Access All Areas November 2019 | Page 56

NOVEMBER | TECH What’s hot? What’s in your stack? All sorts of decisions need to be made in creating a technology stack for an events business. Whether a festival, sports event or corporate activation; the relevance of the technology to both the organisation and the organisations audiences needs to be considered when creating a stack of technological functionality. I recently attended Cvent Connect Europe 2019 and got into a conversation with the Europeans sales manager Jamie Vaughan about why Cvent buys smaller technology companies – in effect building a bigger stack of functionality. Cvent do this according to specific criteria. The cultural fit of the companies, the way in which the acquisition can enhance, fill gaps and differentiate the Cvent product offering, and whether the new company create new opportunities in other verticals or new geographic regions? But Cvent isn’t the only large technology company that has been buying up smaller companies and complementary client bases. GES purchased N200 and Poken some years ago. Aventuri, Freeman and other large companies have done the same. Then there are also mergers – Live Nation and Ticketmaster – with the later buying Stub Hub. But the 56 Words: James Morgan, founder, Event Tech Lab question is whether its best to buy, invest in or just continue to use the services of a smaller company as and when needed to add into a tech stack? This is a question large organisers with their own platforms need to explore. Buying outright means seamlessly integrating a new function into a larger platform. Clients may use this functionality at some points in time and hopefully the purchase will show a good ROI. Then there is incremental investment in a company by a larger one. The investor uses the functions to augment their current offering. As the investment company pushes marketing resource to the smaller company we see the profitability and thereby the investment value increase. Good for both parties. But what of smaller organisers who just want to improve their technology offering? Enter Blendr.io. Its an open integration platform for events technology. The platform can integrate platforms such as event management systems, CRM, registration or ticketing platforms, mobile apps, and other cloud tools. With all these options maybe there’s a conversation to be had by small companies too? Myclimate Energy Revolution The Swiss website helps organisers plan climate sustainability. The calculator works out carbon footprint for events, based on various topics. The tick box and checklist approach translates the data into advice on how to reduce and offset emissions myclimate.org This UK festival industry environmental think tank allows artists, contractors, crew and attendees travelling to a festival to calculate their emissions. The website then suggests a donation. energy-revolution. org.uk/travel- carbon-calculator/ Grub Stub Food being sent to landfill creates carbon emotions. Grub Stub helps event managers and caterers take control of food service and waste, thereby reducing costs. The system helps to manage food costs, portion control and effectively cuts down food wastage. https://grubstub.co.uk/