GES Adds Leading Visitor Engagement Technology with Acquisition of Poken

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.

About GES
GES, a Viad Corp (NYSE: VVI) 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 shows and brands, including Mary Kay, Spring Fair Birmingham, MAGIC, CONEXPO-CON/AGG and IFPE, and Toronto Boat Show. 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.

About Poken
Poken is a cloud-based event management platform that creates richer engagement. A seamless ecosystem of tools and technology for event professionals, Poken enables organizers and exhibitors to create interactive and exciting events, while providing a one-stop system for managing each stage in the planning and delivery process. Equipped with digital platform, mobile apps and NFC+ products, Poken brings together the digital and physical event spaces to drive engagement, centralize management and gain better insight through real data. For more information, visit www.poken.com

GES Contacts:
Detra Page – North America
702.515.5627 – office
702.591.3786 - mobile
[email protected] 

Christine Martin – EMEA
+44 2476 380300 – office
+44 (0) 7825 072114 – mobile
[email protected] 

SOURCE GES

Related Links

http://www.ges.com