What Is An Event App

An event app is a mobile app that guests / attendees download and can then use to improve their experience at the event. Event Apps are often used before and during an event – sometimes they are also used after the event too.

What Features Do Event Apps Have

Event apps have a large number of features and these vary based on different types of event app. Some of the top features that many event apps include are:

  • Great design – fully branded
  • Login – to restrict access to invited / registered guests
  • Event information
  • Ability to check-in
  • Push notifications / updates
  • Maps / directions
  • Social feeds
  • Live video feed
  • Multilingual – for international events
  • Contact information and form

Learn more about the 10 top features and the benefits they can offer.

What Types Of Events Can Benefit From An Event App

Event apps can benefit both virtual and physical in-person (face-to-face) events.

They can be used for a large variety of events including:

  • Sports events – particularly for high profile events with corporate hospitality
  • Conferences
  • Trade shows / exhibitions
  • Corporate events – e.g. annual shareholder or business meetings

How Can An Event App Improve Your Event

Event apps improve your event by offering both a better experience for your guests / attendees as well as offering benefits to the event organisers.

Better experience for guests / attendees

  • Fully branded experience – great apps are fully branded to provide consistency and immerse guests
  • Simplified check-in – QR codes or NFC scanning can be used to make check-in easier and faster
  • View event information and updates – learn about what will happen at the event and get updates during the event

Benefit event organisers (and sponsors if you have them)

  • Increase efficiency & reduce costs – by simplifying processes or eliminating manual (and/or paper-based) steps.
  • Improved communications – update your attendees faster using push notifications
  • More visibility – if you have sponsors, an event app enables their brand to be embedded into it and therefore increases the visibility.

Benefits Of An Event App vs An Event Website

Event websites have similarities to event apps. Typically however they offer less functionality – as websites can’t offer some app-specific features such as push notifications, GPS or offline functionality.

The ultimate however is to offer both. This allows the event website to be used (on a wide variety of devices including desktop computers / laptops) and the event app to be used on mobile devices. Our event website and event app platform facilities this and even includes shared data – so you update via the event website and the event app also automatically updates.

Your Own App vs Off-The-Shelf App

An important thing to consider when getting an event app is whether to have your own app or use an off-the-shelf app. Having your own app offers the most benefits, but for some events and off-the-shelf app can be sufficient. Learn about the benefits and read more about your own app vs third party app.

How to Get Your Own Event App Developed

The process to develop an event app is similar to the general process to develop mobile apps. The main stages are:

  • Requirements gathering and agreement on functionality
  • Design and development of the app
  • Quality Assurance (QA) and submission to the app stores
  • Marketing the app
  • On-going maintenance and enhancements

As event apps typically have fairly well defined requirements, an event app would usually follow a waterfall approach rather than agile. However for highly custom event apps that may be developed and enhanced on a long term basis, an agile approach may be appropriate.

Event App Integrations

With an Event App, it’s important to consider what it integrates with. For example, you may use an existing system for handling event registrations and ideally your app wants to integrate with that (or have the potential for bespoke integration). Some event apps require you to use a single system (from a single provider) for everything. Whilst this can simplify things in some cases, it does tie or lock you in, so changing anything in the future will be difficult. The best event apps are often those which integrate (or have the potential to) with a variety of systems. For example they may integrate with your email automation platform – such as Active Campaign.

Event App Costs

The cost for an event app varies. The cheapest (but most restrictive) option is to use an off-the-shelf event app rather than have your own developed. The most expensive would be to have a fully bespoke event app developed from scratch. The middle ground option (that we offer for our event apps) is to use an event app platform, so white-labelled event apps can be designed & developed for your company at a cost effective price.

Depending on the type of event app you go for, there is often an initial cost and an on-going cost, which includes maintenance and updates.