Last week, GES, a full-service event provider, announced its acquisition of Poken, a leading engagement technology company. Poken is expected to fit right into GES’ culture of event services and technology.

Poken, a long-time partner at Smart Meeting events, offers a cloud-based service used to increase engagement and improve data analytics by combining digital and physical event spaces. The product is used at trade shows and exhibitions as well as sporting, youth, corporate and association events. The flexible platform provides registration, name badges, lead generation devices, access control, meeting scheduling, mobile apps, even matchmaking and much more. Attendees can optimize their schedule at an event by using Poken to create a profile which identifies them and matches them with the best potential networking and business opportunities and meeting time slots. Product and service information can also be obtained digitally on the platform.

Another Poken product, Poken 360°, is a unified system of tech tools which supports event engagement through smart badges and digital document collection. The digital collection is created by using a combination of Poken’s “Touch and Glow” technology, gamification, visit-to-visitor engagement and full-metrics reporting. Poken 360° will preserve its name as it joins the N200|GES event intelligence team.

“This acquisition demonstrates our commitment to being the preferred global live events partner offering the most comprehensive breadth of technology and services,” says GES President Steve Moster in a press release. “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 EVP of International, Jason Popp, adds, “The addition of Poken is a game-changer in providing a truly intelligent event for organizers, exhibitors, brands and attendees.”

GES and Poken already have a strategic partnership that enhances measurable technological solutions for event registration, streamlined management and visitor engagement. N200|GES and Poken are furthering the integration to offer greater customer benefits; the addition of Poken will improve GES intelligent event services. The Poken team, along with founder and CEO Stéphane Doutriaux, will merge with the GES team in offices in London, New York City and Laudanne, Switzerland. Currently, Poken’s product and service collection can be purchased independently or as an integrated GES product or service.

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