Las Vegas – GES has acquired Poken, the developers of a cloud-based show management platform that serves exhibitions around the world.
Poken will be offered to GES clients as a stand-alone product or as part of a package deal with other GES products.
“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.
Poken’s staff, including founder and CEO Stéphane Doutriaux, will join GES’s Europe-based N200|GES division and continue to work from Poken’s offices in New York, London and Lausanne, Switzerland. “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.”
Poken is based on a digital badge that acts as an electronic business card. This technology can be used for a variety of things, such as appointment setting and scheduling. Additionally, exhibitors include a touch pad station in their booths, referred to as ‘Touchpoints’ that collect the visitor’s information through the Poken fob and emails product information to them.
Show organizers can also tap into the data themselves through a Poken dashboard that tallies booth visits and information exchanges. It also reduces the need for printed marketing collateral that would otherwise have to be recycled at the end of the show.
“We know our clients want engagement and concrete metrics from their events,” Moster said. “They will benefit from the technology and insight capabilities that Poken and our existing Visit solution offer together.”
Reach Steve Moster at (702) 515-5500 or smoster@ges.com; Stephane Doutriaux at +41 (0) 21 311 0678 or info@poken.com
