How to Develop an Event App: An Ultimate Guide

Event App has witnessed a rise thanks to a change in customer behavior after the pandemic, and the context of new technology development. There are multiple doors for businesses in different forms of industries to generate their own event app which not only meet existing demands, but also capture new market opportunities. 

Event Apps or Mobile Event Apps are designed for attendees to enhance their experiences with events. Everything now is embedded in just one application instead of separated sections to join in, from information updates, registration, hybrid participation to customer feedback.

Organizers can now get the most of mobile apps to create cross-platform events by combining online universal features with offline experiences for any of your event ideas. Mobile event apps meet customers at multiple touch points for your business to continuously connect, to engage and to resonate, as well as to retarget them for the upcoming events.

With the world slowly making its way out of lockdown due to the COVID 19 pandemic, the digital turning point gives out good reasons to develop an event app. Mobile apps are considered to be powerful appliances for managing events with better experiences delivered.

According to the report The Event App Bible 2021 by EventMB by Skift, 63% of event providers had growth in demand for their services. The market is expected to grow significantly by 2026, reaching up to 16.71 billion USD from its 2020 valuation of 9.13 billion USD, reported by Mordor Intelligence.
 

The event management software market is forecasted to register a CAGR of 10.65% over the forecast period. Both large-scale and small-scale planners now use event management software as a standard. In recent years, the need for application-based has been boosted by an increase in the number of professional and independent organizers. Compared to in-house planners, third-party planners benefit greatly from event management software solutions because they oversee numerous events or exhibits that take place throughout the year.

The key market trending is seen in Media and Entertainment segments. Third-party organizers plan more than a single concert or show throughout the year. It is reckoned that some of the most popular festivals and events, such as Classic East, Sao Paulo Trip, and Outside Land Music and Art Festival, gross over 16 million USD per event. Moreover, kicking off partnerships with the vendors offering video solutions in their events and meetings is the key player to make profit.

Before placing features on your app, you need to clarify which type of mobile event application you are heading towards. Depending on the platform purpose, gathering apps can be divided into two primary business models, which are event aggregator apps and specific event apps.

1. Event aggregator covers numerous affairs organized by diverse managers or companies.
2. Specific event app is dedicated to one event with supported facilities. There are some suggestions into this following options:

• Web seminar management apps allow organizing online meetings without any limits on webinar size (e.g., Livestorm, Demio).
• Exhibition planning apps support finding interactive expo maps, venues, or sponsorship and manage the space. (e.g, ExpoFp, SocialTables).
• Wedding planning apps offer budget management and information sharing related to customs, clothes, furniture, or stage inside the gathering venue. (e.g., Mint, AllSeated).
• Festival guide apps enable event planning, participant informing regarding themed gatherings, and registration (e.g., North Coast Festival Guide, Coachella Official).
• Conference apps assist in managing multi-scale conferences with engagement platforms for all types of events and audiences (e.g., Cvent, Eventee)

Mobile event apps offer multiple options to manage the event program, improve attendees’ engagement, and provide a data-driven approach to decision making. Event apps can be developed for both organizers and audiences to create and administer any events. In which, additional functions can be generated to extend user experience online and offline.

There are many details to take into account when developing an event app. However, some essential features listed down below are must-haves.

Despite building multi-events apps or apps dedicated to one event, the registration utility is indispensable. It is convenient to create an event app with various methods to sign up. Users can be provided with registration via email, phone number, or social media accounts. 

With personalization, users are allowed to customize their event app experience and add in whatever they like on the profiles. Moreover, personalization helps to easily find and manage audiences’ busy schedules. This offering is a great way for attendees to navigate and interact with your apps to get the most out of each event.

Push notifications are indirect updates which practically approach and communicate with users anytime. This function is also proven to increase user engagement with your event app, which leads to a rise in the number of people opt-in. Popping up with a last minute reminder to the meeting or a giveaway time keeps users fully engaged.

Events with good listing and categorizing help attendees get an overview of upcoming occasions and sort out what events they would like to attend based on their taste. These lists can be linked to information such as work title, employer name, industry, events attended, etc. 

After selecting the favorite events, create an event app with in-app payment so that consumers can purchase a ticket with a single tap. Event time, venue, ticket type, number of seats, and payment options are all available when guests click the booking icon.

The creation of mobile event apps incorporates third-party services like PayPal, or popular digital wallets to give clients the choice of selecting their preferred payment method and simplify the payment process. Payment methods have a huge impact on customer motivation to use the app based on their feelings of convenience. 

There should be a calendar at hand for users to keep track of all their events. Your business can consider integrating with Google Calendar to provide users with convenient timetable organizers in a split second.

A program for event planning may include analytics like revenue figures, social media mentions, and conversion rate to keep track of all user activities. For instance, you can view the most popular sessions. You may improve your understanding of your audience and change how you approach marketing by looking at these specifics. In contrast, a dashboard of charts can be implemented for audiences to help them sum up the quantity of events, time, interaction they have achieved per week/month.

Applying the gamification feature in a careful and wise way persuades attendees to interact with your polls, or questionnaires more effectively. According to a 2021 industry research, live polling and live questions are the most popular engagement features utilized in virtual and hybrid events, which are gatherings that attendees can attend whether they are physically present or not. 

There is no longer one-sided conversation because audiences can now respond to your real-time questions and raise their opinions to improve the event app in the form of entertainment.

As a premium option, you can add this function. For those who purchased a ticket but were unable to attend, live streaming is a fantastic alternative. The ability to support both live and recorded sessions is one of the most frequently offered features (75%) by event solutions providers. Moreover, in terms of hybrid events, live streaming is an indispensable facility to organize this type of event.

The essential components needed to create an event application have already been covered previously. And of course, event mobile app development provides sophisticated capabilities for unique event apps.

Before working on the product development process, market research helps you to have an overview of what ideas have already been filled by competitors. It is apparent that your ideas will be clarified and structured to become a perfect app solution. Besides, researching industry trends to keep track of up-to-date features and potential customers.

It is feasible to choose a tech stack for your development by having clear product requirements as technologies influence the progress of the whole event mobile app development. In order to create an event app, you should therefore describe the features you want it to have, organize your requirements into specifications, and then hand the creation of the app on to analysts and developers.

UI/UX is the first thing users interact with on your platform, so it is important to make sure that your app design is appealing and practical. Designers now construct wireframes of your future platform to examine how the functionality is arranged and the overall design. To see how users can interact with your solution, they then create a prototype.

When users interact with meeting planning software, they share personal data. To prevent any potential data leaks, you should prioritize data security during the construction of your event app. Hiring a skilled development team enables you to address these problems in advance.

At this stage, all issues are decided, prototypes are ready, and it is time for software developers to step in. They have to build a polished platform in line with the client's desires. Sprints are brief time periods that clients set. The customer examines the outcomes and, along with the team, discusses progress and determines the following actions.

Simultaneously, quality assurance engineers work on finding and eliminating vulnerabilities and bugs. Software testing is a must for every quality software. Our QA/QC engineers work during the whole development process so they can exclude all malfunctions, data leaks, or other errors to hand over first-class solutions to our clients.
 

After that, market your app, get feedback, and improve as necessary!

Events include attendees, planners, sponsors, partners, and speakers. Knowing all those benefits will help you develop an event app strategy to cover all essential needs of platform users. 

Apps for gatherings come in helpful in this situation as they offer a variety of benefits to all involved. 

• Networking: Events bring networking opportunities, and attendees can use this benefit to find new business partners or like-minded people. 
• Time saving: It makes booking a ticket, checking in, and managing time more comfortable with a tap of a finger, thus attendees’ experience becomes more pleasant.
• More Customer Engagement: Applications that use engaging elements help increase attendees’ interest before an occasion even starts. Giveaways, live streams, contests, and other engaging activities help promote the gathering. Moreover, social media synchronization features help keep attendees involved.
• All-in-one Platform: If you develop an event app, it makes sense to make a highly multifunctional tool with many elements allowing organizers to use it without switching to other apps thus saving their time.
• Data Collecting: Exhibition applications allow examining results and getting real-time feedback. This complete analysis helps event planners to conclude their efforts and build a better strategy for the next expos. 
• Promotion: The promotion of speakers and sponsors on the platforms is advantageous. Typically, sponsors receive in-app sponsorship spaces while speakers receive a separate area with extra information about them.

A number of variables affect how long app development will take. It takes one to three months to construct an event app with minimal capabilities but a medium complexity gathering app with databases, API integration, and social media takes roughly three to six months to complete.

The development of complex event apps takes about six months and a strong team of three to five engineers. It takes so long to create these enterprise-level event systems because they require a large database, integration of commerce requirements, and high-quality graphics or animations.

Nowadays, tech-savvy participants expect everything in just one application. That is why mobile app development is the best solution for amplifying your attendee satisfaction, while your business has perfect data and future prospects.
 

The industrial market is both growing and susceptible to new difficulties. If you are ready to be challenged to create your first event app, don’t hesitate to contact us:  https://spiritlabs.co/contact-us

REFERENCES

• https://www.cramer.com/insights/how-mobile-apps-can-make-your-conference-or-event-more-successful/
• https://www.adjust.com/blog/how-to-create-an-event-app/
• https://opengeekslab.com/blog/create-an-event-app/
• https://en.calameo.com/read/002875961a57345d1b20b
• https://easternpeak.com/blog/how-to-develop-an-event-app-a-step-by-step-guide/
• https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/event-management-software-market
• https://buildfire.com/event-apps/