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Event Technology – Pay as you Go or Use an
All-in-One Solution?
From the very beginning, Event Management software
was an all-in-one solution. Meeting managers faced dozens, if
not hundreds of tasks, so event management technology focused
on the big picture, not just one part of it.
Registration, name badges, itineraries, housing,
functions, email communications, and later online registration
forms were all integrated in one complete solution.
And with that comprehensive approach came a high
cost of acquisition.
Even today, many event management solutions are
based on this old model of comprehensive solutions that come
at a high price, typically driven by the model of per-person
registration fees.
For example, if you were a professional conference
organizer managing a dozen meetings a year with an estimated
registration count of 10,000 registrations, it is not uncommon
to see yearly technology fees in the $40,000 to $60,000
range.
However, with the advent of mobile apps, the event
management software industry has experienced a major paradigm
shift in how technology is deployed and priced.
Almost overnight, the comprehensive meetings
platform because old news and dozens of new solutions entered
the marketplace as stand-alone apps.
First there were the attendee apps.
Then, we saw specialized ticketing platforms.
Meeting matching apps. Audience polling apps. Exhibitor
management apps. The list keeps growing and meeting managers
have more and more choices.
For the most part, this was a fantastic shift for
meeting organizers. More solutions to choose from allowed
meeting planners to purchase only what they needed and
provided more targeted solutions that meeting planners were
seeking.
But, there is a downside to the specialized app
approach to meeting management.
The challenge focuses on data management and how
you get data from one app synchronizing with data in another
app.
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