Item: Cvent Event Management
Rating: 8
Author: Krysten Bennett

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our association uses Cvent to manage our membership database, e-mail marketing, and annual conference. Our conference boasts 400+ sessions, 100+ speakers, 200 exhibitors, and 6,500+ attendees. We use Cvent to market the conference to some 20,000+ potential attendees; manage registrations for exhibitors, sponsors, and attendees; event surveys and reporting; event mobile app; and more.

Pros and Cons

Complex event registrations with multiple attendee types
Widget-based event website and email builder makes marketing quick and easy, especially for users without HTML/CSS knowledge; HTML widget allows for customization for those who want to fine-tune
Plenty of custom fields allowed in contact records
Clean interface
Email automation and filtering capabilities
Event registration links to contact record
Robust reporting, both standard and custom
Responsive and helpful customer service/tech support available via chat

New product releases are slow and staggered, requiring customers to find workarounds for previous features (increased manual labor)
No ability to modify event website CSS in newest event management platform (Flex)
No integration with membership module in newest event management platform (Flex)
Limited email marketing capabilities (e.g., no A/B testing)
Limited customization of memberships (only allows calendar-based or a specific number of days)
Exhibitor, sponsor and speaker management is clunky, and customization options are minimal
No ability to restore deleted contact records
With its focus primarily on event management, Cvent has not updated other modules in years (e-marketing and membership in particular), making them dated and clunky
Doesn't allow organization members to register for their own events after launch without paying a per-registrant fee

Most Important Features

Membership module
Event registration
Contact management

Return on Investment

Attendee feedback on conference registration has been positive, resulting in fewer mailed registrations that need to be manually processed by our staff.
We have seen great statistics on our e-mail marketing campaigns, with open rates as high as 80%.

Alternatives Considered

netFORUM Pro

Back when we used it, Netforum (Avectra) was clunky and inflexible. Cvent is much more robust and customizable, and easier to use from both the admin and front ends.

Key Insights

Do you think Cvent Event Management delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cvent Event Management's feature set?

Yes

Did Cvent Event Management live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cvent Event Management go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cvent Event Management again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

Complex events. Cvent is great for complex events with many sessions, registrants, speakers, exhibitors, and/or registration paths. There are many ways to customize, market, automate, and plan your event. The new release is, overall, easy to use and makes setting up an event simpler. We are, however, still waiting for several features we've used in the past to be re-integrated. Attendees have generally found it easy to use/navigate, though the inability to multi-select sessions during registration (rather than one at a time) is a huge frustration for our registrants.

Contact management & membership. Cvent allows you to manage thousands of contacts. You can create different membership levels, set up dues rates, create automatic email notifications/reminders, create unlimited custom fields, and set up password-protected websites. Customization in the membership module is limited, however. For example, there are only a couple of options for membership duration (calendar year or number of days), and you can only apply a grace period of up to 60 days.

Cvent is robust, customizable, and powerful software

Overall Satisfaction with Cvent Event Management