Event Tech News Roundup – June 2024

Innovation played an important role in June’s event tech news. Three new products, two acquisitions, one partnership/integration and two significant product updates were on our radar.

You can review last month’s event tech news here, and explore our complete event tech business tracker here.

Product Launch

Eventscase has launched EVA, a new WhatsApp-based virtual assistant. The company says EVA is the first AI virtual assistant for events integrated into WhatsApp. Attendees scan a QR code to join a WhatsApp chat. EVA understands and responds to attendees’ questions using natural language. It also recommends content, speakers, and even networking connections. An interactive demo is available for mobile devices.

Real-time audio experience company Mixhalo now offers real-time AI-powered audio translation and transcription directly to mobile devices. The software works in conjunction with Mixhalo Live, a platform that delivers low-latency, high-quality audio feeds for music and sporting events. A unique feature is the ability to choose between multiple audio channels, including individual musicians and singers. Mixhalo Translate is activated through a combined license and hardware subscription model with usage-based pricing. Mixhalo is partnering with L-Acoustics to tap into its existing customer base.

Freelance event specialist marketplace Happily has launched Happily Landing, a free tool for rapidly building personalized event landing pages. The self-serve product allows anyone to tap into Happily’s event website development expertise. Unlimited free templates offer customizable registration for attendees and speakers, multi-track agendas and embedded live streams or on-demand video.

Acquisitions

Tripleseat, a sales and event management platform for restaurants and hotels, has acquired Merri, a 3D floor plan and event design application for restaurants, hotels, unique venues, and event planners. Tripleseat serves 16,000 restaurants and hotels globally and has managed 34 million events to date. Merri will be integrated into the existing Tripleseat platform.

Immersive enterprise metaverse solution provider Hyperspace announced the acquisition of Glue, a Finland-based virtual meeting technology startup. The move will add Glue’s real-time communication platform to Hyperspace’s existing suite of virtual events, employee onboarding, and learning solutions. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Partnerships

Speaker management software Lineup Ninja has launched an integration with the community marketing platform Gleanin. The integration allows Lineup Ninja to send bulk emails to your speakers, containing each speaker’s unique link to their Gleanin speaker assets for easy sharing on social media, chat or email.

Product Updates

Cvent announced Cvent Passkey’s integration with FreedomPay to enable direct tokenization of credit cards. The integration enables Cvent Passkey and the hotel’s CRS to exchange sensitive credit card information via secure credit card tokens. Tokenization helps protect hoteliers against the threat of payment fraud and data breaches, offering enhanced security features for managing and processing group reservations.

Cvent also announced multiple AI-powered updates as part of the roadmap for both its Event Management and Marketing platform and Hospitality Cloud platform. For planners, the AI enhancements include improvements to Cvent’s AI Writing Assistant, and new offerings include an event website chatbot, predictive modeling for registration, attendee data segmentation, and content summaries. AI will also assist users with venue searching and requests for proposals (RFPs). For hoteliers, Cvent’s AI will soon be able to help match properties with planners, generate faster responses to RFPs, and streamline room diagramming.