With all the responsibilities of managing an event, how are you supposed to juggle them all without crashing and burning?
Budgeting, planning, and marketing an event, as well as managing its attendees, are just some of the many jobs that make up this complex job.
As an event manager, you must cover all these jobs while also keeping a close eye on staff members and vendors. If only there were a tool to make everything easier.But wait, there is. It’s called event management software. This digital platform’s features simplify all areas of event management. The question is – which one is going to save you time and tick all your boxes? Look no further than the following list of solutions.
Our Top Picks
1. Connecteam – Best all-in-one event management software
2. Eventzilla – Good for virtual conferencing
3. Eventbrite – Good for registration management
Manage Your Events and Employees from One Digital Platform
Schedule events, easily reach out to employees and vendors, and ensure everyone’s at the right place at the right time with Connecteam.
What to Look for in Event Management Software
Here are some of the typical features to look out for when choosing the ideal event management software:
- Venue management: The ability to reserve venue space/rooms, and manage table, booth, and floor plans, etc.
- Event scheduling: Using a digital calendar to plan, manage and track reservations, events, and bookings.
- Vendor management: Communicate with caterers, technicians, and janitors, as well as handling their budgets, and other important vendor information.
- Attendee management features: The ability to manage lead retrieval, and receive/store information about attendees, such as food preferences, contact details, VIP status, etc.
- Reports and analytics: Being able to track event revenue and expenses for accounting purposes, as well as social media and event ad engagement.
- Ticketing: The ability to manage, sell, and share event tickets.
We used these factors to put together a list of the best event management software solutions in the market right now. Check them out below.
Top 8 Event Management Software Solutions for 2022
Best all-in-one event management software
Platforms: Web, iOS, Android
Capterra rating: 4.8
Connecteam is the perfect event management software for keeping track of event staff across locations. This all-in-one solution simplifies every area of employee management. You have all your scheduling, time tracking, communication, and reporting tools (and more) at your fingertips. With Connecteam, you can:
- Schedule event staff easily: With a simple user interface, a drag-and-drop calendar, and the ability to create shift templates, you can spend less time on employee scheduling and more time in other areas of business.
- Communicate efficiently: Send important, engaging updates to your entire event team, keeping everyone aligned on the latest information. Employees can communicate with each other, whether in 1:1 or employee team chats. Also, reach individual employees and vendors from a browsable directory.
- Track employee work hours: Ensure every employee is where they should be with a GPS tracking time clock they can clock in and out from on mobile. Apply a geofence to your event’s location, ensuring employees clock in and out from their workplace. Convert hours into timesheets and export for payroll.
- Report every single job from anywhere: Get rid of pen and paper, and give employees a digital tool to fill in forms and checklists for every job. They can fill in uniform order forms, equipment maintenance reports, cleaning checklists, and more, from any location.
- Onboard new event staff: Get your new hires up and running with fully-customizable employee training courses. Provide employee handbooks, event protocols, and guidelines so that employees know exactly how to do their job.
- Note: While its desktop and mobile versions don’t explicitly assist users in event attendee management, Connecteam is the ideal choice for managing event employees and communicating with vendors.
Key Features
Pros & Cons
Pricing
Connecteam’s event staff management software is easily the most affordable solution: no paying for each user, but a flat monthly fee starting at just $29/month for up to 30 users. Or you can start with the free event management software plan after your free 14-day trial is up.
All of Your Event Staff Management Tools in One Platform
Simplify every aspect of your event staff’s day-to-day, from scheduling and time tracking to communication and reporting.
Good for: Virtual conferencing
Platforms: Web, iOS, Android
Capterra rating: 4.4
Eventzilla is an all-in-one event management software solution that admins can use for event marketing and registration management. Admins can create websites in their brand’s name and voice for their events, and it is an ideal solution for engaging potential attendees.
Users have a platform that is intuitive and pleasing to the eye, along with a navigation menu that’s easy to use. Attendees have easy access to the mobile app and don’t even need to create an Eventzilla account to use it.
Eventzilla’s features are diverse when it comes to event registration. Admins can automate both approvals and waitlists, and users can enjoy the self-service options. From here, they can register, edit, cancel, get refunds, and more.
One of Eventzilla’s key strengths is that it’s free for businesses that are organizing free events. For those who are selling tickets for events, Eventzilla is also a worthy choice as they can manage their events efficiently. This includes promoting events online and processing credit card payments.
Key features:
Pros & Cons
Price:
Good for: Registration management
Platforms: Web, iOS, Android
Capterra rating: 4.6
Eventbrite is probably the most popular event planning and ticketing software, used by many different people in the events industry. It covers the need for various types of event management projects, from small meetups to large concerts. Eventbrite event management software helps businesses organize and sell tickets to events online while helping people discover events that fuel their passions and register online to save their seats.
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Pros & Cons
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Good for: Creative agencies
Platforms: Web, iOS, Android
Capterra rating: 4.5
Bizzabo is a toolkit of event planning software solutions that combines the functionality of a project management software, an event planner, and a CRM system. Bizzabo is targeted for planning and managing larger events with many people involved, and layers of work dependencies. This event management software also provides organizers a platform to market and promote events, which makes it a great tool for ticket sales or fundraising initiatives, and other nonprofit events.
Event organizers can find everything they need to streamline ticket distribution and team collaboration.
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Pros & Cons
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Good for: Event marketing
Platforms: Web, iOS, Android
Capterra rating: 4.8
A multitool software to manage virtual, in-person, or hybrid events.
Whova is a multi-tool event management software solution that is designed to seamlessly manage virtual, in-person, or hybrid events from beginning to end within one system. You can use all of those different features or select certain functionalities according to your needs. This event planning platform also functions as both a virtual event management software and a conference app, depending on what you need it for. The platform combines logistic management tools, event management software, and attendee and exhibitor engagement solutions in one package.
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Pros & Cons
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Good for: NGOs
Platforms: Web, iOS, Android, Windows, Mac
Capterra rating: 4.9
Eventilla is an event management software for creating branded and customized event landing pages, creating and collecting registration forms, payments, and participant reports, scheduled and targeted brand messaging. Eventilla tool is suitable for live or online events and allows the use of your own payment gateway, without per ticket fees.
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Pros & Cons
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Good for: Team collaboration
Platforms: Web, iOS, Android, Windows, Mac
Capterra rating: 4.1
Bitrix24 was born like a pure billing solution, but many companies use it as event planning software since it comes with all the necessary tools for the job. There is a CRM and client management part that allows you to create quotes and invoices, send emails and manage vendors. You can share calendars that let you schedule and book multiple venues. There’s also an event management feature in this software, that organizers use to manage ground crews and assign tasks for them.
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Good for: Educational institutions
Platforms: Completely web-based
Capterra rating: 4.4
Planning Pod is an event management software consisting of a few handy tools for event planning. From one place, you’ll have access to tools for attendee management, productivity, team collaboration, business management, and customization.
You can arrange seating, register guests, build event websites, and manage a guest list. You can also create schedules, budgets, to-do lists, calendars… the list goes on. If you’re constantly planning large events, then Planning Pod might be your personal virtual assistant.
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Pros & Cons
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Good for: Tourism organizations
Platforms: Web-based only
Capterra rating: 4.4
Localist is a simple events calendar designed to increase event attendance by boosting awareness and improving the public’s discovery of your event. Using the app, you can create an interactive calendar for your event and then publish it for the world to see. Localist matches your website’s branding and uses landing pages to increase conversions.
Localist event planner connects to Facebook, allowing potential attendees to select “I’m interested” for your event as well as view everyone else that’s going.
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Pros & Cons
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What Is Event Management Software?
Event management software is pretty self-explanatory, in that it is software designed to help event managers manage specific (sometimes all) areas of their daily operations.
These include registration, ticketing, planning, billing, and more. Some event management software platforms operate as all-in-one solutions, meaning that they can assist managers with every single stage of their event, from start to finish.
Whatever the case, these (usually cloud-based) solutions include capabilities that allow those in charge of the event to manage the staff involved, whether in-house or from external vendors. They can also use it to interact with their attendees.
How Does Event Management Software Work?
More often than not, event management software includes an online back-office that admins can operate from their laptop. From here, they usually have the tools to manage event projects, detailing every aspect of the planning.
Alongside this, they also have marketing capabilities in which they can communicate details of their events to employees, vendors, and attendees.
Speaking of which, attendees and general users often have access to a mobile version of the software, so that they can search for relevant events, stay up to date on the latest ongoings, regardless of location, and officially attend their events of choosing.
Event management software tends to also include insights pages for each event, so that admins can measure its performance in order to make improvements to future events.
The Benefits of Event Management Software
There are many benefits that using an event management software solution can bring to your business. Such as:
- It boosts attendee engagement: If you are able to share event-related content across multiple channels with communication tools, this means you can see exactly who is engaging with your content and who is interested in attending your events. It also means you can follow up on potential leads and increase attendance rates across events.
- Everything is automated: Whether you need to process payments, send event invitations, or track registration for multiple attendees, event management software allows you to do this on auto-pilot. This also ensures all processes are accurate and human error-free. Double-bookings, misspelled names, and logistical errors become a lot less likely.
- Everything is trackable: This software allows you to see in real-time how many people are attending events, who needs reminding, who is likely to attend, and who has already attended and paid at events.
How Much Does Event Management Software Cost?
Event manager software solutions vary in price drastically depending on the number of required users and the range of features they include. And sometimes, these metrics aren’t even factors in the pricing.
Some of the more expensive solutions on this list include Localist and Eventilla, which cost $800 and $290 per month, respectively. More affordable event manager software solutions (free apps for event management aside), include Eventzilla, which has a basic price plan of $1.50 per registration.
We recommend choosing the solution with the widest range of features but will cost you the least amount of money in the process. A good example of this is Connecteam.
With a basic pricing plan of just $29 per month for the first 30 users, you can enjoy all the employee management features that this all-in-one solution has to offer.
FAQs
What areas of business can I use an event management app for?
With an event management app, you can:
- Plan event schedules
- Customize your marketing for each event
- Handle both online registrations and payments
- Manage budgets for each event
- Choose venues for each event
- Handle bookings
What are the best apps for event planners?
While we regard the above list of event management solutions the best apps for event planners on the market today, each of them has its unique range of features and core strengths. You need to choose which one is best suited to your business needs.
What skills do you need for event management?
In order to be a great event manager, you need the following:
- An interest and knowledge in events
- The ability to adapt to last-minute changes
- Organizational skills
- Creativity
- Communication skills
- Customer service skills
Bottom Line on Event Management Software
There is no doubt that digital software solutions will help boost the productivity of your event management (for both you and your employees) and definitely make your life easier.
From planning the event and sharing the agenda with your team to sending invoices, from creating digital checklists to tracking time, and so much more.
The main features you want to see in the software for the event industry are:
- Versatility
- Ease of use
- Accessibility on the move
- Customization
- Affordability
Make sure you go through each of the listed event technology solutions to choose the best fit for your business.
Best All-In-One Employee Management App
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