Review of Meeting and

Events Options

Meetup

Meetup

• Hosted application/Software as a Service (SaaS)

• Easy to use and widely recognised platform more often used for regular rather than one off events

• API with a comparatively wide selection of partner and Meetup provided widgets and integrations (egWordPress, Drupal)

• Embeddable widgets for social sharing

• Comes with an inbuilt audience – useful when recruiting from general public

• Provides wait listing functionality

• Price based on subscription - $12-24 per month with fees paid regardless of whether events are scheduled.

• Meetup becomes gatekeeper– not easy to export audience to other platforms

Eventbrite

Eventbrite

• Hosted application/Software as a Service (SaaS)

• Easy to use and widely recognised platform

• Free for free events

• API with a comparatively wide selection of partner platforms (eg MailChimp, WordPress, Attendify)

• Provides embeddable widgets for social sharing

• Ability to track sales by source (eg Facebook)

• Offer variable ticket pricing (eg early bird)

• Provide wait listing functionality

• QR code ticketing for paper and mobile tickets

• Entry manager app to scan tickets, look up names

• Price based on percentage of price rather than flat fee

eventbee

eventbee

• Hosted application/Software as a Service (SaaS)

• Embeddable widgets and social sharing

• Entry manager app to scan tickets, look up names

• Ability to track sales by source (eg Facebook)

• QR code ticketing for paper and mobile tickets

• 25% discount given to non profits

• Flat fee pricing ($1/$1.50/$2)

• No free ticketing provided for free events

• No waitlisting functionality

Event Espresso

Event Espresso

• User hosted solution rather than hosted application/Software as a Service (SaaS)

• Provides embeddable widgets and social sharing• Provides API although doesn’t have the range of partners that

Eventbrite does

• Waiting list functionality

• QR code ticketing for paper and mobile tickets

• Entry manager app to scan tickets, look up names

• Pricing based on licensing costs rather than ticket sales ($49.95/$89.95/$179/$499.95)

• WordPress only platform and will require more work to get up and running than hosted application.

• Ongoing support would require annual renewal of license albeit at discounted cost

Attending.io

Attending.io

• Hosted application/Software as a Service (SaaS)

• No frills event organiser for free events with no charge for use

• Designed for small to medium sized events without the need

for ticketing functionality

• Extremely user friendly for both organiser and participant

• Requires users to have a Twitter or Facebook account

• Lacks ticketing functionality of specialist providers (QR

codes, meeting organiser apps, embeddable widgets)

Facebook Events

Facebook Events

• Hosted application/Software as a Service (SaaS)

• Can be initiated with little or no effort and at no cost

• Provides a channel that can be used to readily publicise

across Facebook’s wider network

• User friendly for both organiser and participant

• Facebook becomes gatekeeper

• Requires user to have Facebook account to participate

• Lacks ticketing functionality specialist providers (QR codes,

tracking, meeting organiser apps, embeddable widgets)