There can be a lot of work involved in organizing and planning events. The events team must ensure they stay on top of all event planning elements, from the event concept to the check-in process. You need the best online event planning tools in your stack to keep all the plates spinning so your life is as easy as possible.
According to experiential marketing statistics, online event planning tools increase attendance by 20%, productivity by 27%, and profit margin by 20-30%.
Several online event planning tools are designed to help you with the various aspects of the event management process. With the right online planning tools for events, you can streamline the event management process, save your time and resources, and significantly help you plan and manage a successful event.
What are online event planning tools?
There are several online event planning tools, such as communication, project management, event planning software, apps, and browser extensions.
An event planner tool is usually an online software or platform that assists you in planning and managing your online or offline event. Online event planners plan online events, while offline event planners focus primarily on offline events.
How to choose the best online event planning tools?
Choosing the right event planning tools for any project is often one of the most challenging parts of event planning. To ensure event planning runs smoothly and you don’t have to worry about the small stuff, you need to get it right from the beginning.
The following are three significant factors to consider when selecting an online event planning tool:
- Ease of Use: Is the platform or event planning tool intuitive? Event management relies heavily on the interface. Ensure that your tool is easy to use. You can request a demo or a trial period of the tool if available. The easier the event management tools are to use, the more likely your team will adopt them as part of the event planning process.
- Support: What kind of support is available? Does it work instantly? Is there an additional charge? When choosing an event planning tool, you should ask yourself these types of questions. You’ll get real-life customer support and a vast knowledge base archive with a good event management platform.
- Peers/Colleagues Reviews: Has another colleague or department recommended this to you? In selecting event management tools, peer reviews and referrals are some of the most valuable sources of information, as it’s like they’ve tested the tool before you so that they can offer feedback.
1. 10times
10times is an end-to-end event management solution platform that automates and simplifies all elements of event planning. Event planners can use 10times for creating, promoting, and managing the entire life cycle of an event – pre, during & post-event stages.
This online event planning tool helps organizers boost their event’s visibility on the internet, create event websites, launch browser-based event apps, generate leads, get event analytics and insights, foster networking opportunities between attendees, and do on-site registrations, badge printing and more.
It is free for an organizer to sign up and start using.
2. Monday.com
It’s hard to choose just one project management system, but Monday.com is our top pick for breaking down silos, increasing productivity, boosting transparency, and getting more done. The cloud-based Monday.com is an online event planning tool that helps you centralize your entire event planning operation in one place.
In addition to removing human error and saving time, Monday.com offers endless automations. You can customize Monday for any collaborative project, from conferences to festivals, to get all your event vendors on the same page, whether supervising an in-house planning team or working with event vendors.
3. Trello
Trello is a potent tool for event planners. It is essentially an advanced to-do list that lets you drag and drop cards to a shared board, creating a visual space for collaboration that is intuitive and easy to use.
Make your own Trello board, lists, or cards to effectively collaborate with your fellow event organizers. Utilize the free mobile app to organize tasks, customize and manage projects, and collaborate with others.
4. Slack
Communication and collaboration software is famous for a variety of reasons. They are intuitive, easy to use, affordable (even the free version is usable), and reliable with a long list of features.
In addition to being a group chat app, Slack is a potent tool for planning and managing events and assisting you during the big day.
Slack allows you to create different channels within the same workspace, facilitating collaboration between different event committees. You can also set up a public Slack channel for attendees to facilitate engagement and interaction.
5. Google Forms
Google Forms comes with a built-in Event Registration Tool, although you must have a Google Business Plan, which starts at just $6/month.
The Google Event Registration Tool makes creating intuitive registration forms for prospective attendees easy. With drag-and-drop form builders, you can customize your forms and add images, videos, and custom rules.
Google Event Registration Tool is an easy-to-use online registration tool that you can embed on your website.
6. Wix
There is no doubt that Wix has become a top-rated website builder platform in recent years due to its aggressive marketing campaigns. Still, it has also proven to be an intuitive, easy-to-use, and reliable website builder with a visual-drag-and-drop interface that lets you customize everything.
It offers free hosting, an unlimited number of pages, and more than 100 templates in its free plan, while its premium plan starts at just $4.5 per month, making it an excellent choice for building your event website.
The affordability and ease of use make it impossible not to have a well-designed, functional event website.
7. Wild Apricot
Besides offering basic event planning features, Wild Apricot provides the option to create a mobile app for event check-ins and email automation features for promotion.
Wild Apricot’s event registration tool is straightforward: create an event, and the event will be automatically added to the real-time calendar. If you embed Wild Apricot on your website, prospective attendees will be able to register from anywhere.
A free plan from Wild Apricot is entirely usable, and premium plans are available for $48 a month.
8. Slido
With Slido, you can easily incorporate live polls and Q&A into your virtual and in-person events to encourage attendee engagement. The Slido Analytics feature also allows you to compile all of your event and activity data to get valuable insights from your events and activities.
Slido offers free basic and premium plans starting at $8/month, which are helpful for smaller events.
9. Reclaim.ai
With Reclaim.ai, you get a virtual assistant who takes care of everything. All you need to do is connect your personal and work calendars to Reclaim, tell it what you need time for, and the software will handle the rest.
Do you want to spend more time reading? Taking a lunch break? Want to take a moment to meditate? Reclaim helps you avoid overbooking, prioritize tasks, and get more flexibility out of your schedule. And the best part? Your calendar automatically shifts from “Free” to “Busy” as soon as it begins to fill up.
10. Miro
Digital tools that facilitate collaboration are a must for modern event professionals in an age when teams are more spread out than ever.
For event planners who prefer whiteboarding, Miro might make a solid addition to their toolkit. With Miro, you can visual organize event components, collaborate with your team, and coordinate many moving parts.
Additionally, Miro provides event planners with an event planning template with a visual checklist and an event map for organizing macro and micro details.
Conclusion
With this list of the best and most popular event planning tools available in the market today, you can reevaluate your needs as an event planner and select the tools that are best suited to your needs.
It is also important to remember that every event is unique, so a solution that works well for one event may not work well for the next. Using the right event planning tool can make your job as an event planner much easier, and our list above can help you decide which tool is right for your event.
