Tech-enabled MICE (Meeting, Invention, Convention, Exhibition) and event industry is one of the worse-affected sectors, after travel, by the COVID-19 outbreak.

In Instagram, for example, a campaign #SaveEvents is widely circulating with people in the industry urging clients not to cancel events but to postpone to pull the industry back from a total collapse.

The MICE industry in the Asia Pacific showed a steep decline, as revealed in the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA)’s Research Division data that has recorded that out of 44 meetings, 34 meetings in APAC were postponed for 2020.

With the event industry being forced to rethink its strategies while social gathering is still impossible, we can use the downtime to learn about these three event-focussed startups that present the tech side of the industry and staying afloat in this time.

Jublia (Singapore)

Jublia is a virtual events platform based in Singapore that facilitates matchmaking on the spot during an event.

According to the company, Jublia specialises in matching people and content to create a successful business matching and effective content discovery at events. Jublia does this through a data-driven approach built on the foundation of a recommendations platform and calls it smart matchmaking.

Also Read: Thailand event startup Event Pop raises Series A from duo of corporate venture arms

Jublia offers services such as Match 360°, which is a matchmaking platform with an end-to-end business matching process and intelligence built around the full process cycle. It seeks to help establish relevant matches, resulting in targeted meetings that ensure audience satisfaction at events.

Jublia also has an app that is designed to act as a co-pilot to any event attendee’s journey, with features purposefully built for a content experience and content discovery.

Jublia claimed that it is the first end-to-end business matching technology with personalised service and data-driven insights.

VenueE (Thailand)

VenueE is an online marketplace to discover places and service providers for organising events in Thailand.

Last year, the company made news after it invested and strategically partnered with Event Pop, in a move that it said to be its entry into the MICE industry market, as reported by Business Today.

Event Pop is a technology and innovation startup for managing all types of events and activities. With the joint venture (JV), the firms wish to promote the ability to “develop innovations that respond to market needs more quickly and to answer bigger opportunities in the MICE industry, especially in the meetings industry”.

The JV seeks to increase the supply chain by completing services from preparation up to internal management, marketing, and ROI management through joint technology between VenueE and Event Pop.

Peerapat Jitsakdanon, CEO and co-founder of VenueE, said that in the supply chain, there is still a lack of components to support continued growth. “It shows that the business still has problems, especially when it comes to accessing data sources and the difficulty in finding information,” Jitsakdanon added.

Event venue including services, such as food, beverages, or equipment rentals, in general, are still scattered due to customers’ preferences in choosing providers by suggestion or word-of-mouth.

VenueE also provides online marketing services to help customers or business groups to get access to information sources and book services.

Delegate (Singapore)

Singapore-based Delegate brands itself as a free online marketplace where people can discover and book everything needed for events. The vendors displayed on the platform are curated by the Delegate team, as reviewed in Vulcan Post.

Also Read: From Kopi to a cool mil: Event marketplace Delegate raises US$1 million

The Delegate platforms allow visitors to discover and compare event planners, caterers, entertainment choices.

It was co-founded by former colleagues Jacqueline Ye and Melissa Lou, who came to realise how inefficient the sector is. They then look for ways to automate the time-consuming task of event planning.

Delegate is currently operating in Singapore and Hong Kong.

These three startups are representatives of what potential the tech-enabled events hold for the future. In the current situation, one can only hope that the industry can find an innovation that would sustain them at a time when movements and gatherings are restricted.

The ability to survive and come out stronger remains a question, but in the meantime, let’s do our part to #SaveEvents.

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Photo by Alasdair Elmes on Unsplash

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