UFI Teams With Grip for Speed Networking Program at Sold-Out European Conference

June 2, 2023

UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, is partnering with Grip, an AI-powered event platform, to automatically schedule, manage and host more than 400, four-minute meetings during the UFI European Conference 2023The sold-out conference, set for June 14-16 at the MECC Maastricht in Maastricht, Netherlands, will bring together more than 270 event professionals for networking and knowledge sharing.

UFI is using MustMeet, Grip’s new AI-powered meeting scheduler, to power the pre-scheduled one-to-one meetings, which will take place June 15, enabling organizers, venues and suppliers to meet and learn from one another.

“People come to our events to meet, network and do business with colleagues from across Europe,” said Nick Dugdale-Moore, UFI’s regional director for Europe. “Speed networking is becoming an integral part of UFI events, and in Maastricht, thanks to Grip, this process will be much easier to manage.”

With MustMeet, UFI will gain vital process efficiencies that will enable it to expand and enhance pre-scheduled meetings with ease, according to Dugdale-Moore. The association will easily be able to host the complex meeting formats automatically, saving hours of manual work. For example, previously it would have taken several hundred post-it notes, spreadsheets and hours of manual work to pre-schedule speed networking meetings. In addition, last minute dropouts would have thrown carefully planned schedules into disarray.

According to Tim Groot, founder and CEO of Grip, pre-scheduled meetings are an important industry trend in 2023, as detailed in the recent B2B Relationships Report.

“As such, UFI understands the importance of being deliberate when it comes to arranging meetings at its events,” Groot said. “Connecting its members is a vital part of its European Conference, and I’m proud that our MustMeet product is helping UFI members and the wider community build and maintain valuable relationships.”

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