You can't stop the wave, but you can learn to surf.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Event producers who resist event tech "have their heads in the sand," angel investor Marco Giberti told the event producers gathered at CEIR Predict in Washington, DC, last week.
The field is swelling at a rate of 25% annually, with more than $1.5 billion invested during the past five years.
Spurred by investments by angels, venture capitalists, private equity firms and general service contractors like Freeman and Fern, event tech companies continue to automate event planning, event marketing, registration, lead retrieval, audience response, and other core functions.
What's driving investors' interest? Three factors, said Giberti:
- Billions of marketers' dollars have shifted from print and broadcast to digital
- The $565 billion event industry is prime for disruption
- Tech startups represent immense ROI opportunity
Freeman, for example, has invested in mar-tech firm Feathr and lead retrieval provider DoubleDutch, whose CEOs appeared at CEIR Predict with Giberti for a panel discussion of event tech's headlong trajectory.
The same week, Fern announced its investment in audience response provider KiwiLive.
