Skift Research: Deal-Breakers and Deal-Makers When Sourcing Event Tech – Stova

The occasion tech panorama is altering quick, with new developments in AI rising left and proper. But whereas know-how advances, attendees (who’re dealing with these adjustments, too) are coming again time and time once more for that irreplaceable, tried-and-true worth that solely occasions can ship: nose to nose connection.

occasion organizers are confronted with an vital problem: how do you distinguish important, needle-moving options from flashy bells and whistles? How do you get essentially the most worth out of your occasion tech finances? And, most significantly, what do attendees really care about?

Skift’s Event Tech Almanac 2025 gives one of the complete updates on the state of the market, based mostly on detailed enter from 85 main occasion tech suppliers. Here’s what the analysis says about which options are real deal breakers, which of them could be deal makers, and that are merely nice-to-have extras.

Research Overview: What’s the Data Based On?

The Almanac’s knowledge is grounded in an April–May 2025 consumption survey of 85 suppliers. The analysis centered much less on common baseline options and extra on differentiators that separate platforms from each other. For instance, customized branding is obtainable by 88% of suppliers and white labeling is obtainable by 72% of suppliers. These are thought-about baseline expectations reasonably than deal makers. Not having these options is a deal breaker for a lot of eventprofs.

Skift additionally notes that, whereas widespread availability suggests planners ought to anticipate these options, not each buy robotically contains them and occasion planners want to guage function competitiveness inside their finances. Many options are packaged as add-ons or bundled in tiers, influencing total price.

Essential Features for Attendee Networking

Deal Breakers

The must-have networking options are effectively established. Peer-to-peer direct messaging and assembly reserving are customary throughout practically all platforms. Gamification capabilities are equally current in virtually all occasion administration platforms. Without them, a platform is unlikely to fulfill attendee expectations.

Learn how gamification helps to spice up attendee engagement.

Deal Makers

Features that actually add worth embody AI matchmaking, supplied by solely 48% of suppliers. While not common, our purchasers have discovered that this functionality can dramatically enhance the standard of connections, matching attendees based mostly on shared pursuits, objectives, or behaviors.

Bells and Whistles

While AI-powered matchmaking can add numerous worth, occasion organizers ought to take warning when selecting options that take away company from their attendees and different stakeholders. Given the rise of AI, that is very true of untested options that some could also be speeding to implement earlier than absolutely pondering by way of the use case.

Experimental instruments like immersive 3D social areas could seize consideration for some however others – for instance informal players – could discover they lack the sophistication they’re used to. To guarantee a extremely charming digital expertise, it’s finest to talk to your supplier. 

Stova has facilitated hundreds of digital experiences from easy stream-based occasions to wealthy, absolutely immersive experiences. We could be glad that will help you execute your digital imaginative and prescient. Book a demo.

Essential Features for Sponsor Engagement

Deal Breakers

Sponsors anticipate fundamental visibility instruments like listings, logos and inclusion in session agendas. Without these, a platform dangers alienating its revenue-driving stakeholders.

Deal Makers

More superior options embody self-service exhibitor knowledge portals (supplied by 71% of distributors) and engagement scoring (64%) inside supplied analytics. While lead retrieval is obtainable by all complete occasion administration platforms in a single type or one other, a complete instrument that streamlines lead scoring and performs effectively with all advertising and CRM instruments continues to be a robust differentiator. 

A rising pattern is AI-powered lead suggestions, analyzing attendee habits to attach sponsors with essentially the most related prospects. While Stova’s AI matchmaking capabilities are centered on networking, they’ll additionally profit sponsors and exhibitors.

Bells and Whistles

Features that experiment with AR/VR experiences or novel sponsorship codecs stay non-obligatory reasonably than important.

Essential Features for Delivering Content

Deal Breakers

Every platform should reliably help session streaming, agendas and entry to on-demand content material. These are actually baseline expectations.

Deal Makers

Skift’s analysis highlights AI-powered session or content material recommendations (supplied by solely 44% of distributors), which personalize studying journeys. AI options that help curating and repurposing content material, supplied by only a quarter of distributors surveyed, are additionally notable for his or her means to mix engagement knowledge with automated actions to increase the lifecycle of an occasion.

Find out how one can flip your occasion content material into an engine for engagement year-round. Book a demo.

Bells and Whistles

Novel however much less important options embody automated podcast technology from session recordings and interactive slide conversion into polls or quizzes. These add worth however usually are not but core necessities.

Essential Features for Event Management

Deal Breakers

Fundamental capabilities embody registration, check-in and badging, polls and suggestions, and cell apps and digital choices. Without these, a platform can’t declare to ship complete occasion administration.

Deal Makers

Differentiation arises by way of extra superior integrations, sturdy customization, specialised workflows (e.g., summary administration for tutorial occasions) and focused choices for particular industries like finance or pharma.

Bells and Whistles

Highly specialised instruments, corresponding to superior translation providers, advanced VR venue fashions and facial recognition providers are fascinating however unusual, and attendees are by-and-large not anticipating them.

Essential Features for Data Management

Deal Breakers

Data is the spine of occasion success. Universally supplied instruments embody real-time dashboards, CSV exports and report templates. Most platforms additionally adjust to GDPR, present single sign-on (SSO) choices and provide person roles and permissions to restrict admin entry. Over 75% present encryption, SOC 2 compliance and enterprise continuity measures.

A notice about knowledge possession: A key dividing line is a vendor’s philosophy in the case of knowledge possession. Most distributors (together with Stova) act as knowledge processors, giving purchasers full possession of their knowledge. Others function on a shared knowledge possession mannequin that provides them direct management over attendee knowledge as soon as they develop into platform customers. While this may occasionally provide sure comfort for these customers, it poses severe questions and challenges for organizations with strict knowledge insurance policies.

Deal Makers

More superior occasion intelligence makes a distinction, particularly for purchasers with bigger occasion portfolios that want extra subtle benchmarking. Cross-event reviews are supplied by most distributors (61%) together with year-on-year reviews (61%) and customized report builders (68%). 

Features corresponding to self-service exhibitor knowledge portals (71% of distributors) can each decrease the reporting burden on occasion professionals and enhance transparency. 

Bells and Whistles

Less widespread options like pattern/sample recognition (21%), forecasting (21%) and benchmarking (14%) are enticing however not but customary – doubtless as a result of these are analysis-heavy duties with a big margin for error and require numerous human oversight and correction to do effectively. However, this may occasionally change as AI improves.

What’s Coming Next?

AI continues to be crucial driver of recent performance: 76% of platforms report utilizing AI in a method or one other. In phrases of the preferred fashions, 52% depend on OpenAI fashions and 24% use Amazon or Anthropic. Stova is among the many few (30%) to have developed proprietary, purpose-built AI fashions to ship actual, event-specific worth.

The most typical purposes are in knowledge analytics and reporting (56%), networking (or extra particularly matchmaking) (48%), session/content material recommendations (44%) and content material enhancement within the types of writing help (44%) and captioning/transcription (41%).

Up-and-coming purposes embody sensible language detection that permits dynamic translation providers that may swap mid-conversation, digital assistants built-in with WhatsApp for attendee help, AI-driven sourcing options and content material technology (e.g. automated podcasts).

But Skift cautions occasion organizers to be conscientious of AI in advertising. “The future of event tech isn’t all about AI. It will play a major role but much of that will be unseen by the end user,” says Aaron Dorsey, VP of product administration and information safety and privateness at Maritz. Practicality is essential. As registration skilled Leanne Velky advises: “Sometimes the ‘less advanced’ solution is the right one if it meets your compliance needs and your team can actually use it.” The primary takeaway is that any new know-how ought to deal with particular challenges or serve exact objectives reasonably than being carried out for its personal sake.

Conclusion

Sorting by way of occasion tech options requires a pointy concentrate on occasion objectives. The Skift Meetings Event Tech Almanac 2025 makes clear that whereas the rise of AI has led to quite a lot of shifts and developments, true differentiation comes from considerate purposes and attendee-centric instruments that respect the stakeholders’ core aims: networking, sponsor engagement and content material supply. 

By specializing in deal breakers and deal makers – and resisting the pull of flashy however impractical bells and whistles – organizers can make investments properly in know-how that strengthens connections, improves outcomes and delivers measurable worth.

Per Skift’s analysis, Stova ranks within the high three by way of function richness out of 80 suppliers surveyed (high two if you happen to care about proudly owning your personal knowledge). Book a demo to study extra about how we are able to outfit your toolbox.