6 Best Event Planning & Management Software 2020

Events are a great way to make money, attract new customers, and generate customer loyalty. With event planning software, it’s easy to keep everything organized. In addition to venues, equipment, people, and tickets, online advertising and follow-up are important. We looked at the best event planning and management software to help you maximize your return.

Top 6 Event Management Software

How We Evaluated Event Planning Software

The best event planning software does more than help you manage to-dos or guest lists. They often provide ways to sell tickets and promote. Businesses may want software that gathers demographic information, allows for automated follow-ups, or integrates with programs such as Salesforce.

We went beyond simple party planners to find a variety of software solutions that address different needs. Some of the things we considered include:

• Price: We found software that prices by features, month, event, or ticket.
• Ease of use: The software should be intuitive enough that you can concentrate on the details of the event. It may also allow you to coordinate with others more easily.
• Event & calendar management: We started with task due dates, then looked for dependencies, alerts, and other time management tools.
• Registration & ticketing systems: The best systems handle buying or securing tickets, collecting attendee information, and sending reminders.
• Payment processing: Not all the event planning software we reviewed handle payments, but for those that do, we look at price, payment processing systems, and refunding abilities.
• Contact & follow-up: How easy is it to contact attendees (or interested people) about updates, follow-ups, or to close a deal?
• Integrations: Integrations can include customer resource management (CRM), social media, websites, or email programs.

We have to be honest: You will not find an event management software with all of these features. For the specific needs of event management, such as tickets or agendas, Idloom is our No. 1 choice. It offers a variety of features at a reasonable and easily understandable price. For planning and team coordination, project management software is best, and we suggest monday.com.

Idloom Events: Best Overall Event Management Software

Idloom events is a highly regarded, international events management platform that scales well to business size. While it doesn’t let you do actual event planning (like reserving venues, getting presenters, etc.), it makes promotion and registration processes a breeze. Attendees can book hotel rooms through the software. It also handles payments, invoices, and sharing guest demographics.

Idloom Events Pricing

Idloom pricing varies from free to $1,150 per month. The free plan does not allow for paid events but is great for free ones. The paid plans have a 15-day free trial, and the Premium and Corporate plans offer 50% discounts for nonprofits and educational organizations.

Idloom Events Pricing Tiers

Idloom Events Features

Idloom’s free plan covers the basics for setting up an event, including handling registrations, ticketing, check-ins, and gathering event statistics. The paid plans grow in features from promoting online to handling multiple languages.

Special Feature: Hotel Reservation Management

If you are hosting a multiday venue such as a conference or an event with a VIP level, then consider using Idloom to help you manage the hotel rooms as well. Idloom offers a hotel reservation module that lets guests book their accommodations from your website or be redirected to the hotel booking provider.

Event & Calendar Management

It’s easy to create an event on Idloom. Everything is highly customizable, so you can add event name, start and end dates, agendas, even add videos and downloads such as printed copies of agendas, advanced written materials, or website badges. These populate to your event site and registration page. You can customize this page as well. The event website has a unique URL, so you can merge it to your company website. You can duplicate the event and customize it for future uses, too.

Registration & Ticketing

You can register an unlimited number of guests. With the free plan, you cannot charge for tickets, but the paid plans allow unlimited paid ticket processing and generate invoices. You can set options such as meals or special sessions. You can export your guest list as a CSV. The software also allows you to print badges. Last-minute reservations? Idloom processes those, too. Once registration is complete, it sends a confirmation message and generates an e-ticket.

Payment Processing

You can decide how registrants should pay. Idloom allows credit cards via Stripe, PayPal, Ogone, Hipay, Bambora, Authorize.Net, CASHNet, and bank transfers. It manages VAT and calculates the amount due based on the registrant’s country of origin, event location, and other options as needed. Idloom generates custom invoices, Pro-forma, and credit notes automatically.

Integrations

Idloom connects to over 1,000 third-party apps through Zapier. These include CRM such as Salesforce, accounting apps like QuickBooks, and email apps, such as Mailchimp. With these integrations, you can maximize your event investment by taking advantage of the information gathered for registration.

While not an integration, Idloom’s mobile app, Keybate, deserves a mention. With Keybate, attendees have access to the agenda, which you can update in real time, contact and message other attendees, pass questions to the presenters, and conduct polls. This app is sold separately from the Idloom program.

What Idloom Events is Missing

Idloom is an excellent tool for managing the event once created and for assisting registrations. However, it does not offer project management solutions for the planning of the event. For this, you should consider a program like Trello or monday.com. Idloom may integrate with either of these through Zapier.

What Users Think About Idloom Events

Users give Idloom high marks—4.7 to 4.9 out of 5 stars on review sites. Organizers loved how easy it is to set up an event; one mentioned it took him five minutes. Idloom stands out among software businesses in that it takes time to respond to reviews, as well.

Eventbrite: Best Event Management Software for Ticketed Events

What if you have the event planning well in hand, but need a way to sell tickets? Look into Eventbrite. This event management software offers ticket sales and registration management that’s trusted by guests as well as event coordinators. Eventbrite offers promotion, sales analytics, and integrations into other software. It’s an excellent addition to your event planning toolset.

Eventbrite Pricing

Eventbrite’s pricing depends totally on the size of your event. They charge per paid ticket sold—a percentage plus a flat processing fee. You can change plans anytime. The fees vary by the plan. It also allows you to roll its fees into the price of your tickets. Eventbrite doesn’t charge for free tickets.

Eventbrite Pricing Tiers

Eventbrite Features

This service’s features focus on ticket sales only. You can create custom tickets and process payments with the software. Eventbrite can provide on-site staff as well. And if you need integrations other apps like social media for sharing purposes you’ll be able to make use of the many interfaces it has.

Special Feature: Event Assistance On-Site

Eventbrite makes event management even easier. It offers equipment rentals like RFID gates and mobile box office tech kids. You can hire extra even staff through them. The premier plan also comes with a dedicated success manager. Contact Sales if you could use the extra help or are working a complex event.

Event & Calendar Management

Eventbrite offers three creative flows: Classic, New, and Music. The flows simply change the order you input event details. Once you have the basics in, you can add descriptions, images and videos, create ticket types, add order options, invite attendees, and promote. Eventbrite lets you add the event to Facebook, integrate to websites, and post on other sites.

Registration & Ticketing

You can customize the kinds of tickets you sell. Eventbrite does not charge for free tickets. You can make VIP tickets, vary tickets by number of days, or ask for donations instead of setting a price—you are limited only by your imagination. Eventbrite has templates for concerts. It provides analytics and reports as well as tracking pixels so you can see which promotional venues are most effective.

Payment Processing

Guests can pay for tickets with direct deposit, PayPal, or credit card through Authorize.net (US and Canada only.) It also offers credit card processing in other countries and handles refunds.

Eventbrite takes a fee for each ticket sold. You have the option to roll those prices into the price of your ticket so that you do not incur the expense. Even better, Eventbrite will let you schedule payouts so that you can have income to pay for the expenses in setting up the event even before the big day.

Integrations

Eventbrite integrates with over 80 apps to make your event a success. Whether you want to add a calendar to your event site, create custom badges, link to social media (such as Facebook or with a scheduler like Hootsuite), or send emails, there’s an app to help. This software also links with sites like Spotify for promotion or CRM software like Salesforce.

What Eventbrite is Missing

Like Idloom and other event management tools on our list, Eventbrite does not offer project management software for the back-end planning of booking venues, developing marketing plans and the like. You’ll need different software for this.

What Users Think About Eventbrite

Eventbrite earned a solid 4.6 out of 5 stars from our user reviewers. They appreciated the ease of use, and many said Eventbrite’s credibility and good reputation helped sales because registrants trusted them. Negative comments concerned problems with the mobile app and that the transaction fees were expensive.

monday.com: Best Event Management Software for Corporate Events

monday.com differs from most event management software in that it does not handle ticket processing; it’s project management software. However, its powerful planning, automations, and collaboration features make it a great choice for company events, conferences, and user group conventions.

monday.com Pricing

monday.com’s pricing ranges from $39 to $79 and up based plan and by groups of users (1-5, 6-10). It’s a great deal on the higher end of the pricing tier, but expensive for those on the low end. It charges one seat per four guest users (freelancers, contractors). Nonprofits and educational institutions get discounts.

monday.com Pricing Tiers for 1-5 Users

monday.com Features

For companies needing to plan events for employees, clients, or prospects, monday.com’s project management features make it easy to track the moving parts and coordinator inputs that make an event a success. Its automatic features can help you finish tasks quicker, and the calendar management tools will keep you on track with your day-to-day tasks.

Special Feature: Automations

When planning an event, details can change on a moment’s notice. monday.com’s automation features help you react quickly. You can automate notifications and task board actions, for example. Its list of customizable actions continues to grow and is a focus point for 2020.

Event & Calendar Management

monday.com has a spreadsheet format with customizable fields to help you track information quickly and easily. However, it also offers a Gantt-chart-style timeline to help you visualize your event’s progress. Changeable templates ensure you do not forget a task. Comments and file sharing let you coordinate on event materials, ask questions, and follow up on tasks with others. You can also share boards with others outside the software.

Registration & Ticketing

There’s no ticketing feature on monday.com, although if you have Shopify and post tickets there, you can feed the information into monday.com’s system. However, if you are not selling tickets, you can set up a form on monday.com that you can post on a website and have that information feed into monday.com as a task. In this way, you can track registrations and store guest information. To do this, set up a board for guests with the information you need, then create a form based on the board.

Integrations

For corporations, probably the most important integration is Salesforce, which is available with the Enterprise plan only. For general project management and communication, monday.com interfaces with:

• File management software like Google and Dropbox
• Email like Gmail and Mailchimp
• Chat tools like Slack

It also integrates with Shopify for data sharing.

What monday.com is Missing

For event planning, monday.com lacks ticketing and dedicated registration tools. The forms function can make a workaround, but if you need something simpler and more robust, check out Eventbrite or Idloom. It also does not provide payment processing.

What Users Think About monday.com

monday.com is greatly loved by its users. The primary complaint against monday.com is its pricing scheme, which gets expensive for those on the low end of a pricing tier in terms of users.

Eventdex: Best Event Planner For Businesses Managing Live Events

Eventdex offers not one but three event planning and management tools: event registration software, on-site event management software, and a mobile app for the event itself (you can engage attendees during the live event). Businesses will also find its lead management software useful for after the event. If you are searching for other businesses to join your event such as for a Trade Show, then look into its Business Matchmaking software.

Eventdex Pricing

Eventdex tailors its pricing to your needs—by feature or monthly by number of attendees and events. The Registration App costs 75 cents per registration. The mobile Event App and ScanAttendee App have custom pricing based on attendees and the features you want. There are no free trials, but you can request a demo.

Eventdex Event Management Programs

Eventdex Features

From selling tickets to getting attendees connected at the event itself, Eventdex offers software to help you manage a successful event. It has a mobile app that both organizers and event registrants can use throughout the event. It also has ticketing features and access to multiple payment processors.

Special feature: Mobile Event App

Eventdex offers a mobile event app that registrants can download to get information about the event, from agenda to attendees contacts. Organizers can use it to promote the event (and extras) and engage attendees before, during, and after. It lets you add agendas, make polls, set up Q&A, and enable attendees to message each other. It also allows for push notifications and social media posting.

Event & Calendar Management

Like most pure event management software on our list, Eventdex begins with the ticket sales and agenda. The software is easy to use. The Event Details window lets you fill in all the important information including the description. It has a WYSIWYG editor like you find in WordPress. You can also add social links. Next, set up the ticket information. Finally, choose a template for promoting your event online and publish.

Registration & Ticketing

If you have a live event and expect a lot of people to pay at the door, then you should consider Eventdex. In addition to online ticket sales, it offers on-site kiosks for registrations and check-ins. You can print badges onsite. It also allows you to track session attendance so that you can get insights into which presentations are the most popular. After the conference, use the information you’ve gathered to create custom follow-ups based on their interests.

Payment Processing

Both Eventdex’s on-site and online registration tools allow you to process payments, including partial payments. Eventdex supports PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net, and TrustCommerce. You may select one or all of these options.

Integrations

The Eventdex all-in-one software integrates with leading CRM software to make it easy to track attendee information and interests so you can more easily lead them down the sales funnel. It also integrates with social media like Facebook and email platforms like Mailchimp. For other integrations, you may need to go through Zapier.

What Eventdex is Missing

Eventdex does not provide project management tools for the planning of the event as far as making team assignments, setting tasks, managing schedules and deadlines, and the like. This is on par with the other event management software on our list.

What Users Think About Eventdex

Users on other review sites appreciated the flexibility of plans and pricing, and the excellent customer service. Negative comments were mild and often about isolated issues.

Whova: Best Event Management Software for Conferences

Whova is an enterprise-level event management system. It offers many products, which it can mix and match to get you the best package for running your event. With its tools, you can create beautiful agendas, handle ticket sales and check-in, and promote on social media.

Whova Pricing

Like Eventdex, Whova has customized pricing depending on the features you select and the size of your event or events. Its blog gave examples of the registration fee as 1% with a $0.99 per-ticket fee, with a cap at $5 per ticket. Contact Sales for more precise pricing.

Whova Features

Whova offers excellent features for larger, multi-room or booth events like symposiums or conferences. Whova offers five main products:

• Mobile event app: Share agendas, push notifications, and promote networking among attendees via a mobile app
• Event management: Coordinate and promote speakers, set agendas, create badges
• Online registration: Create tickets and discounts, collect payments, track registrations
• Event marketing: Showcase the event on websites and social media
• Lead retrieval: QR codes, booth maps, exhibitor portal, email

Special Feature: Whova Slide Show

Put TV screens and monitors at your event to their best use. Whova slideshows let you display agendas, updates, announcements, photos, sponsors, and tweets. It pulls content from the Whova app, so you don’t need a staff member to keep the slideshow current. Set the items you want to display and let the program do the rest.

Event & Calendar Management

Similar to Idloom and Eventdex, Whova does not give you the software to manage your team for event planning. However, it does offer a speaker center for managing presenters, including templates for your speaker page. If you have a spreadsheet of your agenda, Whova can convert it into a colorful graphic display that you can put in a program or website. It also uploads to the mobile app and updates across all your online and mobile promotional channels. You can create badges with QR codes from the software.

Registration & Ticketing

Ticket creation takes only a few minutes and lets you create special and discount pricing, different types of tickets, and even a registration poll to get registrant data ahead of time. You can post registration widgets to your website. Whova’s check-in and registration software works on computers or mobile. You can check attendees in with a single click or scan their QR code.

Payment Processing

Whova accepts payments through Stripe. And Stripe, in turn, can process major credit cards, digital wallets, and ACH Debit, for example. It works with multiple currencies. Whova is not the only event management software that uses Stripe, but it is the only one on our list that uses only Stripe.

Integrations

If you prefer to use Eventbrite for ticketing, Whova can synchronize its RSVP list to your software. It also integrates with social media. For other integrations, you may need to go through Zapier, but contact Sales with your specific needs first.

What Whova is Missing

As with other event management software like Idloom or Eventbrite, Whova does not have project management tools. You cannot manage your event planning team. It also does not have refund automations.

What Users Think About Whova

User reviews on our site give Whova 5 stars. They note a learning curve, but say the more you use it, the more you get out of it. Other user reviews praise the templates, customization, and social media integrations. Negative comments included the Whova branding even on paid plans and the lack of project management features.

Trello: Best Event Management Software for Casual or Promotional Events

Not every event requires tickets. If you are looking for simple but effective project management software to organize an occasion, whether a wedding or a promotional event, then Trello provides a Kanban-style software with a bright interface, tasks, communications, and scheduling to keep your team on track and in-the-know.

Trello Pricing

Trello’s free plan has its basic features and allows one integration, called a Power-Up. Paid plans start at $9.99 per user per month (paid annually). These provide more features and integration, plus team collaboration, automation, and security functions.

Trello Pricing & Features Comparison

Trello Features

Trello’s attractive Kanban board interface makes lets you move tasks to a different column, making it easy to see where you are in a project, or what’s expected. You can assign tasks, add images and documents, and set deadlines as well.

Event & Calendar Management

Visualize the steps needed to make your event its best. Trello lets you set up tasks and subtasks into cards. The cards can also contain images, such as a photo of the venue, headshots of the speakers, or ads. The commenting features let you critique, ask questions of other team members and share ideas. With integrations (called “Power-Ups”) you can add calendars or Gantt charts, or tie Trello to a calendar such as on Google.

Registration & Ticketing

If you need to manage registrations, you may want a Power-Up. Alternately, use a free service like Google Forms and link to it in a Trello card.

Integrations

For integrating Trello with other event management software, Zapier is your best bet. However, if you are looking for other project management integrations, including CRM, time tracking, email, and file management, check out Trello’s list of Power-Ups. The Power-Ups are limited according to the plan you use, although you can have different Power-Ups for each board.

What Trello is Missing

Like monday.com, Trello is about planning the event, not managing attendance. It’s missing ticket sales functions, billing, and invoicing. Some of these are available in Power-Ups, but this software is better suited for the planning phase as opposed to registration management.

What Users Think About Trello

Trello has a simplistic interface that user reviewers either love or hate. Those who love it found it an effective way to manage tasks that move sequentially. Those that hate it find the simplicity confining.

Alternatives to the Best Event Management Software

Bottom Line

Event planning software comes in two types: program management software to manage your event planning team and event management software to process tickets, create and share agendas, handle registrations, and coordinate check-ins and sessions. You may get the best results by integrating one of each type.

That said, we found Idloom the best event management software for its abilities to handle the specifics of registration and agendas. It’s highly regarded and reasonably priced: free to $1,150 per month. It discounts for nonprofit and educational organizations. Get your next event moving smoothly. Try a free trial of Idloom.

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