Event more than doubles in size and highlights market-leading event technology developments and industry insights

LONDON – October 3, 2018 – More than 1,000 meetings, events, and hospitality professionals from across Europe and the UK converged in London at the second annual Cvent CONNECT Europe conference. Held at The Business Design Centre in the heart of the city, Cvent's event more than doubled in size year-over-year highlighting continued market strength and increasing interest in the brand's market-leading event and hospitality management technology. The conference brought together both sides of Cvent's customer base offering event and hospitality professionals two days of in-depth product training and insight sessions led by both Cvent experts and industry influencers.

CEO and Founder Reggie Aggarwal kicked off the event with a call to event and hospitality professionals worldwide to embrace new technologies that are part of what is being hailed as the 4th industrial revolution and highlighted the importance of continuing to drive innovation. Biometrics, artificial intelligence, the internet of things (IoT), facial recognition, and machine learning were all highlighted as elements of this new technology-fueled era that will have a profound effect on the meetings and events industry worldwide.

The Power of Live

The theme of this year's conference was "The Power of Live" which highlighted the positive impact that live events have on the business world. The conference and meetings sector in the UK drove £18.1 billion in revenue in 2017 and many of the 60+ sessions during the two-day conference educated attendees on how to maximise the impact of their events programs and MICE business through technology. The night-time events also put “The Power of Live” at the forefront as attendees took the opportunity to engage and network with their industry peers face-to-face.

Innovation

The conference offered attendees the unique opportunity to explore Cvent's latest technology developments across both their event and hospitality platforms in the Innovation Pavilion – including a deep dive into the company's next-generation user experience for its flagship event website and registration solution. Described as “Registration Reimagined,” the new experience puts all the design control in the hands of event professionals and marketers who can now create completely customised, mobile-responsive event websites in a user-friendly, drag-and-drop site designer. It will be launched later this month. Hospitality professionals explored the new Cvent Supplier Network (CSN) microsites and were able to delve into new comprehensive reporting capabilities within the platform offering greater opportunity to grow their businesses.

Keynote Speakers

Cvent expanded on the agenda from 2017 and brought three keynote speakers to the main stage offering a wide variety of industry expertise and insights for conference attendees. Kate Ancketill, Founder and CEO of GDR Creative Intelligence, Laura Schwartz, Former Director of White House Events, and Paul Cash, Founder of B2B marketing agency Rooster Punk drove home messaging that highlighted the importance of humanising your brand and engaging with your audience to drive results and strengthen brand affinity.