Marc Brunet Apr 1, 2015:

What about an up-to-date term: an (XXX)-party? The selected entry does trace the origin of 'salon' well. It also provides a generic description that can work. However, doesn't 'salon' retains the 17-19th century connotation of a locale where bourgeois intellectuals would periodically get together to exchange ideas on all sorts of subjects (literature, politics, Philosophy, etc...)?
What could possibly be the evolved analogous term of 'salon' in the marketing world of today?
Today, it would not refer to a permanent 'locale', for nowadays such meetings may change 'venue' with each gathering 'event'. and so may most of the participants turning up. Now because such events are/were always held in one of the participants' private home (that choice is indeed the tax and cost saving advantage of this informal and organic distribution formula) the promoters of such marketing campaigns took care to reinforce that image without neglecting to publicise its specialised focus by calling those a... '(product name) party' (as in 'Tupperware-party') that used to take place in the 70-80s, Those often led to distribution patterns not very different from pyramid selling, in fact...