Boldpush

Management consulting for the event industry

[Boldpush @boldpush]

Our first analysis of the #eventtech market is out. Take a look.

https://t.co/IxqgTDqjZ9

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

Gigantic news today as Hyve Group is acquired for $1.8 Billion

This is tech like valuation for a company with 13 events in its portfolio.

Events are the new tech

Deep distribution over noise

[Boldpush @boldpush]

@tojulius 🚨🚨🚨

[Boldpush @boldpush]

@tojulius 🚀

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

120 eventprofs in attendance of our Claude for Events session.

Mindblowing

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

Tech bros saying that networking is for losers

Then promoting their sad little dinner or panel appearance

Pay respect, $2.5 Trillion by 2035 🫡

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

The epitome of the event industry is the celebration of the $400,000 salary for an event lead at Anthropic.

Someone who is in charge of the most important brand channel for an AI company

In SFO

Starting at 320K

200K less than what Anthropic pays its engineers.

Promoted by tech bros who have nothing to do with events and plan cocktail parties, and looking to score for the algo.

Celebrated as an achievement and validation of the industry's existence.

It's not. It's confirmation that events are still nice to have.

The job should pay $500,000 and above

[Giovan-Sandji Bréham Dalmas de Lapérouse @GiovanSandji]

I’ll be demoing Vanikora on April 30 at the AI for Events Demo Day, organized by @tojulius and @boldpush .


39 companies.

5 minutes each.

Live demos.


Excited to showcase what we’re building with @Vanikora_co .

Should be fun, more soon !

[Boldpush @boldpush]

@tojulius 🔥🔥🔥

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

https://t.co/eR6rPQz3so

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

RFPS and Venue sourcing marketplaces are cooked.

Agents will replace this horrible process from the 90s

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

Removed 1,000 people from my newsletter this week.

I will keep on removing 1,000 a week for the next four/five weeks until I reach 70-80% open rate.

Serving my core audience is now essential to keep delivering top content.

A base that is not engaged messes up stats.

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

It’s happening

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

I have been spending some time thinking about what we will get out of AI advising event planners and marketers

Many people will get a picture of what they do that will be a wake up call

They will realize they don’t really provide value or business return.

Once the data element is clear, AI will give advice. I am scared at what could come out of it.

The conclusions AI takes, at least right now are very shortermistic and generic. That could result in serious issues at operational levels.

Context could make advice better but I question how you could create persistent context in events, where things change quarterly by quarter.

Personalization will become immediately available but we risk losing serendipity and collective moments can become cringe.

Exciting times to build events

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

Just finished round three of AI for Events - Demo day rehearsal.

We have 39 eventtech companies demoing what they are building with AI.

Incredible response with almost 2K eventprofs registered.

This doesn't happen easily. Excited to shape the next generation of eventtech companies and startups.

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

Over the past 5 years (especially after my time at Hopin), I've been approached to join the advisory board, board of directors, or as an investor in 30+ eventtech startups.

I have declined all the requests.

Not because I did not want to. But because the products were subpar, the founder did not understand the market, or events, they were riding some type of hype (NFTs, blockchain), and there was no path to monetization.

I am excited about the next generation of AI-driven eventtech companies.

My DMs are open but only if you tick the boxes above.

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

2 event tech companies tried to acquire my media business to gain disproportionate distribution in the event industry in the past 8 years.

In 2025 (and 24 and 23) I brought more impressions than all event media outlets combined, 20k event planners open my email religiously every week.

The CEOs of the biggest event companies subscribe to my premium community - they pay for it.

Hopin hired me to build it a media company for them in 2021. I did not have the time to do it.

The editorial independence piece has always been a key point of discussion.

The perspective below matters

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

500 people registered in 4 hours. Dm if you want in

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

Some thoughts about AI and the event industry.

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

Closing the year with:

- 10.6M impressions on LI
- 38k newsletter subscribers
- 42% opens in 8 hours on Dec 31
- 15 keynotes
- +30% revenue YoY
- 14 virtual events
- 400 paid community members
- 10 consulting clients

It’s been a lot of work.
Like never before.

Thank you!

[Julius Solaris @tojulius]

Cvent has acquired Goldcast, the virtual event and video platform for a reported $300M.

Goldcast was the last company to raise a substantial round out of the pandemic.

An initial $10M round and a subsequent $28M round in Feb 2022.

When I looked at the announcement of the last round, I was concerned. I had just been laid off from Hopin, and I knew things weren’t looking pretty for virtual events.

Goldcast leadership was quick to realize it as well, with an astute repositioning of the platform to video and later to AI.

These features were in much higher demand among CMOs and marketing teams, the true objective of most software companies today.

What’s the story?
I've read some absurd and some good takes on social media on this deal.

My perspective comes from doing eventtech analysis for 17 years now. In the past three years, I've worked with 18 eventtech companies on media and direct consulting, conducted eventtech research, and published the go-to map for the ecosystem.

So here goes.

The story is that Cvent has definitely made a strategic move to become a Martech tool.

It started with Jifflenow, then Splash, and continued with the announcement of Cvent Essentials, and it now closes the gap with Goldcast.

This acquisition has very little to do with AI or technology. I like to use Goldcast, but the technology isn't something Cvent can’t build.

That's a pretty big statement. Why do I say it?
I spent time at IMEX talking to McNeel Keenan and Reggie Aggarwal, respectively, Product Lead and CEO.

They are building far more complex features than Goldcast or any other eventtech tool offer today. The CventIQ roadmap is very complex.

This is a clear market move to acquire Goldcast’s very precious customers. The company did an incredible job of collecting some top logos.

From what Axios reports, those logos were worth $300M.

They are taking these clients away from others, namely two companies I won’t name, since they already have beef with me. I wouldn’t want an angry email from their CMOs.

The Strategy

The traditional plot has always been to acquire strategic ICPs, but the move into the Cvent ecosystem hasn’t always worked.

I am old enough to remember Doubledutch.

The complaints about being brought into Cvent from non-core meeting planning ICPs, were real.

Well, Cvent today has a growing offer for marketers, which means its customers won’t need certification to use it.

They will just use Splash, Jifflenow, and Essentials, and they will be more than happy.

Cvent feels confident about its ability to convert them into full suite users.

There is no "tech consolidation"

There is just Cvent buying companies and waiting for others to struggle (a 60-person layoff at a competitor went completely unreported in industry news).

This is a market Cvent is winning and will continue to win.

What about competitors?
They are mostly watching. At what cost?

If Cvent keeps on buying and building, its offer will be too good to compete with. The issues their product has today may not be there in the future.

Cvent now has an internal alternative to the Cvent marketers didn’t like.

The ‘we are a Cvent alternative’ positioning could not work very soon. Yes, some are still winning deals on better service, pricing, or use case, but the game has changed. You can now code at a speed that was unthinkable 5 years ago, and Blackstone made Cvent grow up big time.

What’s next?

From a product perspective, the true disruptor is AI.
AI-first products have the opportunity to reshape the market; they can challenge giants like Cvent, which, by the way, is not sitting on the sidelines. They are building and acquiring AI capabilities.

This industry is desperate for innovation.

Waiting for technology that keeps its promises, the ball is in the builders’ court.

Which game eventtech CEOs choose to play over the next 9 months will determine their standing in the market.