Best Mobile Event Apps

What You Should Know About Mobile Event Apps Software

Smartphone technology has forever changed the live event experience—for attendees and organizers alike. At brand-related engagements such as conferences, festivals, galleries, and galas, mobile event apps serve as digital hubs that keep everyone informed, engaged, and connected. And with the convenience of accessing these platforms through a personal mobile device, engagement among attendees can see significant jumps, contributing to a more successful and well-received event.

Standard mobile event apps can provide features like detailed agendas, navigation guides, and speaker/artist bios to everyone at the event, available conveniently through their smartphones. This technology can also offer features for sharing content on social media or following social feeds of event accounts for content such as updates, contests, and footage. In addition to improving audience experience and event performance, mobile event apps can generate extremely valuable data as it tracks the behavior of attendees and measures audience response to various aspects of the experience.

Mobile event apps software allows businesses to create audience-facing mobile applications with minimal coding or development. This allows both small and large companies to impress and connect with attendees on an entirely new level when putting together conferences or other events, without the need for in-house mobile developers or third-party mobile app development companies.

Key Benefits of Mobile Event Apps Software

• Creating smartphone-accessible applications to correspond with special events
• Engaging with event attendees before, during, and after events
• Enhancing overall event experience by offering helpful information and timely updates to attendees and workers
• Collecting feedback and other data that can contribute to company strategy and future event planning

Why Use Mobile Event Apps Software?

Regardless of your industry, you will likely attend a number of events this year, and may even be presenting, speaking, hosting, or otherwise involved in the proceedings. As exciting as they are, these gatherings can be crowded, confusing, and stressful. With a mobile conference app, you can help hundreds or thousands of attendees find their way around, understand the agenda, and feel more connected with the brand. In some cases, they can even meet or connect with like-minded people who are attending the same event or are following it in real time from afar.

Mobile app development in general is a complex industry, and your current team may not include an experienced mobile developer. The platforms in this category allow users of all backgrounds and skill sets to create fully operational conference apps with robust, intuitive technology on both the back end and app users’ side. With a basic effort, you can help legitimize your event and make an impression with attendees while collecting invaluable data along the way.

Who Uses Mobile Event Apps Software?

Anyone who is involved with event planning could benefit from mobile event apps software, from nonprofits to schools to local governments. Live events are more popular than ever, with branded parties, music festivals, community gatherings, and industry conferences happening somewhere around the globe each day. This widespread popularity goes hand in hand with an increased focus on experience at events. The demand for event and conference apps will continue to rise, as will the potential user base.

If your company is planning an event, your product or development team may be tasked with a mobile app or online engagement initiative. Marketing or management teams could also play a hand in the messaging or content and, with mobile event apps software, create a quality mobile app themselves if they so choose. Below we’ll highlight a select few groups who most benefit from this unique technology.

Event managers — Event managers and planning teams, whether with event agencies or part of a larger organization, can leverage these tools to create the perfect platform for an event. These individuals are closest to the critical details of an event and can translate their knowledge into a helpful application for attendees, volunteers, and anyone else involved. They can also monitor and update the app throughout the event, communicating timely information to certain attendees or the audience as a whole. Event administrators can also collect real-time feedback from guests and use this and other data wherever it may apply in their operation.

Exhibitors — If you’re hosting a conference, farmers’ market, or other vendor-related event, the platforms in this category can provide a way for booth operators and exhibitors to stay informed and find their way around so they can operate successfully. These users can also stay up to date in case of changes or issues that come up, with some products offering messaging features to facilitate conversations between organizers and vendors. With social media integrations, booth operators can also send notifications on their biggest social networking platforms to draw attention to the event or share deals and multimedia from the event.

Attendees — When attendees enter an event, they can supplement the experience with sporadic sessions on the mobile app. This can be useful for learning the layout of the event site, assembling a personal agenda from the published schedule, and finding links to the websites or work of a person or company in attendance. In the ideal circumstances, mobile event apps can serve as friendly, personalized assistants for the masses attending a major event.

Mobile Event Apps Software Features

The products in this category offer diverse platforms for drafting, creating, distributing, and managing mobile event applications. Below we’ll describe some of the primary features of a completed app and how they can benefit users on both ends of the technology.

Notifications — Sessions on a mobile event app can involve any number of push notifications and alerts. In the middle of a crowded room at a big event, it can be hard to follow all the overlapping happenings, let alone hear important updates from the host or building operators. Event organizers can use these tools to send timely notifications to specific guests, selected groups, or the audience as a whole. Notifications can involve anything from schedule changes to breaking news or emergency updates. With a thoughtful approach to notifications, attendees can feel at ease and immerse themselves further in the event offerings.

Event schedule — Depending on the event size and purpose, it can entail anywhere from a handful to hundreds of curated meetings (e.g., concerts, speakers). By offering your attendees a digital schedule, they can easily access set times and locations whenever they need it, but they can also create personalized agendas with the particular meetings that matter most to them. If the event organizers have to update the schedule for any reason before or during an event, app users can follow the updates and plan accordingly. Schedule features will often integrate with notification tools, allowing administrators to send push notifications when an event changes time or location or is cancelled or replaced.

Maps — Navigating a major conference or other live event can be tricky, even for the team organizing it. Detailed maps may be the most important content you build into a mobile event app, helping your attendees find their way and make it to their chosen meetings on time. The scope of a major event can make it not only difficult but potentially overwhelming at times to move around, which is amplified by large, packed-in crowds. Having a map of the grounds can reduce any stress and streamline the way your attendees experience the festivities.

Analytics — The app sessions of event attendees can benefit the organizers during and long after a well-attended event. Depending on the product, administrators can track different analytics metrics such as attendance rates at different shows and peak times of the event. With a number of platforms in this category, users can also collect in-the-moment feedback from attendees with live polling and other interactions. Analytics that are gathered from these tools can influence immediate changes to an event, as well as long-term reconsiderations of branding and event strategies. Analytics can also show your team what went well and help affirm various event-related decisions.

With live polls and questionnaires sent to attendees through your finished event app, you may find opportunities for sales such as lead retrieval and opportunistic deals, in addition to a variety of insightful analytics.

Social networking — Social media is a significant presence at today’s events, as attendees and organizers send a steady stream of content to their respective networks and to each other. Integrations with social networks allow users to follow event and vendor accounts, interact with the brands, and share personal footage or other updates to social profiles. Event organizers can leverage these features for live contests and other announcements that can increase customer engagement and open the door for sales opportunities.

In addition to social media integrations, mobile event apps may offer additional tools for networking with other guests checked in through the app. There may also be tools for connecting directly with vendors that you speak with at a booth, so you can easily follow up to buy their product/service or ask more questions. In lieu of these networking features, users may find vendor biographies and contact information, so they can inquire as they see fit outside of the app.

Software and Services Related to Mobile Event Apps Software

The following technology solutions can work in conjunction with mobile event app software to help organizers create the best events and run events as smoothly as possible.

Event management platforms — Events like trade shows and conferences are labors of love from talented, diverse teams. There would be no use for a mobile event app if the event itself did not come together perfectly. Event management platforms are mission control stations for event organizers, where they can plan and store information related to all aspects of the event. Features on these platforms can relate to venue selection, booth planning, and event accounting, among other things. In some cases, they may integrate with mobile event apps for fostering communication between organizers and attendees or storing information and analytics.

Event registration & ticketing software — Once an event is planned and the ticket details are decided (e.g., price, tiers, venue capacity), businesses can use event registration & ticketing software to help sell and distribute tickets. Interested attendees can typically access a unique event page through a website or mobile app, and then register or purchase their admission. In some cases, attendees can also use these tools to display electronic tickets or other confirmations on their mobile devices when entering an event. In addition to selling tickets, these platforms help event administrators assemble up-to-date guest lists and write or access notes or additional details related to guests.

Audience response software — Audience response software allows event organizers to create surveys or other questionnaires to help capture valuable, in-the-moment sentiments at important points during an event. Polls that are created with audience response tools can be distributed via text or email but can also be deployed via mobile event apps with the right integrations. Mobile event apps may also offer select features of audience response tools to help facilitate these interactions.