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.

Event platform Bizzabo has launched a new application to help event marketers create a more personalized attendee experience through community building.

The Bizzabo Events Cloud offers tools that allow event marketers to build end-to-end branded experiences for attendees, plus measure performance and ROI. Organizations can create websites, event communities, marketing emails and now event apps that are seamlessly interconnected.

Event success cloud solution Bizzabo has launched a next-generation agenda feature for conferences and events designed to help event organizers create attendee-facing agenda experiences that boost audience engagement, increase discoverability of sessions and speakers, and provide actionable insights for marketers to maximize event success.

If you’ve ever received an online invitation to an event, chances are high it was created using Evite. Now, corporate event planners can also use the invitation service to design, send and manage invitations to professional events.

For corporations that host a number of small, by-invitation-only events such as breakfasts, dinners, receptions or outings, Evite’s new service can help streamline the process.

Meetings, events and hospitality management technology provider Cvent has released the general availability date of its next-generation user experience for its flagship event website and online registration solution, aptly named Project Flex.

Effective today, etouches will be known as Aventri.

The name Aventri is a result of three ideas; avenue, events, and entry. The rebrand combines these three elements as part of the company’s continuing effort to transform the event experience through products, people and innovation.