While innovations in exhibit design and technology continue to drive the trade show industry’s evolution, the development of lead capture and post-show strategy can be overlooked. To remedy that, Gateway, a St. Louis-based exhibitor services company, is now offering a next-generation digital lead capture system designed to help exhibiting companies improve their show metrics.

Planners using Streampoint Solutions can now easily extend the software’s functionality with Pathable’s mobile event apps and conference microsites. Conversely, Pathable users now have Streampoint as a stable, more affordable option for additional event management tools.

Event management solution provider Aventri and AI Chatbot company Sciensio have teamed up to offer an industry first: an end-to-end event management solution that leverages EventBots.

EventBots are now available as an add-on to the Aventri product suite, allowing planners to access the technology directly through the Aventri dashboard.

Meeting scheduling can be the bane of an event planner’s existence. Anyone who has ever tried to coordinate multiple schedules in order to book meetings or demos at tradeshows or conferences knows how difficult it can be — the phrase “herding cats” springs to mind.

It’s equally difficult to show the value of these meetings, and how they influence sales pipeline and revenue generation. Jifflenow aims to solve both of these problems with its meeting automation platform (MAP).

The winners of the IBTM World 2018 Tech Watch Awards were announced at the IBTM World event in Barcelona this week. Zenus and Fielddrive were the joint recipients of the Tech Watch Award, while Kubify took home the inaugural “People’s Choice” award for its Learning Toolbox.

There’s a new component in IMS Technology Services’ IMS Concierge suite, and it’s designed to encourage audience participation and increase engagement — in real time.

The newly launched IMS 2nd Screen, powered by Glisser, is an integrated platform that includes presentation software, an audience response system and event analytics. The audience participation app shares slides to personal devices and uses audience interaction to provide analytics that can help planners and presenters improve the attendee experience.

The finalists for the 2018 IBTM World Technology Watch award have been selected. The shortlist comprises technology companies with innovative new products or services relevant to the meetings, incentive, conference and events (MICE) industry.

This year’s finalists are: 

Event management technology provider Hubb has raised $6.3 million in a Series B funding round, bringing Hubb’s total funding to $10 million. The funding round was led by Five Elms Capital and includes follow-on investment from Oregon Venture Fund and Elevate Capital.

Hubb plans to use this new capital to better support its customers, further scale its business and develop additional event content and meeting management solutions, along with powerful business intelligence tools. The funding will also be used to hire staff in development, sales, customer support and marketing.

Event technology provider Cvent has acquired Social Tables to improve collaboration between planners and venues while growing its market share.

Social Tables offers the world's largest database of to-scale function space. Planners and venues use Social Tables’ Event Services Solution to diagram events, create seating charts and share files.

Hard on the heels of its rebrand, Aventri is growing. With today’s acquisition of mobile NFC and cloud-based event solutions company ITN International, the event management software company intends to broaden its current onsite technology and service offerings and ultimately provide the most powerful end-to-end event solution on the market for SMBs and enterprise corporations.