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Phaedra Solutions, All rights reserved 2024
“Imagine having only one shot or one opportunity. To seize everything you ever wanted. Would you capture it? Or just let it slip?”
Sound like an Eminem song? It is. But it also perfectly captures the dilemma faced by event organizers worldwide.
Event organizers have one shot at an event. Either it’s successful, or it fails. So, how do you ensure your event’s success? Simple - Event management software.
Event management software helps you manage each aspect of your event from the screen. It’s like your remote control to view, manage, assign tasks, key data and specifics in your event.
If you want a glimpse at how event management software transforms events, just take a look at these stats from G2:
But you can’t just invest in any software and expect results. Research is required to make a choice that fits your goals.
That’s where we come in. In this blog, we have identified 20 essential event management software features for you and also shared a personalized option that could solve all your event worries! Are you ready? But first thing’s first, let’s quickly gloss over the basics.
Imagine having a personal assistant that handles every aspect of your event. That’s what event management software does!
It streamlines planning, execution, analysis while also letting you automate redundant tasks. It also presents you with a solution that lets your management team control the event from a screen.
Whether it’s an in-person, virtual, or hybrid event, software for event management makes organizing a breeze.
From registration and scheduling to reporting and analytics, event management software must enable you to enhance the overall experience for your attendees. Moreover, it should allow you to focus on creating memorable moments for your attendees.
Dozens of event management software options are available on the market. It can become confusing for event professionals to grapple with one key question when making a choice - how to choose the best event management software?
Therefore, to make it easy for event professionals worldwide, we’ve compiled a list of 20 features of event management software you need to look for when choosing a software.
An effective registration and ticketing system (Excel sheets don’t count!) ensures high attendee turnout and contributes to the success of your event.
Registration and ticketing systems provide event management automation features like registration forms, pricing structures, ticket types, and payment options.
This helps maximize attendance and revenue by allowing attendees to choose the type of experience they prefer.
Some attendees may want a general admission ticket. Others may want to splash their cash on the VIP experience.
Having these options available increases attendee satisfaction and leads to a higher turnout in your event.
45% of people say switching between different applications while managing events makes them less productive.
That’s why the best event management websites and apps have detailed simple-to-use dashboards with shortcuts and analytics on display.
Such an interface allows quick and easy navigation of the event for organizers. It allows easy access to various features - such as results of polls and surveys.
Plus, it makes complicated tasks such as managing registrations simpler. This leads to enhanced efficiency, better event management, and an increase in overall production.
The right event management app will make complex tasks such as budgeting and financial management simple.
Top event management systems provide customizable budget templates, real-time financial reporting, and automated expense tracking to allow event planners to streamline their finances.
This feature provides budget projections that can be compared against actual expenses to identify potential cost overruns.
Such tools also offer insights into financial performance (such as profitability analysis) to gauge your strategy's effectiveness.
With the right financial management tools, event professionals can be sure that every dollar they spend contributes to their event’s success.
The key to driving attendance and maximizing your event ROI lies in successful promotion and marketing.
This means your event management app must be equipped with features that help you boost event visibility and attract the target audience. Promotion and marketing tools can include email marketing features, social media integration possibilities, and discount code management.
These features can offer valuable insights into the effectiveness of your marketing strategies, allowing you to make data-driven decisions. Furthermore, targeted marketing tools such as audience segmentation and remarketing capabilities allow tailoring of promotional efforts to target varying attendee personas.
Investing in the correct promotion and marketing tools can not only drive attendee engagement, but it will also elevate your event’s profile and ensure its success.
Event management features you can’t do without in this day and age are reporting and analytics.
Reports and analytics can be considered the heart of the entire event. Keep an eye on them and you’ll be keeping an eye on your event's performance.
At times, event professionals may refine their strategies and identify areas for improvement. This is based on data provided through reports and analytics.
Having analytics to view can offer event organizers the chance to analyze data, identify trends, and figure out how they can improve events further.
Remember, the most successful event professionals always study their event data and experiment during the event.
Perhaps people are not shopping for snacks from various vendors at your event. If analytics indicate low footfall in the snack area, you could consider moving the snack area to a more visible location and check performance there.
The possibilities for improvement are endless!
Imagine attendees facing trouble while checking in or out of your event. It wouldn’t leave the best impression, would it?
That’s why it’s essential to present attendees with a smooth check-in/check-out process that provides a favorable outcome to your event.
The best event management solutions help by providing tools that manage these processes by scanning tickets, QR codes, or registration details.
This provides your event with that crucial seamless touch that improves event operations and attendee experiences.
Breakout rooms offer personalized and intimate discussion spaces for attendees during large events. This allows them to engage in focused conversations.
These rooms allow event organizers to segment large gatherings into small, topic-specific discussion rooms.
For instance, a tech conference with over 1,000 participants could have breakout rooms on specific topics such as ‘AI in Healthcare’ or ‘Machine Learning Algorithms’ for a personalized experience.
The ability to quickly set up breakout rooms via software can be a handy feature to have in your event management arsenal as it can enhance networking and deepen attendee engagement.
If you want your event to be successful, you better keep your speakers and moderators engaged.
Speaker and moderator portals. These are centralized platforms for all speaker/moderator information and tasks.
Using these portals, speakers, and moderators can easily view their responsibilities and stay up-to-date on due dates and approvals.
This feature also provides reminders regarding upcoming tasks to help speakers and moderators align their duties accordingly.
If you want to make your speakers and moderators feel like VIPS, you need this portal!
Every event organizer dreams of seamlessly managing their event while capturing high-quality leads.
All-in-one event management software makes this dream come true by integrating lead-capturing and retrieval tools.
These features gather and manage client information, turning casual interactions into significant business connections.
Not only does this ensure an organic and engaging experience, but it also eliminates the need for intrusive data collection methods (like surveys) and enables a smoother flow of information.
Event professionals often rely on several tools to manage different event operations. This makes it important to choose an event management system software that seamlessly integrates with various tools.
This seamless integration allows your event management system to work with existing applications (such as Slack or HubSpot) and improves overall efficiency.
Plus, it creates a centralized platform for your entire event management process and eliminates the risks of errors and inconsistencies.
With easy integration of third-party apps, you can customize your software to meet your event's needs.
If you’re managing large-scale events or planning to in the future, you need an enterprise event management system that allows for scalability.
Scalability is the ability of the event management system to cater to increased audiences without compromising on the attendee experience.
The best event management platforms can manage tons of registrations, interactions, and data across various events.
This ensures that the needs of event professionals will continue to be met when the event grows or evolves.
Mobile applications for events aren’t just nice to have. They are a must-have.
During events, what’s the one device that attendees carry on them at all times? Their cellphones!
This makes it essential for event management software to have mobile applications that provide numerous details, such as the session’s location, time, and agenda.
Mobile applications offer attendees access to any important event information at their fingertips.
Through such applications, attendees can participate in polls and surveys, or engage with other attendees at will.
Even the best event management software has to provide exceptional customer support and training resources to help event professionals maximize the use of the platform.
Chat support, phone support, live demos, and an extensive online knowledge base can all help event managers make the most of their software investment.
Furthermore, an interactive live chat option also enables real-time interaction among attendees and speakers.
This creates a connected event environment and allows ongoing conversations and networking opportunities for attendees.
“We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.”
Bill Gates
Bill Gates knows the importance of feedback. That’s how he drove Microsoft to become a $3.48 Trillion leading global vendor in computer software.
Feedback forms and polls not only engage attendees but also show them that their opinions matter. These survey methods allow organizers to understand attendee’s reactions and make changes to the event if required.
The best event management system software offers easy-to-use polling tools and collects valuable insights in real-time.
The best event management features include providing smart event wearables to all attendees.
This enhances the attendee experience and can enable effortless networking through simple gestures.
With smart event wearables, the event management industry has transformed. These devices encourage interaction and allow organizers to categorize attendees, control access, and more.
The best part is that these wearables are analytic tools that can provide insights into attendee engagement and behavior. This offers organizers the power to make data-driven adjustments on the move.
Next on our agenda is agenda and schedule management (see what I did there?). If you want a well-organized event, you’ll have to get knee-deep in scheduling and agenda management.
However, with event management system features like agenda and schedule management, you don’t have anything to worry about.
This tool allows event professionals to create, manage, and communicate event schedules seamlessly. Attendees can access the event agenda whenever they want, and even be informed of any last-minute changes.
This allows your event to be smoothly executed and improves the overall attendee experience.
Live-streaming is one of the most essential features of event management software. However, it also leads us to a feature vs functionality debate.
You see, there’s a difference between features and functions. While event management platforms do have a live-streaming feature, its functionality is often sub-standard. This leads to a poor user experience.
Hence, you should obtain event management platforms that offer high-quality live-streaming capabilities. Live-streaming not only offers constant updates but also keeps all attendees connected, no matter where they are.
This allows event professionals to share content with remote audiences and ensures they don’t miss out.
Securing sensitive information has never been easy. According to IBM, the average breach in the United States costs $9.44 million.
With a rise in data breaches and the high costs associated with such breaches, implementing software that defines user roles and permissions has become essential.
Such a feature ensures that access to certain information is controlled. This prevents unauthorized access and enhances the overall security of the event.
The beautiful thing about events is that they encompass individuals from all over the globe. This means event professionals have to cater to a variety of races, nationalities, and languages.
The best practice here is to find software that offers language support (in the form of subtitles).
This allows people from different linguistic backgrounds to engage with the content on offer.
Not only does this enhance the attendee experience but it also significantly impacts the reach of your events.
The data of your attendees is confidential. Imagine if someone were to obtain all that data and utilize it for their purposes. That would classify as a class action lawsuit against your company!
That’s why it’s vital to choose event management software that prioritizes data security.
The software you choose should display a commitment to security measures, access controls, and regular security audits.
Furthermore, the best practice here is to ensure that the software you choose adheres to standards such as ‘GDPR’ or ‘CCPA’’ to ensure they maintain data integrity and privacy.
This will reduce the chances of any financial loss, legal risk, or reputational harm.
In the vast event management landscape, one can forgive new event professionals for mistaking some features as those of event management.
However, that’s not the case. While some functions and features are the same in event management software and other software, that’s not always the case.
So, which is not a feature of event management? Let’s take a look at the list below:
Some of the above-mentioned features are very popular in certain domains however, they aren’t applicable in the event management world.
Selecting the right event management software is crucial to streamline your event planning needs, enhance the attendee experience, and maximize ROI.
However, event management software doesn’t follow a one-size-fits-all approach. One software could be perfect for your competitors whereas it may not have the features you require.
So, what do you do to ensure your event runs as smoothly as possible? Partner with Phaedra Solutions for custom event management software tailored to your unique needs!
With Phaedra Solutions, you get access to a team of developers, QA testers, product owners, and scrum masters to ensure your success.
We can customize your software and include all the features you need for your event to be a success. This includes special features such as:
With such customized software, you can elevate the event experience for all your attendees while enjoying a nice cup of coffee.
As the events landscape evolves, investing in sophisticated event planning software has become a necessity. This software is the pillar upon which your event stands. If this pillar is strong, so is your event.
This makes it crucial to make an informed investment in event management software and ensure you pick the option that best fits your needs.
If you’re having a tough time doing this, getting custom event management software developed could be the solution you’re looking for.
Remember, the right software holds the power to turn potential leads into loyal customers. So, choose a specialized partner for your event management platform. It’s the best way forward!
Want to learn more about custom software development? Check out this article on ‘Outsourcing Software Development’ to broaden your knowledge.
Event management skills are qualities essential for running successful events. These include but are not limited to:
Yes, the best event management software always provides a singular platform for hybrid audiences. This enables organizers to manage virtual, hybrid, and in-person events from a single system.
Event Management Software is very secure as it uses industry-standard encryption algorithms to protect sensitive data. This is done during transmission and while data is being stored on servers.
Event management software provides real-time updates to event organizers to help them manage their events. These include:
The customer support options on offer for attendees include live chat support and phone support. For event organizers, customer support options include live chat support, phone support, and email support.