Private-label Event Apps: What You Need to Know

Event apps have become integral to event marketing strategies. Yet a recent update to the Apple App Store has caused a dramatic shift in the industry. This private-label event app primer covers everything you need to know to stay abreast of these changes.

Get Ready for the Future of Event Apps

How quickly can an entire industry change? On July 10, 2008 at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC), Steve Jobs revealed the Apps Store — a marketplace for creating and downloading applications on the iOS operating system. Within days, companies around the world began working to capitalize on this innovation.

Soon the words Twitter, Uber, Lyft, WeChat, Kik and Facebook would become inseparable from the mobile phone. In fact, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg went so far as to maintain a “mobile-first” strategy for the multi-billion dollar social network—something that other companies subsequently adopted.

The rise of the mobile phone also gave rise to the event app — a mobile-first solution that allows attendees to navigate and engage events in unparalleled ways. As the event app space evolved, it allowed users to apply their branding in increasingly more nuanced and precise ways, culminating in the private-label event app.

According to a study by Event Manager Blog, 40% of event professionals are already using event apps and according to a poll conducted by Bizzabo, over 80% of the event professionals were already using an event app. 

On June 5th, 2017 at Apple’s WWDC, Phil Schiller (SVP of Marketing at Apple) announced an update to the App Store that forced mobile developers to completely rethink how they approach private-label event apps. The resulting ruling holds huge implications for event technology providers and buyers, and it also holds one valuable lesson whose significance will remain for for years to come.

In this guide, readers will learn about the private-label event app landscape, the direction that it is heading in and the massive change that is responsible for this new direction. This guide includes data and visualizations covering the state of the events industry. For instance, did you know that the majority of conference goers use iPhone apps?

Readers will also learn how event apps can fit into a larger event software system as a touch-point for collecting data on attendees, speakers, sessions and sponsors. At the end of this guide, readers will find 24 questions that buyers should ask when comparing event app vendors. These questions include: 

• What sort of event app do you offer? A custom-made private-label mobile app, a templated private-label mobile app, a branded container app, or a non-branded container app?
• If there are bugs in my app once it is published, will you resolve them? If so, is there an additional fee?
• If I make a change to content on the event app, will it be reflected on the event website? Or will I need to manually change both?

The only question we have for you: The event app industry is changing. Are you ready?

Download The Event App Primer and discover what you need to know about the future of the industry!