There’s always a buzz when the events industry gets together, and International Confex is one of those times during the year when the hum is loudest.

So, what did I take out of this year’s gathering?

Interesting technologies

Being a massive geek, I love to explore new technologies and new suppliers joining the thriving event industry ecosystem.

At Eventbrite we already work with over 100 best-in-class event industry apps and suppliers to make the whole process of working with multiple providers as seamless as possible.

With hundreds of exhibitors, International Confex had plenty of interesting technologies to explore. Here are just of few of my highlights:

Glisser: Glisser is really innovating the way that presentations can become more interactive and engaging. Their technology lets audience members write notes on the slides through their smart phone, share your favourite slides or comment on and like them as the presenter moves through their presentation.

Doubledutch: “Event apps on steroids” kind of says it all! However what stood out to me was how serious they are about helping organisers see deeper into their events, understand attendee behaviour and measure ROI which is a trend that will only set to grow in demand.

Poken: Poken bills itself as the ‘green event platform’ as it helps all data and document exchanges be done digitally. However for me the key innovation that stand out is the pesky ‘business card’ issue so attendees can still exchange their details even if they’ve forgotten their business cards (which happens to me a lot!)

Evvnt: We’ve recently partnered with Evvnt to help make it even easier for events to be found online. While much of the technology on display at Confex was focused on what happens when an attendee is at the event, helping organisers with their marketing is still a key innovation to look at.

iBid Events: Award winning technology, iBid is focused on the worthy cause of helping fundraising events get more pledges and donations. As keen supporters of charities and non-profits ourselves, we’re always happy to see new innovations on display in this space.

SharedIt: As a social media manager, it’s great to see companies helping link up In Real Life (IRL) experiences with social media, and these guys have a cool way of doing this, encouraging attendees to tweet about their event experience by automatically syncing your twitter account, the event hashtag and printing out a picture they’ve tweeted.

Key take-aways

After two days of speaking with exhibitors, bumping into event professionals from past lives and making new connections, I left yesterday with three overriding impressions.

Optimism in the industry: It feels like there are a lot of opportunities for growth in the events industry. Our own research into millennials showed that 65% of 18-34 year olds now prefer buying experiences to material possessions. That equates to a staggering spend of £419,556,233 each month – all money that is ripe for the event industry – so no wonder there was lots of talk about growth and new ventures!

Lots of innovation: As mentioned above, there are a huge number of new products and services entering the events ecosystem each year, all designed to help make events smarter, better and ultimately more profitable for everyone involved.

No excuses: Given the range of new technologies on offer, a bullish market and a world that wants to spend money on great live experiences, there should be no excuses for running me-too events, for not having engaged attendees, or not offering a smooth event experience from start to finish.

Conclusion

Firstly, a big congrats to Mash Media for organising a great event in Confex.

Secondly, if you want to get started on creating even better events, tapping into the growing demand for live experiences and working with best-in-class technology, why not start with Eventbrite as your base, tap into our huge network of partners and our knowledge resources for organisers new and veteran alike?

What was your experience of Confex? What were your favourite innovations?