Skift Take
Tools are finally emerging that empower event professionals with the insights they need to better understand how attendees operate at events and the value created for sponsors. It's about time, and these tools will only become more useful over time as event planners learn more about what makes their gatherings successful.
In just a matter of years, smartphones apps for events have become integral to both the event experience and sales efforts to bring in future attendees and sponsors.
The next step forward, however, involves new thinking about the power of data to reinvent how organizations plan events and market to their attendees.
Michael Balyasny, co-founder and CEO of event app provider Attendify, believes that increased personalization has the ability to not only improve how people experience events, by allowing more face-to-face connections, but empower meeting professionals with more powerful insights about creating value.
"Personalization and engagement data is really the key to where event tech is headed," said Balyasny. "If we look back historically, there's been no cost-effective, good way to capture engagement data from events. There were surveys and badge tracking and beacon technology, but mobile apps are much simpler. Attendees actually want to engage with them."
Skift spoke to Balyasny about the emerging promise of personalization, the evolution of event app capabilities,, and why planners are embracing data management.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Skift: Event apps have become a must-have for many in recent years. How has your offering evolved over that time?
Michael Balyasny: The opportunity we saw was to make apps more accessible and more affordable. Make the whole process of delivering an app for a conference, a trade show, corporate meetings, all kinds of different events, just make that process easier. We found that event planners, while there was some skepticism at first about a do-
