Choosing an event app: build, buy, or brand
What attendees actually use in an event app, what it costs to build one, and when a branded app on a platform is the better answer.
By Expola editorial · Product team
Photo: Wan San Yip / Unsplash
Every organizer who has commissioned an event app knows the arc: a large quote, a launch the week before the show, a burst of downloads, and a store listing that goes quiet until it has to be rebuilt for the next edition. The question is not whether an event needs an app. Attendees expect one. The question is what it should do and who should build it.
What attendees use
Usage data from events on Expola is consistent across types and sizes. Attendees open the app for the schedule and the map first, then for notifications about changes, then to find exhibitors and people. Personal agendas and session ratings follow. Everything else, from gamified feeds to social walls, sees single-digit usage. An app that does the first five things well beats one that does twenty things adequately.
- Schedule with a personal agenda and room changes pushed as they happen.
- Venue map with exhibitors and sessions located on it.
- Push notifications, used sparingly and timed to the day.
- Exhibitor and attendee directory with bookmarks that sync to the record.
- The ticket and badge, so the app is opened at the door.
What building costs
A custom app for a mid-sized event typically costs the equivalent of several hundred full-price tickets to build and a smaller but recurring amount to maintain, resubmit to the stores and update with each edition's program. The larger cost is integration: the app has to read the program, the ticket and the exhibitor list from wherever they live, and every change to those systems is a change to the app.
When to brand instead
A branded app on the event platform, published under the event's name and icon, removes the integration cost entirely because the program, tickets and exhibitors are already there. Push notifications, loyalty points and check-in come with it. The trade-off is customisation: the app will look like the event, but it will behave like the platform. For nearly all events, that is the right trade, and the budget is better spent on what attendees use most, which is the program itself.
The app was installed 980 times in four days. We did not write a line of code, and the program updated itself from the website.
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