Reset to Real: why 79% of young people want more events in 2026

Friday morning. Someone opens the feed to figure out the weekend. Same as always. Photo, profile, swipe, a message that never lands or lands empty. No one's waiting, no one needs to be.

That moment, repeated across millions of screens every month, is what's ending.

In January, a global study on social behavior among people aged 18 to 35 measured a real shift. 79% of that bracket plans to go to more events in 2026 than in 2025. Not "a bit more". A solid majority declaring they want to swap screen time for time spent present.

Another data point from the same study: 89% want those events to be hyperlocal. Neighborhood, city, at most the state. And 73% say they'll show up if the event carries a cause, something to feel beyond the ticket.

The most revealing line, though, is buried in the report. The generation is swapping "forced networking" for "organic connection on their own terms". In plain English: tired of the business-card circuit, they want to meet people because it makes sense, not because someone said they should.

In Brazil, this resonates on a different frequency. A Serasa study shows 89% of Brazilians attend up to seven events a year. Nearly nine in ten. This isn't a country that needs to be convinced to leave the house to hear music, eat together, watch a game. They already do.

And they go for specific reasons. 36% to be with friends. 30% to connect with other fans in a new destination. That 30% is literally a product use case: whoever buys the ticket isn't only paying for the show, they're paying for the chance to cross paths with people who matter.

McCann measured the same shift from another angle. 68% of young Brazilians say they feel better represented at in-person encounters than on social networks. Majority. And it's data from Brazil.

Put the three together: the desire exists (79% want more), the cultural infrastructure exists (89% already go), and the quality of the in-person experience outweighs the digital one for two-thirds of the demographic.

What's ending

What's tiring this generation isn't technology. It's the method. The static profile that has to look good around the clock. The context-free conversation that has to start from zero. The effort of pre-producing a version of yourself that gets judged before anything real has happened.

That model gave what it had to give. Research shows fatigue, mass deletes, a return to physical spaces. It's not nostalgia, it's practical. It's less work to meet an interesting person in a place where you've already agreed to be than in a feed where everything is up for negotiation.

In its place, a new layer is growing: the one of context-rich encounters. The ingredient missing from in-person apps was a reason to be together that was bigger than meeting someone. That reason is the event.

Not everyone goes to a concert to date. Most go because they want to hear what's playing, eat what's there, feel the crowd that's going to be there. When the encounter happens, it lands like a layer on top of that. It happens as a consequence, not as a stated purpose.

That design changes everything. The cost of the encounter stops being a separate line item, it's already baked into the ticket. The context for the conversation doesn't need to be invented, it's happening all around. And if the encounter doesn't happen, the night is still good, because the main reason was never the encounter.

Where TIXARENA fits

TIXARENA was designed for exactly this shape. The platform already gathers the people going to events. On top of that, three arenas run on their own logic.

Kiss Arena, for those who want to match with people who'll physically be close on Friday. Party Arena, for those who want to walk into the festival already knowing where their kind of people are. Networking Arena, for those at a professional event who want to figure out who's who before the coffee runs out.

None of the three creates an event. All three use the events that already exist as the fabric where the connection happens. That's the bet.

The generation arriving isn't asking for a better app. It's asking to stop using an app for this part. For the place where life happens to go back to being the place where people meet.

The data is saying this is going to become the rule, not the exception. And Brazil, with the size of the event catalog it has, with the frequency the Brazilian already goes out, with how much physical presence still means here, is where this shift is going to land first.

More to come.