Poken’s extensive event measurement and visitor engagement capabilities perfectly complement GES’ core live event services and technologies
GES, a global full-service provider for live events, announced the purchase of Poken, a cloud-based event management platform. Poken brings together digital and physical event spaces to drive engagement and gain better insight through real data. The Poken 360° platform offers a seamless ecosystem of technology tools that enhance event engagement through smart badges, and digital document collection through its patented “Touch and Glow” technology, visitor-to-visitor engagement, gamification, and full metrics reporting.
Poken joins the N200|GES event intelligence team, and the company will retain the product name Poken 360°. Poken Founder and CEO Stéphane Doutriaux and the global Poken team will join GES with offices in New York City, London, and Lausanne, Switzerland. The Poken team brings significant innovation capabilities, experience, and knowledge of intelligent events and will further extend the value GES brings to its clients and their attendees.
“This acquisition demonstrates our commitment to being the preferred global live events partner offering the most comprehensive breadth of technology and services, ” said GES President Steve Moster. “We know our clients want engagement and concrete metrics from their events. They will benefit from the technology and insight capabilities that Poken and our existing Visit solution offer together.”
GES and Poken already work closely through a strategic partnership, providing clients with measurable and effective technology solutions for event registration and visitor engagement. N200|GES and Poken are currently integrated with plans to develop deeper integration with even greater customer benefits.
Together, the technology platforms further enhance engagement, streamline the management of events, and offer measurable insights for exhibition organizers, exhibitors and event sponsors. Event attendees benefit from Poken’s meeting scheduling. Attendees can maximize the effectiveness of their time by creating profiles that identify and match them with the most suitable people, as well as schedule meeting time slots. Attendees are also able to receive product and service information digitally.
“The addition of Poken is a game-changer in providing a truly intelligent event for organizers, exhibitors, brands, and attendees,” added GES EVP of International, Jason Popp. “The extensive features and services offered by Poken create and drive engagement and are a natural complement to GES’ core live event services and robust technologies. Poken has an extremely talented and enthusiastic work force and we are happy to welcome them to our team.”
Collectively, GES and Poken support thousands of exhibitions and events throughout the world each year. With the addition of Poken, GES now offers the premier global events intelligence platform, focused on event registration and intelligent events.
“We have always enjoyed working with the N200|GES team,” said Doutriaux. “This acquisition demonstrates their commitment to being the world leader in event technology, and especially to the importance of measurement and data intelligence. Together, we intend to pursue an aggressive strategy to bring about a truly measurable and connected event. ”
The Poken suite of products and services can still be purchased on a stand-alone basis or as an integrated suite with GES’ other registration products and services.
GES, a Viad Corp company, is a global, full-service provider for live events, producing corporate events, exhibitions, conferences, congresses, exhibits and entertainment experiences. GES provides a wide-range of services, including official show services, audio visual, cutting-edge creative and design, marketing and measurement services, and event accommodations – all with an unrivaled global reach. GES partners with leading brands and shows, including Bell Helicopter, Merck & Co., Phillips Lighting and Komatsu, and CONEXPO-CON/AGG and IFPE. GES’ National Servicenter has been recognized with certification under the J.D. Power and Associates Certified Call Center Program for the past eight years, and for the seventh year in a row, Ad Age has named GES as one of the “World’s 50 Largest Agency Companies.” For more information, visit www.ges.com.
