Top 10 best event registration software platforms

Looking for the best event registration software but feeling lost in a sea of options? Event planning just got easier! Dive into this curated list where the spotlight shines on top-notch event registration platforms. Whether you’re a seasoned event organizer or just dipping your toes into the planning pool, this guide offers a treasure trove of insights to help you navigate the diverse landscape of event registration tools. Discover user-friendly features, pricing insights, and unique offerings that make each platform a gem in its own right. It’s your passport to streamlined event management!

Oveit:

Oveit homepage

Strengths:

  1. Direct Payments for Event Registration: Oveit’s emphasis on registration and instant payments is a significant strength, streamlining the registration process for both organizers and attendees. One key element is that Oveit provides registration payments for credit and debit card, ACH/bank transfers and even crypto.
  2. Flexibility: Positioned as more flexible than other platforms, catering to a diverse range of events, from conferences to corporate events.
  3. Smart tickets, wearables, video ticketing: Oveit showcases a few features that are not available with any other contender on this list. The highlights are smart tickets (blockchain based tickets that solve ticket fraud), wearable wristbands and badges and video ticketing (an innovative way to sell tickets in live or recorded video).
  4. Freemium Plan: The availability of a freemium plan, allowing free event registration for up to 300 visitors, is a notable advantage, particularly for growing events. The PRO plans are easily accessible. The Business option offers full support for midsized and large events registration

Weaknesses:

  1. Market Recognition: Despite its strengths, Oveit is one of the relative new comers in the market (being around since 2016). The market recognition appears to be relatively lower compared to old school companies.
  2. Limited Features: Oveit focuses on providing a great registration, payments and access control platform. However, if you need event networking or logistics support, other, more expensive (and sometimes bloated) platforms could be the answer.

Cvent:

Strengths:

  1. Comprehensive Platform: Cvent offers an all-in-one solution for event planning and marketing, including registration, venue sourcing, and analytics.
  2. User Testimonials: Positive feedback from clients like Cornell University and Walmart Inc. adds credibility to their platform.
  3. Robust Features: Cvent provides various features, including mobile event apps, check-in and badging, webinars, and attendee hubs, making it a versatile choice for event organizers.
  4. Large User Base: Processing 240M+ registrations and managing 6M+ events indicates a wide user adoption, which often translates to a stable and reliable platform.

Weaknesses:

  1. Potentially Overwhelming: The platform’s extensive features might be overwhelming for smaller events or users with simpler needs.
  2. Expensive: The level of features and the large-scale operation may come with a higher price tag, making it less accessible for smaller organizations.

Bizzabo:

Bizzabo homepage

Strengths:

  1. Holistic Event Experience: Bizzabo aims to provide a comprehensive event experience OS, covering various event types, from conferences to webinars.
  2. User Reviews: Positive reviews from users like Piano.io and HubSpot on ease of use and growth support contribute to Bizzabo’s credibility.
  3. Revenue Generation: Bizzabo emphasizes driving revenue through events, connecting them to CRM, and providing lead capture tools, catering to business needs.

Weaknesses:

  1. Complexity for Smaller Events: The platform’s extensive features might be more than necessary for smaller events, potentially making it a complex solution for simpler needs.
  2. Pricing Concerns: While not explicitly mentioned, the emphasis on revenue generation and enterprise features might imply a higher cost, which can be a barrier for smaller organizations.

Splash:

Splash homepage
Splash homepage

Strengths:

  1. Comprehensive Event Marketing: Splash’s focus on online, in-person, and hybrid events positions it as a comprehensive event marketing tool.
  2. Design and Customization: Responsive web page and email customization options enhance the visual appeal of events.
  3. Integration with HubSpot: Integration with HubSpot facilitates seamless event management and data utilization.

Weaknesses:

  1. Limited Pricing Information: The absence of clear pricing details in the provided content can be a drawback for organizations evaluating the platform.

Eventbrite:

Eventbrite homepage

Strengths:

  1. User-Friendly Registration: Eventbrite’s three-step registration process simplifies event setup for organizers.
  2. Ticket Customization: The ability to create various ticket types and offer discounts adds flexibility.
  3. Social Media Integration: Seamless sharing on platforms like Facebook and Instagram enhances event visibility.
  4. Strong Marketplace: Eventbrite sports one of the most popular ticketing and registrations marketplace with millions of users.

Weaknesses:

  1. Pricing Complexity: While offering both free and paid plans, the variety of plans and features may be complex for users seeking simplicity.
  2. Payments Sent after Events: While some exceptions may exist the usual customer will have to wait until the event is done to receive their funds which may prove hard for most event planners.

vFairs:

Vfairs homepage

Strengths:

  1. Virtual, Hybrid, and In-Person: vFairs positions itself as an all-in-one platform for virtual, hybrid, and in-person events, providing flexibility.
  2. Industry Recognition: Being ranked #1 in the Event Management Platform & Virtual Event Platform categories on G2 adds credibility.
  3. Customizable Platform: vFairs offers a customizable platform from event registration to analytics, catering to diverse event needs.

Weaknesses:

  1. Potentially Complex: The inclusion of virtual, hybrid, and in-person capabilities might make the platform complex for users with specific event needs.
  2. Limited User Testimonials: While G2 rankings add credibility, the absence of user testimonials in the provided content is a notable gap.

SpotMe:

Spotme homepage

Strengths:

  1. Enterprise-Grade Platform: SpotMe’s positioning as an enterprise-grade platform makes it suitable for high-touch industries.
  2. Customized Registration Pages: The flexibility to build customized registration webpages aligns with diverse event setups.
  3. Real-Time Tracking and Reporting: SpotMe’s emphasis on real-time tracking and detailed reports contributes to effective event measurement.

Weaknesses:

  1. Pricing Transparency: The absence of clear pricing information may pose challenges for organizations in budget planning.

Accelevents:

Accelevents homepage

Strengths:

  1. Custom Registration Flows: Accelevents’ focus on custom flows with conditional logic and segmentation enhances the registration experience.
  2. Integration with CRMs: Seamless integration with CRMs and marketing automation tools facilitates real-time data utilization.
  3. Diverse Features: Features like assigned seating, pre-event session registration, and add-on sales contribute to a comprehensive event management experience.

Weaknesses:

  1. Pricing Information: Users might face challenges without clear pricing details, making it difficult to evaluate the platform’s affordability.

EventMobi:

Eventmobi homepage

Strengths:

  1. Flexible Event Management: EventMobi positions itself as the most flexible event management software, catering to various event types.
  2. Longevity: With over 12 years in the industry and a substantial number of global events and attendees, EventMobi’s longevity is a strength.
  3. Versatile Solutions: Offering in-person, virtual, and hybrid solutions, EventMobi caters to a broad audience.

Weaknesses:

  1. Possibly Overcrowded Offerings: The inclusion of in-person, virtual, and hybrid solutions might lead to an overcrowded platform for users with specific needs.
  2. Limited Specific Features Mentioned: The content provided doesn’t delve into specific features, making it challenging to assess the depth of the platform.

Whova:

Whova homepage

Strengths:

  1. Online Registration Customization: Whova’s customizable event registration forms and widgets contribute to a tailored registration process.
  2. Real-Time Reporting: The real-time reporting dashboard enhances the tracking of sales and attendance.
  3. Event Networking: The ability for attendees to connect and network via the mobile app adds a social element to events.

Weaknesses:

  1. Pricing Customization: Clear pricing information is not provided, potentially making it challenging for organizations to assess the platform’s cost-effectiveness.

General Observations and Recommendations:

  1. Pricing Transparency: The lack of clear pricing details across multiple platforms is a common concern for organizations. Transparency in pricing is crucial for informed decision-making.
  2. Feature Overload: While feature-rich platforms offer versatility, they may be overwhelming for smaller events. Event planners should assess their specific needs before opting for a platform. Sometimes less is better
  3. User Testimonials: Platforms with positive user testimonials instill trust and confidence.
  4. Flexibility and Freemium Plan: Oveit’s emphasis on flexibility and the availability of a freemium plan for up to 300 visitors is a unique strength, especially for growing events.
  5. Search for differentiators: While most platforms solve the same problems with the same basic solutions, searching for factors that differentiate platforms can help event planners discover new opportunities in their very competitive field.

In summary, the choice of an event registration platform should align with the specific needs, scale, and budget of the organization. Platforms offering pricing transparency, user testimonials, and a balance of features are likely to be well-received by a broad range of users.

November 16, 2023 Business events, Event management, Event registration No comments yet

Oveit’s Event Listings: Less Clutter, More Fun

Hey y’all, event planners and all you event enthusiasts out there, hold onto your event registrations because Oveit has a fantastic facelift in the events listings section. Let’s dive in and see why the new event listings are a big improvement for all you event aficionados.

Simplified and amplified event dashboard listings

1. Clarity reigns supreme:

Imagine scrolling through your event dashboard and getting hit with a barrage of data that leaves you feeling like you’re reading the Matrix. Yup, that was Oveit until this week! Now your events’ relevant stats are easier to scan than your grocery list. We’ve trimmed the fat, removed the redundant, and served you a clean plate of event information. So, no more playing hide-and-seek with critical details!

2. Action-packed interface:

The goal for our new design is to put the spotlight on the actions you want to take – whether it’s editing your event, checking the number of attendees (because we all want to know if it’s going to be a rager or a snoozer), sharing your event on social media to let the world know it’s going down, or adding those precious tickets at the registration desk.

3. More info, less scrolling:

Our UX wizards have waved their magic wand and transformed the event listings from an inline display to a sleek column and row system. More information at your fingertips, and less scrolling means you’ll save more time for things that matter, like selecting the best speakers, making sure visitors get a fun experience and you get peace of minds.

4. Mobile first makes it easier to stay connected:

Let’s face it, mobile devices are practically our best friends, and we know it. The new event listings are optimized for mobile viewing, so you can plan events while you’re waiting in line for your morning coffee. Your events are now truly at your fingertips, wherever you go!

Find the right data easily

5. Reports, reports, and more reports:

You know those full event reports that you’ve been sifting through, desperately searching for a golden nugget of information? Well, we tried to help and moved them to a dedicated ‘event reports‘ section. It’s like moving from a cluttered attic to a swanky penthouse – spacious, organized, and oh-so-sophisticated. Plus, it sets the stage for more amazing future event reporting features.

6. Clean and clear:

We revamped the look and feel of events, creating a clear distinction between active, archived, and permanent events. With tags like ‘Published,’ ‘Draft,’ and ‘Finished,’ you’ll always know where your event stands. It’s like having a butler at your service, only virtual.

Guess where you can click to create a new event

7. Create your next dream event:

You’re at the end of your event listings, and what do you see? A big, bold, “create event” button beckoning you to let your creativity run wild. At Oveit we are all about making your event planning dreams come true, and this button is the gateway to your event wonderland. So go ahead, click it, and make magic happen!

Alright, ready to test the new flow? Head over to your events section and see how it feels.

October 26, 2023 Event management, Event tech, UX/UI No comments yet

Let’s unlock the benefits of smart tickets

We’ve just released our new smart tickets. Your attendees are going to love them. We’ve updated the design of our tickets but, most importantly, we’ve made a big change in terms of usability.

Why smart tickets? Because buyers can now easily add their event tickets to their mobile wallets, for both Apple and Android. We think it’s the most convenient and secure way for customers to access and manage their electronic tickets. As you already know, our electronic tickets can mean more than just access rights. And ticket addons are also available through the mobile wallet used by your attendees.

Here is how our smart tickets work

Nothing has changed in the registration process. But once customers land on the confirmation page, they’ll see the new option. Two simple clicks and the e-ticket will land in their mobile wallet.

print screens showcasing how to add Oveit's smart tickets to Apple Wallet.
print screen on an iOS device – adding an event ticket into Apple Wallet

Once the e-Ticket is added to the wallet it can be easily accessed through the app. Much simpler and faster than the traditional way. Or any other way for that matter.

Our tickets can hold unlimited perks and extra benefits. And they’re still available through a simple scan of the QR code. Attendees can easily see these addons straight from their wallets. The “info” icon displayed under the ticket will open a new screen, listing all the perks included in that particular ticket.

print screens showing hoe the add-ons stored on Oveit's smart tickets can be displayed in Apple Wallet
print screen on an iOS device – checking ticket add-ons in Apple Wallet

While for iOS users the wallet comes preinstalled, Android users have multiple options to choose from. We recommend WalletPasses, but there are multiple wallet apps supporting the .pkpass format.

Changes in the follow-up email

As not all customers will add their tickets to the wallet through the confirmation page, we’ve also updated the confirmation email. It now has the tickets in 3 updated formats:

.pdf for those that want an easy way to print their tickets

.png for those that want to download it to their mobile 

.pkpass for those that want to save it to their mobile wallets

Adding the (extra) personal touch

You’ve probably noticed a custom area on the ticket. You can add it to yours as well. The custom image can be uploaded on your tickets and will be available in .png and .pkpass formats. The customization is available through Step 3 – checkout settings.

image showcasing Oveit Dashboard and an iOS device with a smart ticket

We’re confident the event-goers will find this option extremely useful. They now have a simpler way to store and access their event tickets. But that’s not all; we’re confident that these smart tickets will also improve check-in times, as most of your attendees know at any given moment where they’ve put their ticket(s).

January 26, 2023 Event management, Event registration No comments yet

Conference Registration – a Full Guide

We’ve seen literally hundreds of conferences registrations and we’ve noticed one thing: no one talks about the best ones. You only hear about the lousy ones. The ones where people couldn’t register. Or didn’t get their confirmation mail. Maybe they couldn’t pay. Perhaps the live stream didn’t start. Do you know of a conference registration where the lines were long and boring? Yeah, we’ve seen some.

It’s easy to get lost in what not to do. But that’s not really useful. The prepared conference planner has to know what exactly to do prior to the event and during the day of the event. She knows what are the best strategies and in what order they should be applied, what are the potential bottlenecks and how to avoid the pitfalls.

We’ve put together a simple, straight forward guide on how to navigate the conference registration process to arrive at a successful event day.

October 23, 2020 Event management, Event registration 1 comment

How to Rock Your Event with Snapchat and Instagram

I suppose that until now, we are all familiar with Snapchat and Instagram and how they became an essential tool in event marketing.

these sparks between us will

Even though Snapchat is losing market share since the launch of Instagram’s stories, it seems that the two are slowly taking different directions regarding the market segmentation and the user’s behavior while using the app. Instagram’s users are mainly over 24 years old and spend around 15 min a day browsing while 60% of Snapchat’s users are under 24 years old and spend an average of 30 min per day creating content. (Read more)

While Instagram is great in bringing awareness of an event within their 600 Million user base, Snapchat is perfect to create content and especially post event marketing material.

In this article I am going to talk about what are the best practices and uses of both Snapchat’s and Instagram’s stories.

How can you make use of the Stories in order to promote your event?

Like any other event we have three main phases: Pre-event marketing, Live marketing and Post-event marketing;

Pre-event marketing

  • Provide a sneak peak and Teaser – this is a great way to keep your audience intrigued and interested in your event while creating awareness within the possible attendees.
  • Create behind-the-scenes content – there’s nothing wrong about letting followers know about the hard work you and your team have put in creating this event. From the engineers who helped put everything in place –  to the artists doing their rehearsals, this will only make your audience feel more excited and included.
  • Overtake the Snapchat or Instagram account – it is a common trend that  a celebrity takes over a brand’s account for a limited period of time. Their main purpose is to showcase the event from their own perspective while offering valuable insights for their followers.
  • Incorporate location; based Geofilter and animated graphics that pertain to the event – Geofilters are available only on Snapchat and can be created or customised for your event; but keep in mind that this should be done ahead of time since they need a few days to be approved.

If you’re building live streamed events you can combine what’s happening at the event, Snapchat and Instagram, as well as your own, streamed channel with a live streaming tool such as Streams.live .

Live Marketing

  • Encourage Attendees to Use Snapchat’s and Instagram’s Stories – this represents the most important step in Live Marketing. It means bringing awareness, motivating and offering incentives to your audience in order to create content.
  • For both Instagram and Snapchat you should create centralised crowd-sourcing stories  and hashtags where your attendees can send all off their photos and videos.
  • Cross-promote your Snapchat’s and Instagram’s account – don’t forget to create a snapcode!
  • Create event and location hashtags so that your users can add them to their posts.
  • Snapchat’s geofilters are a big yes-yes – it is important to have it ready for when the event starts. The geofilter is like a stamp. A stamp which has to say your event’s story at one glance. It’s a stamp that your attendees should want to integrate in all of their Snaps.
  • Encourage celebrities to post behind-the-scenes content – everybody is curious about what is happening behind the scenes, how everything is organised and how the celebrities are getting prepared. Satisfy this thirst of curiosity by encouraging celebrities to post by themselves.
  • Respond to individual inquiries – when live streaming, in order to show your audience that you care about them, randomly answer some of their inquires. It is a small thing but it can bring a lot of satisfaction and loyalty.

Post-event marketing

  • Curate the content sent by participants – the content created by your attendees is Gold. Especially the content created with the use of Snapchat. The photos and videos created through Snapchat, will definitely bring an added value because of the different features the app has to offer; from editing tools, filters, animated filters and Geofilters the outcome of the content created is going to be unique. Receiving so much content from so many people and perspectives will definitely help create fun and entertaining videos for you to share on the Social Media profiles and let your attendees remember what a great time they had.
  • Send fun facts – another good practice would be to send fun facts and stories about what happened during the event. For example, at a festival: how many beers were drank or how many hotdogs eaten. If you use Oveit’s event management tools and visitor analytics tools, you can create personal, targeted messages to your guests.

How to use and create Snapchat’s Geofilters

Screen Shot 2017-07-05 at 15.54.09

Snapchat offers their users the opportunity to create their own Geofilters according to the occasion.

Categories of Snapchat’s Geofilters

Community Geofilters are mainly used for a place that it is meaningful for you and your community (this geofilters are free of charge).

Personal Geofilters are created for important moments which happen in every one’s life, such as birthdays, welcome home parties or any kind of events. (the price for these geofilters starts at $5).

Business Geofilters are dedicated to help any kind of business drive awareness and engagement in one swipe. The event category will fall under this section too. They are more pricey than the Personal Geofilters but still affordable.

Unfortunately,  the On-Demand Geofilters (Personal & Business) are only available in the USA, Canada, Australia and UK.

How to create your Geofilters for Snapchat

First of all, the Geofilters have to be original and in order to do that you need to design or have one designed it for you. PicMonkey and Canva are two good example of platforms that can help create wonderful filters.

From February 2017, Snapchat, launch a tool that creates on-demand geofilters on the web so that you don’t have to use any other external platforms.

For those who still prefer creating a Geofilter with a tool that they are more comfortable and familiar with, need to keep in mind a few aspects when designing it:

  • Include your event name/logo but be careful not to add any logo or design that you don’t own.
  • Insert creative graphics and text but try to keep it around 2-3 lines tops.
  • Your text and design should not cover more than 25% of the screen dimensions.
  • The size of your geofilter should be: 1080 x 1920 pixels and less than 300kb, saved in .PNG format.

Snapchat and Instagram are two amazing tools that should not be ignored while organizing an event. Comparing them with other channels of event marketing, they are cost effective and sometimes free – why not take advantage of their great features? Also, if you are looking for a user-friendly event registration software, you’ve come to the right place!

Do you want to allow your attendees to actually own part of the forever-lasting memories that you create? Use Oveit to mint and sell NFT tickets powered by blockchain technology.

October 10, 2020 Event management, event marketing, Events, Festivals No comments yet