organizations thrive.
Fox Tales: Where have you gained the most traction? Large organizations? Smaller ones? Media divisions? Membership or donor efforts?
Soth: We have gained the most traction through awareness around business development. Really, every size category has grown this year. We are noticing that executive-leadership teams are taking revenue generation as a serious strategic advantage for their orgs, this will continue as the capacity and capabilities in the marketplace demand it.
Fox Tales: What’s next for PAR and RevUP for 2026 and beyond?
Soth: An important benchmark for our body of knowledge giving way to competency/capability models. Our shared learning will work to help associations build and scale in new ways. Thanks so much for the time, we hope to see you in Annapolis this November.