• PSAV has announced its family of creative, production, and technology services companies is now officially operating under one name: Encore. The rebrand was announced last March and follows a number of global acquisitions over the past few years, most recently of Encore Event Technologies, the in-house audiovisual provider for hundreds of North American hotels and other venues. PSAV’s brand portfolio also includes FMAV (Canada), Hawthorn and AVC Live (U.K.), KFP (Germany), Eclipse (Middle East), and Hargrove, CSI Conference Systems, and Concise in the U.S. Based in Schiller Park, Ill., PSAV was acquired by private equity investment firm Blackstone in mid-2019.
• Five industry executives have launched a new brand, Etherio Group, uniting their services and expertise to deliver a full-service meeting and incentive organization. Eric J. Altschul, CEO of ABC Global Services; Steve Goodman, managing director of MeetingAdvice; Eli Sananes, president of Global Meetings & Incentives; Katie Harvill, founder of Matchstick Creative; and Michael Shannon, CMP HMCC, a veteran of meeting sales management, are behind the new company. Altschul serves as president and CEO. Divisions will include Etherio Meetings & Events (MeetingAdvice), Etherio Life Sciences (Global Meetings & Incentives), Etherio Incentives, Etherio Associates, and Etherio Virtual Events.
• Educational Measures, which made its name with an iPad “second-screen” engagement tool for meetings, changed its name this month to Array. The new name (which is the name of its product) comes at a time when the company is also rolling out new reporting features, adding virtual and hybrid meeting options, and focusing exclusively on the life-sciences market. In November 2020, EM hired Jeannie Griffin, the former vice president of product and technology solutions at BCD Meetings & Events, as vice president of product management.
