Event planners don’t have it easy. Planning venue layouts, calculating budgets, selecting catering companies, remembering appointments, keeping contact information, and creating promotional materials is enough to make the best of us pull out hair out – and that’s not even the half of it.
Luckily, some companies recognized this and decided to give event planners a break. We gathered a list of the 5 best event planning tools currently on the market to help save you some time, money, and frustration.
1. eTouches
Ranked as the number-one event planning tool in 2015, eTouches is a platform that offers an extremely large array of features that will make event planning much easier. eTouches is easy to use and navigate. It provides management tools for employees, attendees, and caterers, as well as financial tools, guest lists, registration, social promotion, ticketing, surveys, feedback, and more. For event managers who need to plan international events, eTouches offers travel management tools that allow you to set flight details. At the same time, this event planner will also enable you to keep the contact information of all employees and vendors in the same place, create checklists, build a branded website for the event, and even start an email marketing campaign. The platform is web-based for your convenience, and you can easily get in touch with the help desk center via live chat or email.
2. Eventbrite
Eventbrite is a popular event planning tool that comes with many handy features. It offers employee, attendee and client/customer management, registration and guest list control, a branded website, and surveys & feedback. The platform can be utilized on computers and laptops, and is also available in mobile format to make it more accessible in the go. Once you start using Eventbrite, you should be able to easily waive fees, copy and paste event details, and set reminders to help you remember all of the tasks you need to take care of. Payment and ticketing systems are particularly simple to handle even for those event coordinators whose technology skills are lacking.
3. TakePlace
In spite of its lack of popularity, TakePlace is still a very capable event planning tool that can help event managers efficiently handle all of their responsibilities. Though this platform does not support lead retrieval and travel or exhibit/vendor management, it still offers easy access to a lot more features than more popular event planning applications. You will be able to manage employees, attendees, caterers, clients, customers, guest lists, registration, finances, and ticketing, as well as promote the event via social networks, set up the space or room where the event will take place, conduct surveys, and also manage sponsorship – a feature that is not included with eTouches or Eventbrite. Moreover, the customer service provided by TakePlace stands out due to the constant availability of support agents, who will quickly answer your inquiry or solve any issue 24/7.
4. Marcato Festival
After having been positively reviewed by several event coordinators around the world, Marcato Festival has quickly grown to become a much appreciated tool that can be easily accessed from any web browser. The platform allows you to take care of many important aspects such as managing staff, sponsors, and vendors in a simple and straightforward manner. Reminders can be set for each entry you create so you can avoid making mistakes that can cost you the success of the event you are planning, or your career. Marcato Festival works well for events of any size.
5. SmartCrowdz
Quite similar to Marcato Festival, SmartCrowdz is an event planning platform that enables you to coordinate your employees, caterers, vendors, and sponsors to make your event truly memorable. Social promotion is also available, and both the payment and ticketing systems will permit you to take care of your staff’s vendors’ earnings, and also track the event’s revenue. You can also set reminders and access SmartCrowdz on your mobile device, making on-the-go planning easy. From weddings to conferences, festivals, concerts, and other social events, SmartCrowdz provides all of the tools event managers need to meet various marketing, management and monetization requirements.
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