Nowadays, event management is fundamentally different than it was 10 years ago. The complexities of the event management process remain the same, but they can be handled with much more ease owing to the advancements in the event management technology. The event management software industry has evolved with rapid advancements in technologies, such as social media, mobile, web, cloud, and analytics. Businesses have therefore started paying attention to the services in the event management industry. Event management software helps various end users, including corporate, government, and event organizers and planners, target the right attendees and automate various workflows involved in the life cycle of an event. It provides event management companies and event planners with several benefits, such as enhanced scalability, increased brand awareness, improved brand loyalty and customer retention, and increased profits from events, through improved operational efficiency.

New technologies, such as facial recognition, and Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), are helping the best event management software market gain traction. The facial recognition technology identifies and registers attendees at events. With self-check-in booths, face-based registration would check-in attendees and print their badges in about 9 seconds. The self-check-in booths not only save labor costs, but also securely register attendees at events. AR and VR are making their presence known in the event planning industry. Right from the simplest interactive experiences to complex installations, event planners spice up their work with the latest technologies. The purpose of AR and VR is to increase attendees, boost sales, and take brand awareness to new heights.

The increasing expenditure on events and meetings, rapidly rising number of smartphone users, and growing availability of best event management software on the cloud platform are the major factors likely to affect the growth in the event management market. Social media has also proved to be the best marketing platform for events, and helps in targeting the right set of audience for events. The emergence of small players and application providers makes the market very competitive. This emergence has reduced vendors’ revenue generated from the event management solutions, thereby posing a challenge to them.

The rapid adoption of advanced technologies in the event management market helps event planners and marketers engage attendees, offer delightful experiences to them, and speed up and simplify event planning and management. The automation of various processes, including registration, payment processing, budget management, reporting, and analysis, helps in the flawless execution of an event. The event management solutions also helps event organizers make informed decisions using a comprehensive analysis and reporting of data generated throughout the life cycle of an event. The growing requirement of event automation and need for data-driven businesses, and increasing use of social media and smartphones for enhanced collaboration and brand marketing are expected to drive the demand for the event management solutions.

Best Event Management Software in 2020

1. Bevy
2. Odoo Event Management
3. Symphony
4. Allevents
5. Banquet
6. B-Com
7. Bitrix24
8. Conversation Starter
9. doo
10. Enquiry

Market Overview

Enterprises use event management software to promote, plan, execute, and evaluate events. The event management solutions consists of multiple solutions, such as planning, registrations, venue management, marketing, and others (content management and visitor management), which help enterprises manage the entire life cycle of an event. The solutions are gaining prominence, as they enable enterprises to manage entire events and reduce the complexities associated with managing events.

The global event management market was valued at USD 5.7 billion in 2019 and is likely to reach USD 11.4 billion by the end of 2024, at a CAGR of 15.0% from 2019-2024. This growth can be attributed to the growing demand for event automation amongst marketers, rise in the usage of social media for event marketing, growing requirement for actionable insights from events, and growth in the acceptance of advanced data analytics solutions.

What are the major drivers of the Event Management software market?

Growing event automation

The growing trend of digital transformation among global enterprises has fuelled the demand for event automation software among marketers. The marketers are looking forward to automating the entire life cycle of their events through the best event management software, as it facilitates the marketers with event-based sales signals. The event management solutions facilitates organizations to automate various processes, including sourcing, coordination, event planning, venue management, expense tracking, marketing, and data analysis, throughout the life cycle of their events. It helps enterprises manage these processes from a centralized platform, enabling them to improve their operational processes and increase their marketing leads from events.

Business Insights

With the growing competition in the global market, marketers are consistently working hard to harness data in order to get actionable insights. Best event management software enables marketers to leverage the benefits of real-time data for extracting actionable business insights from events required to drive organizational growth. To utilize data and business insights, the event management solutions needs to be integrated with organizations’ various systems, including Customer Relationship Management (CRM), marketing automation software, collaboration platforms, payment gateways, and accounting software. It enables organizations to align the entire life cycle of their events with their business goals, thereby facilitating Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) with key business insights from the data gathered through various business events. Moreover, it helps organizations capture and analyse attendees’ behaviour, which helps them make effective business decisions.

Increasing usage of social media

Social media acts as an important tool for event managers and can be used before, during, and after events. The event management solutions enables organizers to reach their audience through auto-generated emailers and social media posts. It also helps them increase attendees’ engagement by keeping the attendees informed about event updates through social media sharing. Social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook can be used to create interest and buzz among people for events. Best event management software, in conjunction with social media, helps organizations facilitate collaboration among various stakeholders, including customers, attendees, third-party event planners, event marketers, and sponsors.

Growing usage of data analytics

Advanced analytics is a comprehensive set of analytical techniques and methods designed for helping event management companies discover trends and patterns, solve problems, and accurately predict the future and drive change using data-driven and fact-based information. They help enterprises by offering sophisticated algorithms and analytical techniques, which assist in effective decision-making.

As the analytical solutions market space evolves, the advent of self-serve tools provides users with the ability to leverage the advantages of self-serve data preparation, smart data visualization, and aided predictive modeling and function at a level that was not likely earlier.

Without the assistance of data scientists, best event management software companies with average skills can explore data and enjoy the advantages of augmented analytics with guidance and recommendations for getting better and clearer results, These tools use sophisticated algorithms and analytical techniques with Natural Language Processing (NLP) so that users can ask questions and get results using normal human language. The addition of Clickless Search Analytics makes it easier to bring advanced analytics to organizations and engage business users. Through advanced algorithms, attendees can get personalized recommendations on other attendees they may want to connect with and relevant sessions that they may find interesting. Attendees can also schedule meetings seamlessly using apps. Moreover, they can easily request meetings, choose from mutual availabilities, accept or decline meetings, view schedules, and get timely reminders.

What are the major opportunities for the players in the best Event Management Software market?

Gamification of events to engage audience

Organizations across industries are focusing on gamification to create high-quality experiences through events. Event organizers are using gamification as a tool to boost attendees’ engagement. Event gamification enables organizers to attain event goals, while it also enables them to create a fun-filled memorable experience for event attendees. It works on the basis of accessing emotions of attendees and offers various benefits, including creating a relaxed atmosphere, boosting attendees’ confidence, making communication easy and effective, and generating a feeling of common purpose. The event organizers use various gamification methods, including social media engagement, Q&A engagement, networking games, social programs, and teamwork games.

Advancements in augmented and virtual reality

AR and VR have the potential to change the way vendors, sponsors, and organizers engage with event attendees. Implementing AR and VR in events enables organizations to create unique, innovative, and immersive experiences for the event attendees. Enterprises are embracing VR and AR to create strong brand recognition and recall by providing enduring experiences to customers. The applications of VR and AR technologies at events include product demo, virtual attendance, event marketing, 3D venue rendering, training, and education.

Usage of AI and Machine Learning

AI and machine learning technologies facilitate organizations to enhance their business processes and improve their attendee experiences. AI offers organizations several benefits, including personalization, interface-less experience through chatbots, and data protection and integrity. Machine learning enables event organizers to predict the sentiments and preferences of attendees, thereby helping them in attaining a competitive edge in planning and effective decision-making. Furthermore, it can facilitate venue hunting and selections based on organizers’ preferences and history. It also enables organizations to tag, curate, and categorize large amounts of content generated throughout the life cycle of an event.

IoT in event management

The rapid advancements in the IoT technology are said to affect event management at various phases of the event life cycle. The IoT technology facilitates event management companies by providing their clients with automated solutions for smart parking, attendee registration, and floor traffic tracking. It enables clients with advanced capabilities to accelerate the event registration process and efficiently manage events throughout their life cycle. It also facilitates event managers in making real-time decisions by providing data pertaining to potential attendees, caterers, and venues. However, it depends on event organizers to optimally utilize real-time data from smart devices to create more engaging experiences for attendees through a connected environment.

What are the various professional services offered by Event Management solution providers?

Event management solutions providers offer professional services which include deployment and integration, consulting, and support and maintenance services. The professional services provide an expert level of deployment, integration, consulting, and support and maintenance services for the proper installation of a specific software either on-premises or over the cloud. The clients pick either the basic software or require customized software to meet their business needs. The professional services help organizations in better understanding the IT system’s requirements and software integration capabilities. Professional services have been categorized and defined below:

Consulting Services

Consulting services help organizations in understanding the capabilities of various software and deciding about the implementation of a particular software solution, considering its pros and cons. The capabilities and capacities of a software solution are studied along with the associated services provided by the vendor. It is an important contributor to the overall service revenue of a vendor. Consulting for the proper choice of the event management solutions is critical to benefit from the solution to the full extent.

Deployment and Integration

The proper deployment of software solutions is important for various network systems and network infrastructure. Trained professionals are required for deploying a specific software. The integration service providers aim at providing a seamless integration of the software with other software packages, such as ERP or independent software deployment in the system. The deployment and integration services help reduce the complexities in configuring the software in the existing system and the market size is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period.

Support and Maintenance

Support and maintenance services are vital, as they straight away deal with customer satisfaction and issues. Every event management software vendor has a committed support team to serve the customers. I order to derive steady customer satisfaction, service providers frequently focus on improving their product knowledge base by getting feedbacks through interviews and surveys. These services also offer a single point of contact who would help solve customer issues quickly. Customer portal is an additional facility that offers technical instructions and software updates to customer forums.

What are the different options available to deploy an Event Management Solution?

A Event Management Software can be deployed on: Cloud and On Premises.

Cloud

Cloud-based services are provided directly through the cloud-deployed network connectivity. These services help in reducing the overall costs while providing highly flexible and scalable access to event management solutions through the IT infrastructure, hosted by cloud service providers. Companies are deploying event management solutions in the cloud to improve their mobility and decentralize data storage and computing. Security is a critical issue, which restricts the adoption of cloud services. However, this issue is gradually eradicated by conducting rigorous security tests to the highest standards by third parties. Owing to various advantages, such as pay-per-use option, and reduced installation and maintenance costs, several enterprises are switching from the on-premises event management solutions to the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based software.

On Premises

The on-premises deployment type refers to the installation of the best event management software on the premises of an organization rather than at a remote facility. On-premises solutions are typically provided with a licensing fee and a service contract. Furthermore, deployment of the solution requires huge infrastructure and a personal data center, which is affordable only for large organizations. Therefore, SMEs frequently face the problem of picking between the hosted and on-premises solutions. In spite of its benefits, such as control over the system and data, and committed staff for maintenance and support, the on-premises deployment type has various disadvantages, which include higher arrangement expenses and better infrastructure necessities that are not always likely for every enterprise. The growth in on-premises deployment is likely to be impacted by the rapid advancement in cloud computing solutions.

What are the different varieties of Event Management Tools available in the market?

The best event management software refers to a wide range of software products used in the management of trade exhibitions, conferences, and events. . It helps in improving the quality of events and delivers better visibility for event managers. . Handling events need several hours of hard work of the current resources therefore, to reorganize the planning, scheduling, and event marketing processes, numerous organizations are choosing the event management software, which helps them in providing dependable and excellent services to the attendees and customers at a lower cost. . The best event management software segment is further divided into venue management software, event registration and ticketing software, event planning software, event marketing software, analytics and reporting software, visitor management software,  content management software, onsite technology, and others.

The event planning software focuses on the pre-arrangement of the complete event life cycle. The software is important for all small and big events, conferences, meetings, and tasks that include organizing and selling events to the participants. The software includes features such as online management of event schedules, attendee data reporting, merchandise sales, , Email marketing tool   , sponsor and trade exhibition registration, team and task management, event budget management, travel management, and event approval processes. The event planning software segment is likely to be accelerating at a fast pace, as it helps organizations plan complex schedules easily and gives users the ability to manage events quickly and at affordable costs. The key vendors offering the event planning software are Cvent, Aventri, Ungerboeck Software, XING Events, and Social Tables.

Venue Management Software

The venue management software helps in improving visibility and accountability, and provides optimum utilization of a venue. The software helps in managing the venue’s entire business, from customer or vendor contact to planning, execution, and billing. All the vendors in the event management market space have collaborations and partnerships with various destination partners to provide their customers with a wide range of venue options. It is designed to help with the marketing, managing, and selling of venue locations for events. event management software market is expected to gain significant traction among the large enterprises that use the software to add real value to their business, along with many integrated features. The major providers of venue management software are Aventri, Ungerboeck Software, and Social Tables.

Event Registration and Ticketing Software

The event registration and ticketing solution allows organizations to make the registration process seamless and user friendly. The software provides features that are designed to save time and handle numerous event tasks at one place, including the registration process and attendance management. The software also provides options for online and onsite registration. It includes payment processing, which helps organizations to automate and simplify the payment collection process in their business. The software minimizes the workload by establishing automated refund structure and setting up secure, automated payments and refunds. It also customizes the price based on registrant types, coupons, registration dates, and bulk registrations.

The ticketing software offers organizers with maximum control and flexibility over the event’s ticket pricing and selling management. The software helps organizers implement various ticket pricing strategies, from early bird to group discounts, set ticket capacity limits, collect donations for fundraising events, and even frame the time to sell the tickets. Beyond the ticketing structure, the software provides custom designs and branding to match the event’s website, arranges for general admission and reserved seating options, manages the event box office without relying on other vendors, and provides real-time access to the organizer’s database.

Event Marketing Software

The event marketing software helps organizations distribute content, encourage engagements, and utilize data-driven audience intelligence to make an event campaign smarter. The software includes features such as tracking email open rates and undeliverable rates, linking social media platforms, analyzing the response rate of the participants by sending reminder emails, decreasing the costs of the events, customizing the event marketing and templates to match the organization’s branding, and following up on the marketing campaigns and surveys. Email marketing is one of the most important marketing strategies, owing to the increasing popularity of digital channels. The software helps an organization reach a wide range of customers through its exclusive online advertisement options. The major providers of the event marketing software are Eventbrite, Cvent, ACTIVE Networks, Aventri, XING Events, and Certain.

Analytics and Reporting Software

The analytics and reporting software helps organizations identify and track the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the overall management that is organizing the event. The software helps companies analyze the trends, changes, and variances in events, customer interests, ratings, pricing, and the number of attendees. It also aggregates the data across databases such as CRM, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and data warehouse, which helps the organizations measure their business performance and market their events across the chain in real time. The analytics and reporting software helps event planners access and analyze both the demand and supply sides of the event and carefully plan the budget and forecast the participants for various events.

Onsite Technology

Onsite technology improves the attendee experience, significantly speeding up check-in, and the ability to print badges and collect key attendee information onsite. A smartphone or tablet loaded with a cost-effective app allows check-in staff to find attendees through a quick alphabetical search or by confirmation number, email, or QR scan. Mobile apps and kiosks equipped with tablets give attendees the chance to help themselves, and check-in with ease. As onsite technology continues to evolve, planners can expect better integration with big data, which will allow the check-in process to become more personalized and engaging. Check-in staff can suggest conferences and exhibitions based on participants’ job title, earlier event history, or other data. 

Content Management Software

Event content management helps in selecting and managing the event content that powers the agenda. It also saves time on manual tasks and drives registration faster with up-to-date content from sessions and speakers. It helps in crowdsourcing an expert community for session proposals and generating original session ideas with speaker profiles. It allows the sharing of work and assigning a grading panel to review, with several options to approve or deny submissions, allowing the user to avoid picking last-minute session topics or finding emergency speakers to fill agenda.

Visitor Management Software

From self-registry to info-kiosk,   visitor management software aids the attendees throughout the events and meetings while they are at the premises and also helps in keeping track of the operations. Visitor management software automates the entire process of registering a visitor, printing a badge, and capturing detailed information and completes them in seconds.

Others

The other software solutions include resource scheduling software and catering software. Due to the increase in demand and use of mobile phones, the demand for mobile software is also expected to increase among end users. The additional software integrations, such as billing, catering, and others mentioned above, make the event management solutions a one-stop solution for the event organizers to set up and execute successful events.

How is the Event Management Software classified according to the size of the organizations?

The event management software has been segmented by organization size into SMEs and large enterprises. This segmentation of enterprises has been done on the basis of the number of employees working in organizations. The top market players use the event marketing and venue management software for efficiently hosting events. The present market size is expected to be larger for the large enterprises segment, as most of them emphasize on enhanced experience for participants.

Small and Medium Sized Enterprises

Organizations with employees ranging between 1 and 1,000 are categorized under the SMEs segment. The increased competitive market scenario and brand marketing have encouraged the SMEs to invest in the event management solutions and services to reach out to more prospects and participants, and effectively host events for their business growth. In comparison to large enterprises, SMEs prefer the cloud deployment type to reduce their IT infrastructure cost and focus on their core activities, as they face some specific challenges, such as lack of domain-specific personnel and skilled workforce, budget constraints, and limited economies of scale.

Large Enterprises

Organizations with more than 1,000 employees are categorized under the large enterprises segment. Large enterprises control complex systems and software. The events held by large enterprises are relatively larger and more frequent as compared to SMEs. The number of event management solutions vendors catering to large enterprises is expected to increase with the surge in scalable products and addition of new features for organizing events, thereby meeting the needs of a larger group of end users.

Who are the typical users of an Event Management Tool?

An event can refer to a public gathering for marketing promotion, celebration, conference, exhibition, meeting, education, or sports-related happening. The best event management software is considered as one of the strategic marketing and communication tools used to analyze, market, produce, and evaluate an event. From product launches to promotions and press releases, companies create promotional events to help communicate with potential clients and end users. The event management solutions helps create the best experiences for the attendees, stakeholders, stars, sponsors, and spectators. The scope of the event depends on its purpose, the extent of participation, facilities and equipment required, and its significance in terms of interest. The event management industry covers a wide range of occasions, which include everything from corporate events to personal/leisure events, such as weddings, anniversaries, and birthday parties.

The end user segments include event organizers and party planners, corporate, government, education, and others. The others segment consists of non-profit event management industries and associations.

Event Organizers and Planners

The event organizers and planners help organizations in developing and planning events for their clients. The events include creating effective invitations, managing registrations, organizing housing and travel preferences, collecting online payments, and viewing reports in real time. Event organizers and planners help organizers in the management of the complete event life cycle. The event management in this end user segment offers a potent mix of office control with local autonomy to execute centralized decisions. It also manages the entire booking process, from inquiry to confirmation of booking, and occasions, including ceremonies, weddings, concerts, and social functions.

Corporate

The corporate sector hosts events such as meetings, conferences, exhibitions, product launches, roadshows, buyer-seller meets, press conferences, board meetings, executive retreats, award ceremonies, VIP events, and trade shows. Corporate events are organized to attract customers and channel partners across all SMEs and large enterprises. Corporate industry events cover the second-largest share of the event management market during the forecast period after event organizers and planners. Best event management software helps businesses control the disorder and streamline their event tasks. This software handles all the event activities from event operations and procurement to financial and audit-ready accounting.

Government

The government segment includes federal, state, and local governments; councils; and agencies. These agencies and local governments use the event management solutions for their event planning and execution processes. The event management solutions helps automate the end-to-end event processes and provides full control over online marketing. The event management solutions for the government segment includes a robust software that serves thousands of users and handles events 24/7, with deep insight into online reporting and analysis.

Education

The event management solutions for the education industry helps streamline the events and optimize the use of classrooms and venue operations. It also assists track and report event-related finances, maintain alumni relations, improve professional developments and conference centers, and manage campus calendars.

Others

The other end users include non-profit event management industries and associations. The best event management software required for these industries helps manage fundraising and donation activities. There are various solution providers who help Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) automate time-consuming tasks, build a better path for communication, and reach their organizational goals. The market size of the Best event management software in this particular segment is relatively small, and non-profit event management organizations are still adopting technologically upgraded best event management software to cut down the costs and boost their event marketing strategies.

Popular Use Cases

Project Objective   - To increase a hotel’s visibility for hosting events and conferences.

Description   - The hotel is located close to the airport in one of the biggest cities in the world and is well-connected across the city. It is a convenient choice for business travelers. The hotel was focusing on meetings and events, as the city was hosting a lot of events and meetings. To survive in the competitive environment, the hotel needed a proper marketing strategy. The Cvent Group Marketing Solution was deployed to address the needs of the hotel.

Cvent Group Marketing Solution   - Cvent’s digital marketing tools help hotels and venues win new customers and grow their business, and software solutions help hotels own their business by servicing their customers directly, efficiently, and profitably.

Benefits Achieved

• The hotel received increased Return on Investment (RoI) close to 100–150%, as the hotel could host Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, and Events (MICE) groups.
• The hotel experienced an 185% increase in unique room nights and 89% rise in unique Request for Proposals (RFPs), due to the hotel’s enhanced visibility internationally.
• The hotel now takes lesser time to find prospects for events, due to its increased productivity and forecasting.

Project Objective - To target a specific group for sports trade fairs, generate data on potential industry attendees, and preregister and preselect visitors via ticket shops.

Description - The hotel is located close to the airport in one of the biggest cities in the world and is well-connected across the city. It is a convenient choice for business travelers. The hotel was focusing on meetings and events, as the city was hosting a lot of events and meetings. To survive in the competitive environment, the hotel needed a proper marketing strategy. The Cvent Group Marketing Solution was deployed to address the needs of the hotel.

XING Ticketing Manager and Customized Event Marketing Campaign - XING Network provided an event marketing platform in the German-speaking area. The event marketing platform offers intelligent marketing options for increasing the reach of the relevant group. It helped in generating leads with the help of individual data.

Benefits Achieved

• 25% of the industry attendees were acquired via XING’s Network.
• Huge databases with new contacts were generated for further requirement of the client.

Project Objective - To deliver a comprehensive package comprising options for registration with custom fields and approval management, along with a feature that enables merging data with the email marketing tool.

Description - An independent, non-partisan, and non-governmental organization, committed to enhancing its security, prosperity, and sustainability in Europe and throughout the world, was using its self-developed registration system to manage events.

Aventri Registration and Marketing Modules - Aventri registration and marketing modules were used to make communication easy for attendees.

Benefits Achieved

• The software helped set up registration forms with custom questions and options related to travel, accommodations, and approval processes for different categories.
• The client was able to prepare email lists using the marketing module.
• Post events, the client was also able to send and track attendee surveys.

Project Objective - To ensure a smooth and well-integrated check-in and registration journey both online and onsite for every attendee.

Description - A forum for insightful business discussions was tailored to cater to the interests and needs of individuals from the media and communications industry. It gathers influential marketers, publishers, agencies, and technologists from across Southeast Asia. Recently, the group had arranged an event, wherein the focus was placed on convenient onsite check-in and the facilitation of effective networking for attendees.

GEVME Registration Software and Event App - GEVME provided a registration tool and onsite check-in support to make attendee check-in and registration easy.

Benefits Achieved

• Onsite registration setup was tailored to suit the requirements of attendees and guests; the attendees arriving with or without QR codes were checked in instantly with immediate onsite support.
• GEVME Registration Software helped set multiple categories of registration forms with custom questions.
• With the help of the color code technology, badges were provided accurately to various attendee categories.
• Management of payments and registrations was fully automated.
• Attendees and guests were kept updated with real-time updates on events.
• Post events, the group was able to send and track attendee surveys.

Project Objective - To manage the process of ticket handling at game fairs arranged by Decisions.

Description - Decisions, a membership organization for the owners of lands, properties, and businesses in rural England and Wales, arranges a game fair every year. Due to the popularity of game fairs, the number of attendees and exhibitors attending the game fairs was increasing every year. To manage the growing number of attendees, an event management solution was needed as the existing systems could no longer manage this growth.

Decisions’ Contact Manager Event Manager Module - Decisions provided the Contact Manager Event Manager module to manage sales of event tickets.

Benefits Achieved

• Seamlessly integration of the Contact Manager Module with the Event Manager module
• Utilization of contact database to market events, establish a smooth and efficient sales process, and conduct post-marketing campaigns