Explori Blog

Today, sees the launch of Maxbi, our brand-new tool designed to empower corporate event organizers and exhibit marketers with a holistic understanding of their performance and returns from their participation in trade shows. We’ve created Maxbi to revolutionize the way exhibit performance is measured and optimized. By combining Explori's deep understanding of the exhibitions industry with advanced data analytics and reporting capabilities, Maxbi empowers exhibit marketers with actionable insights to make informed decisions about strategy and spend to drive the success of their exhibit programs. In developing the product, our team have collaborated with a working group of representatives from numerous prolific exhibiting companies, which included the likes of Cummins, Verizon, Bradley Corp, Formulaction and The Exhibitor Advocate, an organization that represents exhibit and field marketers. These organizations, who invest heavily in exhibitions, recognised the compelling need for a product like Maxbi to deliver structured, comparable data to deliver new intelligence for events professionals. Our CEO Mark Brewster explains: "With Maxbi, we aim to solve one of the greatest challenges both the trade show industry, and exhibit marketers face - measurement." “Our recent research shows that exhibitors’ inability to demonstrate event ROI to senior leadership is the greatest internal challenge after budget pressures. Whilst many senior leaders view trade shows as a valuable marketing channel, 30% are now unconvinced that they are essential. There continues to be a real friction caused by rising exhibit costs and the absence of data. This puts exhibit marketing at a real disadvantage when competing for budget with other marketing channels, which are often perceived to be more measurable.” Find out more about what Maxbi can do for you and your exhibit programs.

Event Leaders Exchange, an Explori-backed initiative, has announced the latest upcoming in-person event, ELX @ IMEX Frankfurt, May 22 - 23, 2023, where ELX members will reconvene to tackle pressing matters faced by the event industry and for immediate actionable measures to enhance their event programs. Corporate leaders will come together on Monday, May 22, from 1pm, for a half day of in-person discussion groups and collaborative learning sessions. Followed by an evening experience for the event leaders to relax and be inspired. And reconvene on the opening morning for more content rounding off at 1pm giving ELX members plenty of time to enjoy IMEX Frankfurt and connect with the wider industry. Founders and members of Event Leaders Exchange are calling for leading global event professionals to join them at ELX @ IMEX Frankfurt to unleash your event programs' potential through thought-provoking conversations and collective intelligence. Learn more about ELX@IMEX Frankfurt.

Industry-leading organisations come together to fuel new, invitation-only, global community of event leaders from the world’s largest brands Event Leaders Exchange (ELX), an Explori-backed initiative and The Opus Group, a powerhouse global agency network and partner for the world’s most influential brands, announced a new sponsorship deal that will provide ELX members with an agency perspective on experience design and strategy. ELX, an invitation-only community of global event leaders, strives to evolve and drive positive change within the industry. Facilitated by veterans Kimberly Meyer, David Kliman, Chloe Richardson, and Mark Brewster, the network is experiencing significant growth. The group consists of more than 60 c-suite global heads of events from such companies as Allianz, Cisco, Google, Siemens, T-Mobile and Walmart, who come together to share ideas, receive industry insights, solve problems, and engage in strategic, actionable conversations. The Opus Group will consult and collaborate with the ELX community throughout 2023. “We’re thrilled to be part of this community of global event leaders,” comments Kim Kopetz, President and Chief Operating Officer of The Opus Group. “Our agency network is built for the modern era of marketing, in which brands are looking to inspire action and drive change through events and experiences. ELX is composed of like-minded professionals, and we are eager to share and gain insights with this community.” The Opus Group will host a group discussion at the inaugural ELX Annual Congress, which takes place February 1-3, 2023, in Chicago, and, throughout the partnership, will engage with peers and share thought leadership in the ELX community platform. Chloe Richardson, Managing Director of ELX, adds, “When we launched ELX, it was the dream of the steering committee to partner with industry leaders. We’re thrilled to join forces with The Opus Group. Its team brings a wealth of experience and a positive reputation within the events industry. By having leading event partners on board, such as The Opus Group, we’re able to offer the community opportunities like never before to grow and support event leaders, continue to share insights, and ultimately look to better event programs across the world.” About The Opus Group The Opus Group is a purpose-built network with a shared mission: creating experiences that drive action for the world’s most influential brands. Across three industry-renowned, highly-awarded agencies, Opus Agency, MAS, and TENCUE, The Opus Group is a trusted partner for over 70 global companies, including the world’s most influential brands. To see the results our teams drive for Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, and many other global leaders, visit theopusgroup.com. *** Find out more about ELX - eventleaders.com

BPA Worldwide, a leading global assurance provider of media, technology, events and sustainability standards compliance today announced the acquisition of VSef, the global data format for the digital events industry. VSef was launched in early 2021, as a response to the rising uptake of digital event platforms and the increase in virtual event experiences. Its goal of creating a global standardized data format for digital events received backing from many world-leading organizers and platforms, including Informa Markets, Reed Exhibitions, Tarsus Group, Emerald Expositions, Clarion Events, Grip, Balluun, Notified, Swapcard, Accelevents, ExpoPlatform, and many more. Within a short time, VSef recruited the support of the event industry’s leading strategic partners, including the Events Industry Council (EIC), UFI, Society of Independent Show Organizers (SISO) and International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), which were keen to assist in expanding the global reach of the initiative. The lack of data standardization was an issue simultaneously identified by BPA, which launched the Reporting Standards for Digital Events (RSDE) initiative with the support of its own working group. Over the next nine months, BPA and VSef began a collaboration with the goal of creating a single industry standard for digital events. Richard Murphy, President and CEO of BPA Worldwide, commented, “Digital events and digital components of in-person events are important elements of an event organizer’s portfolio. After levelling off after pandemic highs, we expect the digital channel to grow. The ability to gather, process, and share data efficiently is critical to achieving scale.” Murphy continued, “We want to recognize the excellent work of Explori and the VSef team to mobilize industry support and develop this data format. We are excited to take the lead and continue the journey. We will work with the industry associations and industry leaders to increase awareness, adoption and advancement of digital events, and digital events data solutions.” Mark Brewster, Founder and CEO of Explori and VSef, added, “The pandemic saw the formidable emergence of digital events and the positive effect that this has had on the digitization of the events industry both in-person and online. The platform market has developed more rapidly than it has ever done in the past. It became clear that a data standard for digital events was essential in enabling event organizers to have consistent data and insights across the plethora of digital event technologies used. “It has been a pleasure to work on such a progressive initiative for the industry,” Brewster continued. “Data is key to the evolution of the events industry and to ensure the betterment of our sector. Under Explori’s leadership, the VSef initiative was launched and now we believe that BPA is the perfect party to continue with this work into the future, drive awareness and increase adoption of common data standards.” David Audrain, CEO of ExpoDavCo and SISO, commented, “Data standardization is an incredibly valuable resource for all of the industry as it provides efficiencies, time and cost savings to both providers and users, as well as better quality data, which is the ultimate goal of all. The industry has been well served by the efforts of Explori in creating VSef, and we look forward to further success under BPA.” Next steps will be announced by BPA in the coming months, including a licensing opportunity for audit bodies to offer certification to the standard. To find out more about VSef visit www.VSef.io. To learn more about RSDE, please visit www.RSDEGlobal.org.

CLIENT NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT: Messukeskus, Finland’s largest trade fair, conference and congress organiser and venue, is delighted to announce it has selected Explori as its partner for strategic event feedback, measurement and benchmarking to provide business-wide event analysis and insight. By using Explori in combination with other initiatives, Messukeskus aims to adopt an even more customer-centric approach to event strategy based on insights gleaned from their visitors, exhibitors and sponsor data. By gathering and absorbing the results of data-driven measures of success, Messukeskus hopes to gain a clearer understanding of the factors influencing its audience’s satisfaction and, ultimately, to deliver even better experiences. Anni Vepsäläinen, CEO of Messukeskus, commented, “The upheaval caused by the pandemic has led us to fundamentally reassess the way we work and the market we serve. Using data to understand where an event has succeeded and identifying areas where it has fallen short will allow us to gain valuable insights that can be used to improve future events.” Messukeskus will work with Explori to compare event performance against the global standard, allowing Vepsäläinen to be “absolutely sure our events are getting better and aligning more closely with our customers’ objectives.“ “We’ve known of Explori and their reputation in our industry for some time, and are delighted to now be working together with them as we take the next step with our integrated data strategy.” Richard Kensett, commercial director of Explori, added, “We’re very excited to be working with Messukeskus and are looking forward to a collaborative relationship where we can share our insights to support their continued development.” “We also see this as another step towards being able to identify regional trends and benchmarks across the Nordics. We hope this will be a catalyst for more Danish, Swedish and Norwegian organisers to upgrade their customer insight strategy so we can deliver similar insights to this region as we do globally.” As trade shows continue to open around the world, this reset is a great opportunity for exhibition organisers to re-assess audiences’ experiences with their event brands, shaped by benchmarking and metrics. Messukeskus looks forward to working with Explori to take advantage of these opportunities. *** To find out more about how partnering with Explori can help your event venue strategy contact Richard Kensett - r.kensett@explori.com.

We are delighted to have been selected as finalists for two categories for this year’s Event Technology Awards. The ETA’s celebrate excellence in event technology and are designed to highlight the outstanding work of companies delivering digital and technological solutions to the events industry. Now in its ninth year, the awards have once again showcased the pivotal role of technology within the events industry, including shortlisting Explori for ‘Best use of Technology for Event Analytics / Data Collection’ and Best Technology Partnership alongside VSef, a universal data format for hybrid and virtual events. We’re looking forward to the winners reveal on November 3rd – bring it on! Want to know more about why we made it as finalists in these prestigious industry awards ? You can view our case studies or check out our Event Impact Playbook to find out how the power of metrics can demonstrate the impact of your events to stakeholders.

LONDON and NEW YORK – April 20, 2021 - Event measurement experts Explori and Evolio Marketing are pleased to announce that they have entered into a North American strategic partnership, combining strengths to further expand their world-class expo and corporate event measurement services. Explori CEO Mark Brewster says, “We couldn’t have found a better partner at this stage in our strategy. Evolio’s experience, skills and reputation are second to none. Not only does this relationship deliver new resources, but it brings years of exhibit measurement specialism that is already adding value. The US has been the fastest growing market for us for the last three years. Having an expanded US presence and additional expertise sees us primed for further growth.” “Having worked in event measurement and strategy for more than 20 years, I am confident that Explori’ s platform and expertise solves the problem of delivering quality research at a massive scale regardless of the size and budget of an organization’s event marketing program,” commented Joe Federbush, President, Evolio. “There are strong synergies between our businesses and I’m very enthusiastic about the enhanced benefits and insights they will bring to Evolio’s customers.” Federbush has taken the role of Executive Vice President, North America, at Explori and will oversee customer success, business development, and talent acquisition for BtoB and BtoC events, while continuing his role as President of EVOLIO. “One of the most sought-after components of a strategic approach to measurement is the ability to provide largescale industry and client benchmarks,” added Federbush. “Explori leads the market in this respect, and through our partnership, we can further accelerate the development of our event and exhibit benchmarks for in-person, virtual, and hybrid events, benefitting our clients significantly.” Michael Dezso, Head of Experiential Strategy, Czarnowski says, "Providing our clients with measurement solutions is critical for their success and is an extremely important aspect of our business when managing strategic event programs. The combination of Evolio and Explori will be a great solution and I'm looking forward to seeing this in action.” About Explori Explori is an end-to-end, enterprise event measurement platform and consultancy. We measure the real business impact of events and our dashboards integrate data from multiple sources to create a crystal-clear understanding of event performance. Our technology joins up real-time data across businesses of any size and it produces organisational benchmarks and analytics that enable senior event leaders to make informed strategic decisions. Explori is chosen by over 3,000 in-person and virtual events worldwide and all our clients can compare their results to our uniquely robust industry benchmarks. In addition, Explori offers a range of managed services delivering in-depth insights and strategic recommendations. (www.explori.com) About EVOLIO EVOLIO helps brand marketers deliver the best results for their event marketing experiences and activities. We do not build exhibits and we do not produce events, but we have friends who do. Instead, we develop effective strategies, conduct measurement with actionable results, and provide superior training and staffing so you can deliver the best event experience. It’s all just part of our event marketing portfolio at EVOLIO. EVOLIO’s distinctive process is specifically designed for companies of all sizes and budgets. EVOLIO helps answer your toughest question: How do I successfully align our events to our business strategy and make sure they deliver effective results? (www.evoliomarketing.com) ### EVOLIO Marketing and the EVOLIO Marketing logo are trademarks of EVOLIO Marketing in the United States and other countries. All company and/or product names may be trade names, trademarks and/or registered trademarks of the respective owners with which they are associated.