Bizzabo acquires smart wearables startup

Bizzabo, the event management platform, has announced the acquisition of Klik, a Montreal-based wearable technology start-up. Klik’s wearable products, which at a glance look like regular badges or wristbands (there’s a button too), have built-in technology which allows touchless exchange of contact information and enables tracking of attendees’ behavior, such as time spent in booths. They can also trigger recommendations, for example of sessions or networking opportunities.

Bizzabo, which now describes itself as an “event experience operating system” is explicitly betting on the return of in-person events in 2022, incorporating the higher expectations of immersive experiences growing out of 18 months of digital events. The Klik acquisition is also designed to meet organizers’, sponsors’ and vendors’ hunger for the kind of granular data surfaced by online event activity.

Why we care. Predicting the future looks like more of a fool’s game than ever these days, but it is at least a reasonable expectation that in-person events will become more frequent and better-attended over the next 12 months. Many people will be relieved to see their return; others will still prefer to attend remotely. For that reason, we expect many events to be hybrid, with a substantial digital component.

While in-person networking beats video networking hands down, one disadvantage of in-person events is that attendees can go off-radar frequently. Even if they’re checked into a session using by traditional badge-scanning, it’s not always clear whether they stayed, or whether they were engaged with the content. Smart wearables are nothing new in the event space, although they’re still surprisingly rare. But if they can provide a better experience for the attendee and more valuable data for organizers, expect to see them more often.