Do you really need an app for a two-hour drinks reception?

I build the attendee app at Eventogy, so this might sound like an odd thing to say: for a lot of events, I wouldn’t expect guests to download it.

Take a client drinks reception. A couple of hundred people at a gallery, a welcome drink, a short speech, then home. Guests need to know where they’re going and when to arrive. They may want to check a few details on the way. Asking them to install an app for that is quite a big ask.

We should be comfortable admitting that, even when we’re the people building the app.

A lot of advice about event app adoption comes down to promotion. Send another reminder. Put a QR code on the signage. Explain the benefits more clearly.

Those things can help if someone has forgotten or hasn’t understood why the app would be useful. But a guest using a company phone may not be allowed to install it at all. Someone arriving at the venue may have a poor signal. Someone else may look at the download and decide they’ll ask at reception instead.

Another email won’t solve all of those problems.

Downloads only tell you so much

An install count doesn’t explain why other guests didn’t get any further. Were they interested but unable to download? Did they try and give up? Did they have everything they needed in the invitation?

Those are different situations, and I’d want to understand which one we were dealing with before deciding what to change.

There’s another complication when the same app covers several events. A returning guest might already have it installed. They can use it throughout the evening without adding anything to that event’s download count.

Downloads are useful to track, but they’re a limited way of judging whether guests could access what they needed.

“Downloads are useful to track, but they’re a limited way of judging whether guests could access what they needed.

It depends on what you’re asking people to attend

At a three-day conference, the usefulness of an app is easier to explain. There are sessions to choose, rooms to find and changes to keep up with. A guest may use it repeatedly. At a drinks reception, they might open the event details once, in the taxi.

That should affect what we ask them to do. I don’t think making the app compulsory just to increase adoption is a particularly good outcome. You might get a better number in the report, but you’ve also given every guest another job before they can attend.

For me, the practical question is what happens to the person who doesn’t install.

How we’ve approached it at Eventogy

We’ve made the download optional.

Guests receive a link that takes them into their event in a browser. The link handles the login, so they don’t have to create an account or remember another password. They can access the event without visiting an app store.

Inside that web experience, we offer the native app. If a guest already has it installed, the same event link opens it.

There are reasons someone might choose to install. Notifications can be useful when timings change or a session moves, provided the guest has enabled them. For someone attending several events with the same host, keeping the app also makes more sense: they can use it again next time.

But the guest who can’t install it still needs a usable experience. That’s particularly relevant for corporate audiences, where the person holding the phone may have very little control over what goes on it.

The browser route still needs a connection. It won’t fix poor venue Wi-Fi. It does, however, remove the need to complete an app download while standing at reception.

What I’d ask to see in a demo

I’d ask the vendor to show me the journey from the invitation to the event details on a phone.

Then I’d ask them to do it without installing anything.

How many steps are there? Does the guest need a password? What happens if they can’t find the invitation? And what can the organiser see when someone tries to get in but doesn’t manage it?

These are questions we should be able to answer at Eventogy too.

I still want to build an app that people choose to use. For a guest coming to a two-hour reception, though, opening the link, checking the address and putting their phone away may be everything they need. I’d be happy with that.