ACCE 2026 recap: the three themes that defined the Annual Convention in New Orleans
Our team spent July 20–22 at the ACCE 2026 Annual Convention in New Orleans — three days of sessions, an exhibit hall, an awards ceremony, and more than a hundred conversations with the people who run chambers of commerce. Here is what stood out.
By Ted Wind · GM, Chamber of Commerce Solutions at Diagonal
· 7 min read
ACCE 2026 at a glance
- Event
- ACCE 2026 Annual Convention (#ACCE26)
- Dates
- July 20–22, 2026
- Venue
- Hyatt Regency New Orleans
- Attendance
- 1,000+ chamber professionals from the U.S. and Canada
- Who was there
- More than 60% CEOs and vice presidents
- Chamber of the Year
- Eugene (OR) Area Chamber of Commerce
A milestone year for the chamber industry’s biggest gathering
The Annual Convention is the largest professional development event in the chamber world — ACCE represents roughly 1,600 chambers and related organizations across North America — and 2026 marked the first time Louisiana ever hosted it. More than 1,000 chamber professionals made the trip to the Hyatt Regency New Orleans, and this is not a junior-staff conference: over 60% of attendees were CEOs and vice presidents.
ACCE President & CEO Sheree Anne Kelly keynoted on resilience and adaptability in uncertain times, and Grow There founder Cheria Young closed the convention with a talk on why meaningful innovation requires intentional organizational culture. In between, the program ran through sustainable revenue building, member value creation, workforce development, leadership succession, and strengthening local economies. If you are planning ahead, our ACCE 2026 convention guide covers how the week was structured.
Theme 1: Revenue diversification is the new health metric
The dues-versus-non-dues mix was the number everyone was talking about, in sessions and in hallway conversations alike. ACCE’s own operations research puts it plainly: non-dues sources have generated about 62% of total annual chamber revenue for three years running. The chambers that feel healthy are the ones treating dues as one revenue stream among several — events, sponsorships, programs, foundations, fee-for-service work — rather than the whole engine.
It showed in who took home hardware. The Eugene Area Chamber’s Chamber of the Year win was built on multi-year, separately funded programs that go way beyond dues — a five-year economic development strategy and a community homelessness initiative with dozens of partners. Diversified revenue was not a talking point for them; it was the operating model the judges rewarded.
Theme 2: Proving value with data
The best story of the convention belongs to Eugene. The Eugene (OR) Area Chamber of Commerce was a Chamber of the Year finalist back in 2022 and lost — the feedback was that they could not show data proving their programs actually worked. They spent the next four years rebuilding around evidence-based initiatives, came back, and won the 2026 national Chamber of the Year award. Chambers in Mason City (IA), Jackson County (MI), and Des Moines (IA) were also recognized in their categories.
The same dynamic plays out at the membership level, and we heard it at our booth all week: the chambers winning renewals are the ones that can show each member concretely what they got this year — the referrals, the event attendance, the advocacy wins, the introductions. The chambers struggling with retention are usually doing plenty of valuable work; they just cannot prove it on paper. We went deeper on this in our full breakdown of the Eugene story.
Theme 3: Modernizing the tech stack (and yes, AI)
The official agenda told the story on its own, with sessions like “AI for Innovation” and “Streamline Your Marketing with AI.” But the more interesting signal was the shape of the conversations at our booth. The question was never “should we use AI?” — it was “how do we do it without creating a mess?” Chamber teams are small, member data lives in a lot of places, and nobody has spare staff time to babysit a new tool.
Alongside that, a huge share of the chambers we met are actively re-evaluating their software this year — not because new software is fun (it is not), but because the first two themes demand it. You cannot diversify revenue you cannot track, and you cannot prove value you never measured.
Our week in the exhibit hall (and after hours)
Diagonal exhibited all three days, and we talked with more than 100 chambers over the course of the week — from small neighborhood chambers run by a staff of one to statewide organizations. On Monday night we hosted an afterparty for chamber leaders down the street from the Hyatt, which confirmed something we already suspected: chamber people are the most fun people at any business conference.
We also got to see a lot of familiar faces from Beyond the Ribbon Cut, our podcast about the people who run chambers — several convention speakers and attendees have been guests on the show, and a few future episodes got their start in hallway conversations in New Orleans.
Talked with us in New Orleans — or wish you had?
Diagonal is a modern member-management platform built for chambers — memberships and renewals, events, invoicing, communications, and an AI layer that keeps member records up to date on its own. If the themes above sound like your year, we would love to show you around.
Convention facts in this recap are drawn from public coverage of ACCE 2026, including Biz New Orleans, OurQuadCities, and KLCC, plus ACCE’s published research. Photos are Diagonal’s own from the convention week.