Technology

Event Tech Roundup: New Solutions & Partnerships By Bizzabo, Resiada, Banzai & More

lpsavas@corporateeventnews.com — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 13:44:08 +0000

Event Tech Roundup: New Solutions & Partnerships By Bizzabo, Resiada, Banzai & More

April 30, 2024

Throughout the U.S. and across the pond, event technology companies are unveiling new solutions, enhancing existing offerings and teaming up with other providers to deliver more compelling features for event organizers and exhibitors alike.

GlobalMeet Unveils New AI Capabilities

Virtual event and webcasting technology leader GlobalMeet announced new artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and a refreshed user interface for more immersive event experiences.

Able to work seamlessly with any camera-enabled device, the new AI capabilities within GlobalMeet’s webcasting platform and Live Studio for presenters include:

· Natural Interaction: Automated face framing, panning and zooming facilitates eye contact to mimic the flow of more natural and realistic conversations, enhancing the exchange of non-verbal cues

· Presenter Framing: Algorithms automatically detect faces that come into camera view to adjust framing in real time. This feature promotes greater visibility and inclusivity by automatically featuring active speakers and ensuring all presenters stay in focus

· Intelligent Layout Design: Both voice and visual detection are enabled to allocate screen space proportionally and reduce unnecessary visual disruptions for a cleaner interface

· Device Compatibility: Seamlessly integrates with all camera-enabled devices from classic webcams to state-of-the-art video equipment

Kim Niederman, GlobalMeet

These newly integrated capabilities coincide with updates to GlobalMeet’s video bridge designed to streamline the presenter’s journey and optimize operations. They include:

New Presenter Layouts: Enhanced layout automation and optimization functionalities intelligently manage screen space and shift focus to active speakers.
Virtual Backgrounds: Users can now select virtual background images or upload their own for a personalized and branded experience, and maintain privacy by blurring their background.

“Artificial intelligence is the future for virtual event technology, and GlobalMeet is proud to leverage AI in this dynamic way,” said GlobalMeet CEO Kim Niederman. “These AI capabilities further expand upon our mission to help our customers execute flawless events for when their message matters most.”

22Miles Launches AI Assistant Tool

Atlanta area-based 22Miles, a global provider of digital signage software and interactive digital solutions, released Tradeshow AI Assistant, a custom-trained conversational AI tool designed to streamline event operations and attendee support via an engaging, user-friendly and responsive chat interface.

Offered free of charge to a limited number of event organizers for one year, the solution leverages the 22Miles generative AI solution integrated with the brand’s 3D Wayfinding App and content management capabilities.

Offering rapid, real-time event information and wayfinding that attendees can interact with naturally in any language, Tradeshow AI Assistant can be deployed by organizers on digital signage, websites or within the event app and easily updates information throughout the event as needed.

For attendees, the Tradeshow AI Assistant supports navigation across large venues, swiftly and accurately recalls event-related information and ensures reliable, prompt self-service support on demand.

Requiring as little as four weeks for deployment, the Tradeshow AI Assistant can quickly and seamlessly integrate into event operations, and aggregates data to deliver a blend of qualitative insights and quantitative metrics post-event.

“Our solution is unique in that it uses natural language processing to understand attendees’ questions, no matter how they’re phrased, and gives useful, real-time answers, just like a human information desk representative,” explained Joey Zhao, CEO and founder of 22Miles. “We look forward to empowering show organizers with comprehensive, time-efficient, cost-effective support.”

Bizzabo Partners With Resiada to Integrate Hotel Room Block Management

Bizzabo has integrated hotel room block management to its Event Experience OS. Powered by Resiada room block management software, this integration enables event organizers to streamline the attendee hotel booking process and monitor their room block natively within Bizzabo.

Through this integration, event participants can now move easily from event registration to hotel reservation by clicking through to an event’s branded, mobile-friendly booking site, where their personal information and ticket number are auto-filled. The registrant simply has to input their travel dates, browse accommodation options and complete their reservation.

Additionally, event organizers can manage their room block directly from Bizzabo’s Reports hub instead of jumping between platforms. With dashboards updated in real-time, organizers can easily view reservations, manage inventory and track their differential list to see who’s registered and booked versus registrants who still need to book their hotel. This reporting can then be shared with colleagues and stakeholders at the organizer’s preference.

“Bizzabo remains committed to delivering a personalized, low-friction experience throughout the entire event lifecycle,” said Alon Alroy, CMO and co-founder of Bizzabo. “This collaboration with Resiada not only simplifies a key part of the in-person attendee’s journey but also delivers real-time insights and enhanced efficiency for our busy customers.”

Banzai Expands Its Event Marketing Solution

Marketing and sales solutions technology provider Banzai has expanded its event marketing solution, Reach, to help show organizers target qualified contacts, drive event registration and generate leads for event marketers.

Joe Davy, Banzai

Reach helps marketers drive event registration by inviting a company’s ideal audience through personalized multi-channel campaigns. Leveraging Banzai’s Audience AI feature, the solution targets potential attendees from a database of more than 379 million professionals by geographic region, industry, job title and more to fill rooms and sales pipelines.

According to Joe Davy, Banzai CEO and chairman, the company’s expanded investment in its Reach business is designed to meet an increased market demand for audience acquisition solutions for webinars and field marketing. The expansion includes the creation of an operating business unit, investment in new technology systems to support customers more efficiently and an expanded strategic focus within Banzai to serve additional customers.

“Event attendance is a major challenge for marketers utilizing field marketing or webinars as a strategy,” Davy said. “Reach enables customers to focus on event and webinar execution while supplementing their event audiences to increase their overall ROI.”

Have some meeting and event technology news to share? Reach out to lisa.savas@informa.com and danica.tormohlen@informa.com.

Don’t miss any event-related news: Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter HERE, listen to our latest podcast HERE and engage with us on LinkedIn!

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Tech Giants: Lux Narayan, CEO, StreamAlive

lpsavas@corporateeventnews.com — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 14:52:10 +0000

Tech Giants: Lux Narayan, CEO, StreamAlive

January 12, 2024

Lisa Plummer Savas

Talk to Lux Narayan, co-founder of event audience engagement technology platform StreamAlive, and it quickly becomes apparent that he is anything but your typical event tech CEO. Not only has the serial entrepreneur founded three technology companies over the past two decades, including AI-powered SaaS StreamAlive in 2021, social media benchmarking company Unmetric and online data backup company Vembu Technologies, but also he is a TED speaker, amateur standup comedian, author and storyteller who feels just as comfortable telling jokes in front of an audience as he does delivering PowerPoint presentations and pitching potential investors.

“While the event technology space is new for me, one thing is definitely not: presenting in front of audiences,” Narayan said. “The dynamic and interaction between me as the presenter and my audience has always fascinated me. My grandfather was also a public speaking teacher – one of the first in India in 1967. So, you could say it’s in my blood, too.”

He added, “The ability to play a part in making [event] audience engagement a better, more positive experience is what I like most about being in [the event tech] space.”

Corporate Event News had a chance to sit down with Narayan to hear about how an extended work sabbatical inspired StreamAlive, what sets the audience engagement platform apart from the competition and how the platform will be integrating AI to help presenters foster more engaging live presentations for virtual, hybrid and in-person meetings and events.

A few years ago, you took some time away from the working world to pursue your own passions. Can you give us an overview of how this experience inspired you to create StreamAlive?

After we sold Unmetric [in 2019], I was fortunate enough to be able to take some time to reset and pursue some personal ambitions as a writer and storyteller. It was fortuitous because right around this time we had a medical emergency in the family that would have been much more difficult to contend with if I had still been at the helm of a company.

It was during this extended time off that I wrote and published a book called “Name, Place, Animal, Thing.” Since this was also during the height of the pandemic lockdowns, a lot of the cohort-based courses I took on writing and book promotion were online on Zoom, Facebook Live or YouTube Live. Having been on the other side of the presentation table, I could see that the native chat functions for whatever presentation platform the teacher or coach was using were not great for true audience engagement.

During these courses, I was asking questions and responding to questions the teacher was asking, but most of the time I was being ignored because the presenter/coach could only respond and react to so many comments at a time. The virtual nature of the live session compounded this, but I also realized this problem is the same even with in-person or hybrid events. Once an audience reaches double-digits, it becomes impossible for the presenter to acknowledge and engage with everyone.

The inspiration for StreamAlive stemmed from wanting to create something that turned a typical presentation monologue into a dialogue where everyone can feel that their voice is heard and acknowledged.

Is StreamAlive meant for just virtual and hybrid events, or can it be used for in-person events, as well?

Presenters at in-person events can absolutely use StreamAlive. Even if your audience is all in-person, the problem is still the same. At scale, it is impossible to acknowledge and empower every single person to have a voice. You can get on stage and say things that elicit a binary response. For example, you could say “Raise your hand if you’re from out of town.” People will raise their hands and then two seconds later that info and moment is gone forever. You can’t realistically ask every person what city or country they are from, [but] with StreamAlive, you can.

We kept in mind that in-person events and meetings would make a comeback and that hybrid was likely going to be the new normal for these types of events and sessions. One of the first things we built after our proof-of-concept was a browser-based chat feature that connects everyone in the room and everyone not in the room to a group chat. The audience gets the same live session and StreamAlive experience no matter where they are located. Everyone can participate in the audience interactions and literally see that their voices are being heard.

What sets StreamAlive apart when it comes to helping meeting and event planners produce standout sessions at events?

For starters, there is no app install for the audience. For those participating in online sessions on Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Twitch or YouTube Live, there is no user interface, no learning curve and no opportunity to get distracted by looking at a second screen. The audience can become an active participant in the session directly from the chat. Any question they ask is automatically picked up by our AI and collated into a question bank.

For in-person and hybrid events, the browser-based chat is a way to bring the audience together to have a continuous shared experience, and not just when the presenter asks them to vote for something like other audience engagement apps do. By keeping everything as simple as asking the audience to type it in the chat, participation in events can be increased [and] participants are more connected with each other.

For online events, we recently helped an author in India launch his book during a YouTube live session. He had more than 15,000 viewers tune in, and StreamAlive helped him generate more than 13,000 comments with the audience interactions. The author sold more than 5,000 books during the one-hour live stream. He was also streaming to other platforms and had a combined audience of 140,000 viewers.

Another example is a coach to independent business consultants ran a webinar and a combination of his high-tempo delivery and StreamAlive’s audience interactions meant that the audience stayed tuned in to his presentation for the full hour. More than 85% of the audience participated in the chat and had their voices heard.

What does the future hold for StreamAlive in the coming year?

We have a lot of exciting things in the works, including plans to add generative AI capabilities powered by ChatGPT 4 to the presentation workflow to make the whole experience of creating live sessions as frictionless and effortless as possible. Having given presenters the ability to listen in real-time to their audience, the next step is to help them engineer engaging presentations that incorporate listening. AI can greatly help with this as users embrace new behaviors.

We’re also adding new meeting and streaming platforms, some of which will be enabled by our recently launched Chrome Plugin, which can pull the chat stream from any platform, even if there’s no API available. We’re also expanding our library of visual interactions. It currently includes maps, polls, word clouds, falling blocks, winner wheels, etc. We have plans for at least three more interactions in the immediate future.

Lastly, we are looking at improving workflows. We will be integrating into authoring tools like Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint, and becoming available in various app stores to become truly ubiquitous and pervasive in all presentation authoring and meeting and streaming environments.

Which comedian has inspired your own standup comedy and why?

I’ve been most inspired by the great George Carlin. Besides his sense of comic timing, voice modulation and act-outs, his ability to find comic gold in the seemingly mundane is inspiring. He also had a nuanced way with words and inspiring verbal dexterity.

Among current comedians, I am most inspired by Bo Burnham. His ability to do multi-modal comedy, and his many talents are extremely inspiring. His special, “Inside,” produced, written, edited and performed by him from one room during the pandemic, is a testament to the power of creativity and how one person can, with talent and effort, be so prolific and bring (bittersweet) joy to others.

Know an event technology leader and innovator who deserves some time in the spotlight? Reach out to lisa.savas@informa.com and danica.tormohlen@informa.com.

Don’t miss any event-related news: Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter HERE, listen to our latest podcast HERE and engage with us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn!

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MCI Launches AI Tools for Registration, Housing And Leads

lpsavas@corporateeventnews.com — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 14:49:34 +0000

MCI Launches AI Tools for Registration, Housing And Leads

January 4, 2024

Danica Tormohlen

Want an assistant who works 24/7, speaks every language and provides responses in seconds?

MCI Group, a global engagement and marketing agency, launched its new AI Assistant, Jade, to provide automation tools for registration, housing and leads. At the International Association of Exhibitions and Events’ Expo! Expo! In December, MCI introduced six new AI products to help trade show organizers, corporate event planners and exhibitors save time, money and manpower, as well as offer insight into real-time analytics based on deep and vast data sets.

“We're anticipating that north of 85% of call center inquiries are going to be able to be handled by Jade,” said MCI USA Senior Vice President, Registration and Housing Chris Williams. “It’s such a game changer. It never goes to sleep. It works in real time, and it just gets smarter and smarter about the event.”

With more than 1,200 clients across 31 countries, MCI offers its One System platform, which uses Cvent's core registration and housing products and builds its own software on top.

“What we've done is identified what features and functionality in their registration and housing platform are missing for the large complex shows in the market,” said Williams. “Our developer team focuses on building out what we would call the gaps that bring value to our customers that you can't get in the core platform.”

We sat down with Williams to get the scoop on how these AI tools work. Will they deliver on their promise?

Watch our full interview with Williams here, or read our list of curated quotes and a run-down of the products and their features:

How it works with contact center operations: “All registration and housing companies get chats, emails and phone calls from people who want to do something with their registration or with their housing reservation. Jade allows you to send an email to a normal event inbox, and Jade can read the email and go into the database and make the updates. Then it sends an email back, letting the registrant know what it's done,” Williams explained.

How it works with lead scoring: “It matches up all the exhibiting companies with all the attendees, and it provides a score from one to 10. It analyzes the data, and it provides a score of how valuable any one attendee would be to any one exhibitor. So it's done the math to calculate a lead score when you walk in and then your behavior throughout the show. If you take more sessions that are related to what that exhibitor sells, your lead score would go up for that particular exhibitor. Or if your lead was scanned by competitors of that exhibiting company, you become more valuable to that particular exhibitor.

What we're trying to do — and all of our competitors are trying to do — is to bring more value to the exhibitor and help them turn a lead into a sale. We've tried to improve the lead capture process by adding the scoring in to use more behavioral data about the attendee. It's trying to take some of the homework that a salesperson needs to do, cut to the chase and help them make the sale faster.”

Predictions and challenges: “I think what you're going to see is a heavy adoption of AI both inside and outside of our industry. Who knows what's going to be released by Open AI with functionality, but it's going to bring efficiencies to the process. It's going to speed everything up and automate everything. So the challenge is just getting our messaging out to our own clients and to the marketplace in general. Then coming up with the business model that allows everybody to use the products and hopefully improve the event experience for themselves, exhibitors, attendees, speakers — everybody involved.”

What’s next: “We are working on ways to summarize what the attendee and exhibitor experience was at the show, then use AI to summarize and provide it back to them in their portal. That's what AI does great – it can consume mass quantities of data, make heads or tails out of it and provide the summary very quickly in real time. Sometimes seconds, sometimes minutes. That's the next step…using AI to summarize their journey.”

Need to Know: 6 New AI Tools For Events

Jade for Contact Center

Available 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, Jade works in real-time and is multilingual. Jade performs contact center actions for registration, housing and lead retrieval, answers questions and updates records. Jade updates contact information, registration categories, sessions and reservations. Registrants can communicate with Jade via email and chat, and soon they will be able to communicate with Jade via SMS and voice.

Jade for Lead Scoring

When an exhibitor captures a sales lead, Jade scores the lead using information collected in the registration process, behavioral information collected throughout the event and information collected via the Internet. Jade updates the lead score in real time throughout the event as the registrant acts at the show. A lead score increases when the registrant's behavior indicates they are more apt to purchase one of the exhibitor’s products or services. Each score is unique to the exhibiting company collecting the sales lead.

Jade for Analytics

Jade provides deep, data scientist-level analytics. The analytics can be performed on data MCI already has about the event, such as registration, session, housing or lead data, or MCI can add data collected by various vendors to enhance the data set and glean deeper, more insightful analytics. Jade performs the analytics quickly and sees trends that cannot be found with traditional reporting.

Jade determines the personas of attendees and tells the organizer who the most valuable and engaged buyers are on the show floor. Jade can be used throughout the show cycle to provide guidance on how to strategically market the event, grow attendance and increase booth and sponsorship sales. Jade can also present the results in a report format with charts or a PowerPoint presentation.

Jade for Recommendations

Jade makes real-time session recommendations during the registration process, based on information provided by the registrant and choices they make while registering. Jade makes sure registrants never miss an opportunity to improve their experience at the event. Jade also recommends a list of exhibitors to visit while at the show based on the product interests of the registrant.

Jade for Writing

Jade assists users in writing content for the event. For example, Jade can assist with writing session descriptions, confirmations or welcome emails. Jade speeds up the event setup process.

Jade for Event Set Up

Coming in 2024: Jade will assist users with various pieces of the event registration setup process. Jade will use event business rules provided by the client to automatically set up the online registration sites. This will decrease the set up time, increase accuracy and decrease the time it takes to perform the quality assurance testing.

Have some event technology news to share? Please send announcements and high-resolution imagery to lisa.savas@informa.com and danica.tormohlen@informa.com.

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Curate Host-City Experiences for Attendees With Jampack Platform

lpsavas@corporateeventnews.com — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 14:17:40 +0000

Curate Host-City Experiences for Attendees With Jampack Platform

November 16, 2023

Lisa Plummer Savas

Corporate event organizers now have a new way to tap into the increasing popularity of blended travel while elevating their in-person events with Jampack, a new bundling platform that curates unique and memorable host-city experiences for attendees and exhibitors.

Using the Jampack platform, event-goers can explore and purchase exclusive destination experiences, such as networking-focused dining events, excursions or golf outings, hotel accommodations and stay-the-weekend packages before, during and after trade shows and conferences — setting the stage for elevated networking and group bonding via fun and unique experiences.

Launched as a beta version in June 2021 as Fuse Ignited (rebranded as Jampack in September), Jampack partners with event producers across music festivals, sporting events, trade shows and conferences to curate in-event experiences only available within the Jampack platform.

David Einzig, Jampack

By leveraging proprietary technology and partner integrations, the platform bundles exclusive destination experiences at the best rates available while empowering event organizers to generate new incremental revenue by bundling the ticket purchase, hotel room and add-on fan experiences into a single seamless package, according to Jackpack officials.

“It has always been a holy grail for trade show organizers to find a way to capture more of the host city spend that is taking place around their events,” said Dave Einzig, Jampack general manager of trade shows and conferences. “What was missing was the great technology and focused team, with the right business model, to make it a reality. Jampack brings that to the show organizer as a revenue share partnership model, with no risk and minimal bandwidth required.”

How it works

Leveraging its extensive network of venue contacts and resort property partnerships, Jampack offers a diverse schedule of add-on experiences that attendees can explore and take advantage of in the host city around an event’s existing schedule.

Using a show-branded, user-friendly interface that works as an extension to event registration and in real-time during the event, attendees and exhibitors can access the platform via the web and customized, mobile-based user sites to access QR codes, activity details and maps 24/7.

For example, organizers can elevate event networking by including official “AFTER DARK” nightlife events and show-branded “meet-up” spots around the host city on nights with no officially scheduled parties.

Listed in the show schedule on the event website and mobile app, these official event packages can be browsed and purchased as part of an event participant’s event registration or via Jampack’s show-branded web-based platform. Attendees then receive a confirmation email with a QR code that serves as their All Access Pass to the nightly events or experiences.

Event participants can also use Jampack to book private experiences, such as group dining, branded offsite events and group experiences with colleagues and clients. Event groups simply submit nightlife and hospitality requests to Jampack via its show-branded web-based platform, after which a Private Group Services team member provides white glove concierge services, including the ideation and contracting of the venues and vendors needed to plan their events or experiences.

Meanwhile, the revenue spent in the host city through the Jampack platform is shared with event organizers without any financial investment or additional resources.

What organizers are saying

According to Einzig, Jampack has already worked with SHOT Show and The Car Wash Show to deliver highly popular AFTER DARK networking and nightlife events at some of the most sought-after venues in Las Vegas.

According to Jeff Pressman, president and CEO of ConvExx, the company collaborated with Jampack to facilitate unique after-hours networking community events for SHOT Show – a partnership that turned out to be more impactful and rewarding than anticipated.

“Not only were their concepts innovative but also they created programs that were specifically designed for our unique audience,” Pressman said. “Their operations team was just as impressive onsite, ensuring that all those that participated were treated like VIPs and the events ran smoothly.”

Kim Vinciguerra, chief experience officer for the International Carwash Association, said that partnering with Jampack gave her organization the resources and support it needed to enhance the attendee experience with minimal bandwidth required from her team.

“The best part is that we are building a new revenue channel at the same time,” she said. “My only regret is that we didn’t find Jampack sooner!”

Exhibiting companies have also been using the platform to streamline their event planning. Case in point: Catherine Craft, trade show manager for DRB, who worked with Jampack Private Group Services to source the venue and entertainment for its client cocktail reception.

“We are so grateful, as they were super helpful, flexible and reliable, and the event was perfect,” Craft said.

Have some event technology news to share? Please send announcements and high-resolution imagery to lpsavas@tsnn.com and dtormohlen@tsnn.com.

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SpotMyPhotos Unleashes Real-Time Photo Delivery for Event Attendees

lpsavas@corporateeventnews.com — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 14:34:50 +0000

SpotMyPhotos Unleashes Real-Time Photo Delivery for Event Attendees

November 7, 2023

Lisa Plummer Savas

If you attended Connect Marketplace in August in Minneapolis or the Events Industry Council (EIC) Global Awards Celebration at IMEX America in October, you may have received photos in real-time via SpotMyPhotos, an AI-powered, automated private photo sharing technology that goes beyond facial recognition to let people’s photos find them.

Attendees who opt-in to experience this next-gen photo delivery platform at events can enjoy the convenience of having all photographs taken of them instantly delivered to their smartphones, eliminating the need to scroll through hundreds or even thousands of event photos to find their pictures.

Offering the benefits of a roaming photographer and photo booth in one, SpotMyPhotos enables attendees to instantly download their images, share them on social media and/or print them onsite via private galleries that can be uniquely customized to showcase event branding.

Since the company launched 11 years ago, event organizers, professional photographers and marketing agencies have used SpotMyPhotos to spot hundreds of thousands of people at thousands of events of all types across North America, according to Ryan Jacobs, SpotMyPhotos CEO and founder. In addition to Connect Marketplace and EIC, the technology has been used at the Super Bowl, Grammy Awards and the Academy Awards — to name a few.

“There is a time value of photos,” Jacobs said. “Images depreciate rapidly in value, and organizers want to put their photos to work right away. With SpotMyPhotos, the marketing teams for conference organizers are receiving instant photo stream access – [long gone are] the days where photos were held hostage for days, or in some cases, weeks.”

He continued, “In addition to the need for an event organizer to tell their story, attendees too, are publishers in their own right, eager to share novel, custom-branded photos with others. Rather than having to search for their photos, their photos find them. It is the coolest thing ever, the first time one experiences getting ‘spotted,’ and the novelty of that service doesn’t wear off.”

CEN caught up with Jacobs to find out how the technology works and why more event planners might consider implementing this innovative instant photo delivery system at their meetings, conferences and corporate events.

Next-Gen Technology

With a background in event production and photography, Jacobs said he created SpotMyPhotos with the objective of empowering professional event photographers to rapidly and seamlessly deliver high-quality photos to attendees in seconds while at the same time prioritizing privacy via robust safeguards.

“Camera companies were serving many different photography markets, but for my world — event photography — they were missing major opportunities for facilitating the delivery of photos to those photographed,” Jacobs explained. “Wireless transfer technologies — plus pattern recognition technologies and cloud infrastructure — provided the ingredients for more frictionless photo sharing possibilities.”

Initially turned off by the idea of using facial recognition to power the platform, Jacobs and his team set out to devise ways to deliver photos to those photographed using everything except for facial recognition.

“For small events, it worked great, but for larger sample sets, people would receive the wrong photos, particularly if their clothing looked similar,” Jacobs continued. “By marrying pattern recognition and logic with opt-in facial recognition, our platform proved to be very effective. And interestingly enough, as facial recognition stumbled from use of masks during the pandemic, our platform remained effective.”

How it works

After obtaining a license to use the software, which is available to event organizers or photographers as a subscription SaaS product, photographers or photo booth operators then use a SpotMyPhotos WiFi SD card to make their cameras cloud-enabled using the SpotMyPhotos iOS App.

Set up is easy and can take place the same day, if necessary. However, getting familiarized with the platform and setting up workflows in advance of an event is advised, Jacobs said.

The process is simple. First, an attendee smiles for the camera and has their picture taken by a professional photographer. Next, the attendee registers with the photographer one time, providing the phone number or email address where they want to receive their photos. The software “spots” the attendee’s photos and instantly shares a link to their own private gallery, which is continuously updated with each photo they appear in during the course of the event.

Additionally, SpotMyPhoto’s software grants photographers and photo booths control over how, when and with whom event photos are shared, and galleries can be shared instantly or scheduled for sharing later, allowing time for photo editing.

With live access to the event’s photo stream, event organizers and marketers can also instantly access and use event photos immediately for social media and marketing purposes, as well as have access to the platform’s photo reach analytics.

To help elevate an event’s ROI potential, the platform provides planners with the ability to customize photo galleries to showcase brand identity, so as attendees share their images on social media and beyond, custom branding helps generate event buzz and excitement.

To learn more about the benefits of SpotMyPhotos for event organizers, watch this video.

Next-Level Upgrade

In 2019, SpotMyPhotos upped the ante by becoming the first company to integrate Canon U.S.A.’s Camera Control Application Program Interface (CCAPI) software into its products in the U.S. This move not only leveraged a direct-to-camera connection mode within an instant photo-sharing capability to enable a more frictionless photo-sharing experience but also increased the company’s visibility and scale, Jacobs explained.

“In working with Canon engineers on the direct integration, we [provided] another avenue by which photographers could stream to the SpotMyPhotos platform,” Jacobs said. “Our integration landed us a booth at CES with Canon, and the opportunity to partner on activations together at conferences such as PPA’s Imaging USA. SpotMyPhotos quickly became known in the industry as the instant private photo sharing platform.”

He added, “Connecting our platform directly to the operating system of a camera [was] a major step; bringing us closer to a frictionless, photo-sharing future, where digital photos fly seamlessly to the smartphones of those being photographed.”

What’s next

The engineers at SpotMyPhotos stay busy with bimonthly upgrades and developing new features, according to Jacobs. New products catering to additional privacy safeguards include a creative GDPR compliant product for European partners, and Embargo, which allows teams supporting VIPs such as politicians and celebrities to review and approve their photos prior to anyone else receiving them. In line with the current popularity of professional headshot studios at conferences and events, the platform has also upgraded its professional headshot workflows.

SpotMyPhotos is a federally registered trademark of and assumed name of CloudSpotter Technologies Inc.

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The Vendry Debuts Revamped Venue and Vendor Search Engine for Event Planners

lpsavas@corporateeventnews.com — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 15:36:46 +0000

The Vendry Debuts Revamped Venue and Vendor Search Engine for Event Planners

October 16, 2023

Lisa Plummer Savas

The Vendry, an online event venues and vendor search platform for corporate event planners, has made searching for venues and vendors even faster, easier and more efficient with the launch of a new search engine that enables planners to discover venues and vendors in one centralized place.

Powered by The Vendry’s database, the new search experience brings more than 1 million data points on global venues and vendors together with live insights from The Vendry’s community of corporate event professionals to display the most relevant and comprehensive set of results, according to The Vendry officials.

“We wanted to reimagine a search experience that could bring every high-quality source of information together into a single, comprehensive set of results that’s easy for planners to digest,” said The Vendry CEO Daphne Hoppenot.

She continued, “Up until now, searching for venues and vendors has been a mess. For example, when a planner needs a venue, they’ll search on Google, sift through websites hunting for capacity charts, dig through press articles to see if the location is trendy and on-brand, and message teammates and industry peers in hope of getting a recommendation.”

Now, when a planner searches on The Vendry, they can easily deep dive into the relevant options from a variety of perspectives, including:

Business Directory to browse information on more than 130,000 spaces and services in 87 cities around the world
Community Discussions to read previous conversations that mention pertinent venues or vendors, with the ability to jump in and ask follow up questions
Team Knowledgebase to access private lists, notes and files shared by others in their organization
News to read recent, applicable press from more than 500 publishers, powered by The Vendry’s IndustryIQ technology
Lists to browse curated collections of businesses created by top publications and industry members
Galleries to see more than 92,000 photos of real events those businesses helped bring to life

According to company officials, The Vendry engineered its refreshed platform to quickly aggregate information about event businesses from the highest-quality sources across the web. These data points allow an event professional to not only see which hotels match their requirements for neighborhood and capacity, or which ones were just featured in leading media outlets, for example, but also which venues hosted successful events with photos to prove it.

Paired with personal venue and vendor recommendations and valuable insights from thousands of vetted corporate planners and producers in The Vendry community, this fast-growing community and venue and vendor marketplace platform supports more than 190,000 event planners each month as they plan their events.

From browsing inspiration to searching for venues and vendors, The Vendry plays an influential role in the planning process for event planners at organizations like Bloomberg, NBC, Salesforce, AmexGBT and hundreds more each month, according to The Vendry officials.

The Vendry’s search engine is available and free to use for any vetted corporate event planner. To learn more about gaining access, go here.

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Tech News: Bizzabo Launches Bizzabo Studios, Freeman Partners with 42Chat

dtormohlen@tsnn.com — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 14:37:26 +0000

Tech News: Bizzabo Launches Bizzabo Studios, Freeman Partners with 42Chat

October 12, 2023

Lisa Plummer Savas

A leading event technology company and a full-service global event agency recently unveiled new service offerings to help show organizers and meeting planners produce more impactful events and elevate the attendee experience.

Bizzabo

Bizzabo, the Event Experience OS, recently launched Bizzabo Studios, a premium event creative and production service that merges event technology with creative and operational expertise to produce more innovative and compelling digital or in-person events.

The new offering is the result of a successful multi-year partnership between Bizzabo and award-winning creative agency Smyle, which together have successfully executed more than 250 events for clients including Amazon, Salesforce, ABB, AspenTech, Financial Times, Lululemon and Wella.

Smyle will be using its decades of global digital and hybrid experiential expertise to support the new Studio, according to Bizzabo officials.

“This Bizzabo-Smyle partnership has brought together two of the best in the business to develop a truly unique offering for our customers,” said Eran Ben-Shushan, CEO and co-founder of Bizzabo. “With Bizzabo Studios, event organizers can get the best of both worlds – our world-class event technology and Smyle’s unmatched creative and production expertise – to create compelling event experiences for attendees and sponsors while delivering strong business results.”

The new service offers several event service packages with a predefined scope of work that can be kicked off quickly to help provide clients with maximum value. These packages include template design, registration setup and end-to-end event configuration.

Studio’s multi-disciplinary team of tech experts, event producers and creatives is also available for custom engagements, including project management, creative services, strategic consultation, content creation and production services, according to Bizzabo officials.

Freeman

Freeman recently partnered with 42Chat to help trade show and conference organizers support attendee engagement via a conversational AI customer service solution. The new AI offering will provide Freeman customers with web and SMS AI chatbots for pre-show, during and post-show communications to improve the event experience by assisting attendees with real-time needs, such as finding registration, locating an exhibit and more.

“We are thrilled to partner with Freeman, the global leader in events,” said Bob Caldwell, co-founder of 42Chat, a provider of curated conversational AI solutions for organizations and events.

He continued, “Freeman works with the leading brands and organizers in the industry, and this partnership will introduce 42Chat to new organizations and allow for easy setup and deployment of our system across a wide-cross section of events.”

According to Freeman officials, this partnership opens a new attendee communication channel for its customers while 42Chat delivers an industry leading 95% correct response rate, ensuring timely and accurate support for event attendees.

“42Chat’s AI technology is scalable, privacy compliant, accurate and easy to deploy which makes it a perfect partnership for us and our clients,” said Paul Fletcher, executive vice president, Audio Visual & Event Technology Operations at Freeman. “We’re seeing a generational shift in show attendees with a younger audience. As their needs evolve, this partnership allows our customers to meet these new attendees where they are, and be able to answer questions 24/7 on-the-go.”

To learn more about deploying this new service as well as Freeman’s extensive portfolio of event tech solutions, go here.

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Case Study: How IMEX Is Using Technology to Measure Attendee Sentiment

lpsavas@corporateeventnews.com — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 14:03:19 +0000

Case Study: How IMEX Is Using Technology to Measure Attendee Sentiment

October 2, 2023

Danica Tormohlen

“There's an old saying that goes … if it's measured, it's managed,” said Oliver Bailey, head of Interaction Design for IMEX Group. “So the opposite is also true. If you're not measuring something, you can't be expected to manage it effectively.”

But how do you measure event design and experiences?

Bailey and his team are working with Zenus to measure attendee sentiment, as well as traffic, dwell time and demographics in several locations at the upcoming IMEX America, taking place Oct. 17-19 at Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. Always looking to experiment and try new event tech, Bailey deployed Zenus technology for the first time at IMEX America 2022 and then again at IMEX Frankfurt in May.

“We started using this technology in the first place so that we could be more strategic when it came to event design, particularly experience design,” Bailey said.

Oliver Bailey, IMEX Group

IMEX will set up the Zenus technology in active and engaging sponsorship areas, the wellness lounge, catering areas and select education sessions. Zenus is also working with a number of individual exhibitors, like Encore and Google Xi, to provide data on their experiential design and activations.

“We're trying to create that data culture around live events to show people that live events are actually superior to the digital world in many ways because you can get the same kind of metrics from live events now using this kind of data and others,” Bailey said. “But you're there in person. You're getting that immediate connection. We're trying to take our events to the next level.

We caught up with Bailey and Zenus Co-Founder and CEO Panos Moutafis to find out how IMEX is deploying the technology, what data they are collecting and how they take action on what they measure.

Here are five key quotes from our interview.

What areas will be measured? “Anywhere that positive sentiment is a success criteria and anything where that data will help us iterate, or we can use it to add context and value to a client or sponsor,” Bailey said. “That's the thing we really love about this technology because it's very hard to measure it other than just to stand there observing the whole time.”

Zenus camera at IMEX

How does the tech work? A small piece of hardware is sent up. The device connects to a sensor with a camera. IMEX will be deploying 60-90 boxes, Panos said. “The physical environment is converted into statistics instantly,” he said. “The video is not stored on a device. The technology can analyze a face multiple times per second, and the system has been trained in a way to score the positivity of facial expressions. So for example, surprise might be negative or it might be positive. The ability to distinguish between the two is very important. Excitement, smiles, laughs, anything that surrounds a positive experience has to be measured, quantified, intensity, duration, frequency and so forth. Then we're looking at the aggregate and that's very important. We're just looking at the group level anonymously.

What about privacy concerns? “It's something that's at the forefront of our minds,” Bailey said. “But there's obviously a very important difference between facial analysis, in this case, and facial recognition, which is something that's quite opposite to this. Facial recognition would be detecting a face, linking that to an actual person or to information about a person. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking anonymously looking at faces, impressions of faces and saying that's a happy face. That's a neutral face. It's entirely anonymous.”

Panos Moutafis, Zenus

How does it provide value for a sponsor? At IMEX Frankfurt, “We worked with a sponsor, and they wanted to go beyond just putting up some static branding and create something more experiential. We created an area at the entrance of the hall that had some visuals, but it also had sounds and scent machines. We really themed the area so that when you were walking through that space, you were clearly in a different environment. We used the technology in this area because then we were immediately able to contrast this space with another space and other sponsorships that weren't perhaps as active as well. It's a big investment doing a sponsorship, and it gives people confidence then if we're able to say, hey, look, it really worked.”

What’s next? Bailey said, “At the moment, we've been looking at [the data] pretty much after the fact, but I want to start using it in the moment because … why not? We're in a live environment. It's live data. We can access it live. It'd be crazy not to. So that's where we'll try and get to in the future. It's a question of giving ourselves, I think, the bandwidth, to be able to use this data with our own observations included so that we can use it to act. It's a question of rolling it out in a more meaningful way and plugging it into our own processes and our other technologies, as well.”

Want to take a deeper dive? Watch or listen to the full interview here.

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Simpleview and Viator Join Forces to Transform DMO Websites With the Largest Travel Experience Marketplace

dtormohlen@tsnn.com — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 11:01:50 +0000

Simpleview and Viator Join Forces to Transform DMO Websites With the Largest Travel Experience Marketplace

September 29, 2023

Danica Tormohlen

Simpleview, a CRM, CMS and marketing solutions company for destination marketing organizations (DMOs), has teamed up with Viator, a subsidiary of Tripadvisor, to bring an online marketplace offering more than 300,000 tours, activities and attractions to destination websites.

Event organizers will have a new tool to help attendees and exhibitors book experiences in the host city before, during or after their meetings, trade shows and conventions. By offering Viator's trusted platform, DMOs can provide visitors with a secure and reliable booking experience.

"At Simpleview, our mission is to bridge visitors with unique local attractions,” said Simpleview Chief Revenue Officer Greg Evans. “Viator broadens horizons for 'out-of-market' or 'top-of-funnel' visitors and streamlines bookings for the 'in-market' users, embodying our dedication to transforming digital interactions into memorable journeys."

Simpleview's Greg Evans

He continued, “This partnership will empower DMOs with tools for visitor growth while offering tailored content to fuel travel ambitions — we are excited to bring the capabilities of Viator’s offerings to Simpleview CMS."

Corporate Event News wanted to know more about this partnership and how it can enhance the travel experience for event organizers, attendees and exhibitors.

What’s the value to the corporate event planners and trade show organizers?

This partnership enables corporate event planners and trade show organizers to provide attendees with all of the necessary information about the host destination via the DMO website. The Viator integration provides a listing for a greater number of activities and tours that can be booked directly from the DMO website for experiencing the destination before, during or after the event. Planners can also use this tool as a way to find tours they would like to offer as a part of their event.

How will it work?

The customer (DMOs) will work with Simpleview to connect their partners’ available offerings via Simpleview CRM and a simple supplier ID. This ID connects the DMO's partner listings to the already available supplier offerings on Viator.com. Simpleview has also supplied the account teams with a "new supplier" template for DMOs to use when partners want to sign up to be a supplier, so creating tours and activities is a piece of cake.

Once the supplier IDs have been matched to the DMO partners, the website listings display a "buy tickets" button that allows event planners, meeting and convention organizers and/or travelers to easily navigate any tour offerings available on Viator without leaving the DMO site. Once a user clicks on the tour or activity they wish to pursue, they are transported to Viator.com to complete their purchase. If a user is simply planning to book an event, meeting or convention, they are able to see what attractions and businesses are offering that could easily fit into their RFP and event plans.

Are any DMOs currently using or testing this?

Simpleview has completed a successful beta with New Orleans & Company. Its site is live with Viator offerings here.

How did the partnership come about?

We are always looking for ways to help connect our customers to their partners and local businesses and provide site visitors with the best experience possible. Since Viator is known around the world for being the largest marketplace for our client’s current offerings, it is a partnership we have always talked about pursuing. When Viator changed its API structure, we had deeper discussions that led to a one-of-a-kind partnership that offers a unique CRM integration. DMOs are not only able to provide even more value through referrals and click-throughs to their partners but also increase their website engagement with a licensed content feed of “things to do” for consumers.

What are some of your largest CVB and/or venue clients?

More than 95% of the top 50 meeting destinations in North America are Simpleview customers and include destinations such as Las Vegas, Orlando and Houston. We recently became the preferred website provider for venues managed by ASM Global, with dozens of websites in the process of being launched.

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Tech Giants: Daphne Hoppenot, CEO and Founder, The Vendry

lpsavas@corporateeventnews.com — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 15:23:38 +0000

Tech Giants: Daphne Hoppenot, CEO and Founder, The Vendry

September 21, 2023

Lisa Plummer Savas

By the time she began working in the male-dominated field of technology, Daphne Hoppenot was used to being one of the few women in the room.

“Even in high school when I was studying engineering, there were two classes of 30 students where I was the only girl,” she said. “For better or worse, you get used to it when you’re in this field.”

After graduating from Princeton University with a bachelor of science in engineering, Hoppenot spent her 20s working in business and market development roles at digital AI-led experience platform company Yext, which gave her exposure to hundreds of conferences and company events, as well as deep insight into the event planning process. The experience not only opened her eyes to a largely unmet need in the events industry but also inspired her to fill that gap.

“I happened to be good friends with the women on our events team [and] I observed that these women, who were producing 180 events around the world every year, were spending an enormous amount of time trying to think of creative ideas for the events and find the venues and vendors that could match their vision,” Hoppenot recalled. “I found it quite astonishing in this day and age that there wasn’t a leading platform they could go to for discovery and sourcing.”

So in September 2018, Hoppenot launched The Vendry, an online marketplace and professional community for events professionals that digitizes the traditionally manual process of requesting, collecting and comparing proposals from venues and vendors. The free platform also offers an exclusive jobs board, discussion forums, networking opportunities and other resources to help planners keep up with industry news and seek inspiration for their events.

“[The name] ‘The Vendry’ is meant to aurally recall a foundry, where the work is messy but the output is beautiful,” she explained.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and with it, in-person events canceled or shifted to virtual experiences as event organizers tried to continue to engage with their audiences. Well-positioned to meet this shifting need, The Vendry pivoted to become a crucial source of shared knowledge, ideas and resources to make the virtual transition as seamless as possible, resulting in the tripling of its user community.

Today, the platform is visited by more than 190,000 unique visitors each month, boasts more than 1,200 corporate event planners who are active in its discussion forums, has launched its marketplace in over 87 cities around the world and lists more than 120,000 meeting and event spaces.

Since its founding, The Vendry has helped planners produce thousands of live and virtual events, according to Hoppenot.

“I feel so lucky to have fallen in love with the events industry and the people within it,” she said. “I feel really passionate about the power and good that can come from bringing people together in person. Even though I started this company before the pandemic, the pandemic only strengthened my conviction in the importance of live events, and I’m quite happy to spend my career making the industry and people within it more successful.”

Corporate Event News had the chance to catch up with this driven event tech professional to hear about the valuable lessons she’s learned building and running a tech company, why fun is an essential component of any strong team culture and why being comfortable with failure is crucial to achieving long-term success.

Since founding The Vendry, what are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned, particularly as a female CEO in the male-dominated event tech space?

I think that being a woman – and having an exec team that is 80% women – has been one of our company’s biggest advantages. While event tech (as with all tech) is dominated by male founders, event planners themselves are overwhelmingly female. Since we run a community of planners, I think it’s materially impactful that our leadership looks like the demographic we’re serving.

I’m fortunate I haven’t had many overtly sexist experiences. Sometimes I wonder, and I think this applies to anyone who doesn’t look like the “traditional” CEO, “Would that venture capitalist have wanted to invest if I looked different?” But I also wouldn’t want to work with people who have that sort of antiquated view of the world, so I don’t let it stick in my mind long. I’ve been lucky to have been able to find employees, investors and clients who aren’t mentally stuck in the 1950s. Those people are out there!

Here are three big lessons I’ve learned:

Having the right team is the most important thing – the business idea can evolve but the team is the necessary foundation for success.
You need to find ways, especially as a founder, to actively combat burnout. I’m a workaholic, and I mean that in a bad sense, so my saving grace has been my two little kids (and a lovely husband) who bring me out of the endless void of work to go on picnics, play Legos and recharge. It’s important to set that precedent and support your team in making the same choices.
It’s really important that work has a strong element of fun. We’ve built a mostly in-person work culture and from little interactions like voting where we’ll order lunch from, to taking spontaneous trips to get ice cream, to arguing over office music, that “work hard-play hard” work culture propels us forward faster and stronger and I value it greatly.

Building a company can sometimes feel like a slog. You experience a lot of rejection and failure every step of the way. We’ve been very deliberate in building a strong team and team culture, and I’m not sure that The Vendry would even exist today, five years later, without that. I feel really lucky to get to work with such a talented, positive, funny, hard-working team. It makes all the difference on a day-to-day basis.

What drew you to the events industry and what in your professional background prepared you to launch The Vendry?

I felt prepared to launch a tech company because I spent my 20s building a software company pre-product through IPO. With that comes not just the personal experience but the deep, valuable network of people who I was in the trenches with for years. I’ve benefited incredibly from the Yext network from an advice, investment and recruiting perspective – I just hope I can reciprocate!

One thing in particular I feel grateful for is that working at Yext with a high level of visibility into the business, I saw how often we failed while still building an incredibly successful company. I know that failure is something you need to be comfortable with in this journey. Part of the ability to succeed is having the tenacity to keep going.

What has been the most interesting and rewarding aspect of your job?

I love working with so many women. It’s actually pretty rare to be building a B2B product where most of your users and customers are women, but I found an industry where that can be true!

What are some of the biggest pain points event profs are facing nowadays when it comes to sourcing venues and vendors, and how is The Vendry solving those issues?

There’s no good place to go search for venues and vendors. Having embarked on a mission to change that, I understand why no good search platform exists. The data a planner uses to source is incredibly complex. They need hard attributes like address and capacity, but also photos, floor plans, an understanding of cultural relevance (what’s new, hot, trending), recommendations from other trusted planners, an understanding of their company’s previous experiences with the venue or vendor and more. And that’s just for the search and discovery process, let alone the RFP and procurement processes they go through after finding a set of good options.

We spent a lot of time building an innovative RFP tool, just to realize that we were putting the cart before the horse. An RFP tool is handy if you’ve been able to curate a great list of suppliers to reach out to, and our view of the world was that the search platforms out there for planners are nowhere close to being as helpful as they need to be. So we’ve really doubled down on being the best search and discovery platform for planners, with the intention to re-focus on our RFP tool after we’ve definitely accomplished that first goal.

What’s next for The Vendry?

We’re really excited about our new search experience and are gearing up to focus more of our energy in Q3/Q4 on perfecting destination search experiences. We’ll definitely bring back our RFP tool in 2024, and we’re really excited to launch an RFP unlike anything the industry has seen before. To the extent that facilitating instant booking in certain categories is helpful for our users, we’ll add that to our platform, as well.

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