The Rise of the Event Tech Stack and Data Aggregators

Every year, industry influencers, meeting management companies, and suppliers release the top trends that will likely impact event planners and corporations across the industry. As we approach the mid-year, our team took a look back at projected trends and there were two recurring themes; the increased diversity of event technology platforms and data aggregators. 

For event planners, this will lead to a significant change in workflow. While relationships still drive the event planning process, technology is the engine delivering cost-efficiency with the ability to integrate new tools with existing software. With the constant development of new tools, the ability to create a well-functioning event tech stack has become more critical than ever and the options have never been more diverse. This is great for event planners because there is now competition when it comes to price, performance, and features. 

An example of a high-tech, integrated event stack is highlighted in a case study published by a leading workflow management company—one that does not specialize in events. Their data-driven platform helped a global client reduce event planning time by 80%. The challenge for the client was the endless number of disparate data tools, and above all, the individual preferences of their event planners. For the client, this meant resetting the entire team’s workflow and creating a strategy that could easily scale. Adam Perry, Editor of Events Industry News, stated that aggregated analytics dashboards would help organizations make better “data-driven decisions rather than relying on experience or opinion.” In this example, a workflow tool was stacked with a communications tool, registration tool, and analytics tool. 

For corporations, the common theme was that event teams will no longer be stuck with just one product. Instead, they will have a suite of products that can help with individual tasks such as attendee management, communications, mobile apps, virtual events, resource management tools, and back-end systems like CRMs, HR software, and many more. These tools can all be integrated to talk to one another through an analytics and business intelligence tool rather than relying on a single product to be an all-in-one-solution. However, a well-functioning event tech stack does not happen overnight. There are two key ingredients to create a good environment: finding the best-in-class tools and creating a perfect data flow. 

“Advances in BI and collaboration tools have expanded today’s M&E tech solutions from one system to an ecosystem.“

Lisa Palmeri
M&IW Vice President, ISG Principal Consultant

For most companies, choosing event tools depends on their goals and whether the tool is designed for their team, audience, and intent. Some tools are incredibly user-friendly, while others require a bit of a learning curve to unlock their real value. This learning curve has prohibited company-wide adoption for event planners and their corporations despite the fact that 44% of surveyed event planners find reporting return of investment (ROI) hard or frustrating. In the same survey, 30% of respondents also find it difficult to save time and resources, both key performance indicators that can be tracked and identified with the aggerated data collected from an event tech stack. 

While technology has revolutionized the process of event planning and the attendee experience, competing products and platforms crowd the marketplace. This may add an additional layer of complexity for planners and corporations to choose and craft a strong event tech stack. At M&IW, our experienced team can help identify your needs, streamline operations and build the event tech stack that works best for your team and stakeholders. Our Event Technology, Strategic Meetings Management, and Business Intelligence teams have vetted a variety of technologies across the marketplace as a service to our community. 

To learn more about building an event tech stack, email info@intentstrategygroup.com to chat with an Intent Strategy Group consultant about your goals. To discover how to view and organize aggregated data, view our webinar, [On-Demand] How to Simplify Event Data to Create Powerful Insights watch presented by David Sachs, M&IW’s Director of Business Analytics & Consulting.