(Santa Rosa, CA & London, UK—October 15, 2018) CLOSERSTILL MEDIA, the London-based exhibition and conference organizer, has acquired a majority stake in Focuszone Media, Inc., operating as The eLearning Guild, for an undisclosed sum. 

The eLearning Guild has a 40,000+ membership community of learning and development professionals in the United States and around the world. The Guild operates major conferences and exhibitions, including DevLearn (Las Vegas, Nevada), Learning Solutions (Orlando, Florida), and Realities 360 (San Jose, California), conducts research, and has a number of digital publications and online events. 

CloserStill runs the world’s leading workplace learning event brand, Learning Technologies, with three market leading annual events in London, Berlin (with Online Educa) and Paris, a global digital community, and the industry’s leading awards program for corporate learning and development professionals. The London event in February is Europe’s largest annual exhibition and conference for the workplace learning sector, attracting more than 8,000 attendees and over 200 exhibitors.

“This a very exciting moment for the Guild. Our vision has always been ‘Together we are better,’ and this partnership with CloserStill empowers the Guild to connect to a broader global community in new and exciting ways. We’ll be able to bring more international perspectives into the conversations we host and highlight solutions from all around the globe that our community can learn from. Connecting with the CloserStill network will enable the Guild to provide even more support to help our members grow in their professions and support each other in our work,” said David Kelly, executive vice president of the Guild. 

Commenting on the acquisition, CloserStill’s Learning Group managing director, Mark Penton, said: “We are delighted to welcome The eLearning Guild and their impressive event portfolio to our growing global network and are incredibly excited by the huge opportunities this will create. And most importantly, we look forward to enhancing the collaboration between our family of learning brands and their learning communities around the world.”

The Guild’s next event is DevLearn 2018 (October 24 – 26), which takes place at The Mirage in Las Vegas, with over 3,500 delegates and 150 exhibitors expected.

The Guild will continue to operate from its California base in Santa Rosa with the existing management team led by David Holcombe and David Kelly.

For more information

To find out more, please contact:

Mark Penton—CloserStill Media Learning Group. Tel: +44 (0) 1730 817601. Email: markp@learningtechnologies.co.uk

David Kelly—The eLearning Guild (Focuszone Media). Tel: +1.707.387.1889. Email: dkelly@elearningguild.com

About CloserStill Media

CloserStill Media (CS) is one of the world’s fastest-growing exhibition businesses, running best-of-class events in the technology and healthcare sectors. Over the last six years it has averaged over 40 percent revenue growth each year. CS has turnover of almost £57 million and has a team of 220, with offices in London, Paris, New York, Berlin, Singapore, and Hong Kong. CS has featured in the Sunday Times 2018 top 100 Best Places to Work, ranked in the top 100 in the last three Sunday Times International Track listings of Britain’s companies with the fastest growing international sales, and in 2017 was listed in the Financial Times FT1000 Index as the fastest-growing exhibition organizer and one of the fastest-growing companies of any kind in Europe. Voted by the Association Exhibition Organisers members as the Most Respected Company in the Exhibition Industry, they are also winners of over 30 major industry awards, including Best Business Exhibition (seven times), Best Marketing (eight times), Best Sales (four times), and Best Launch or Brand extension (five times) in the last eight years.