Event tech is a decade behind the rest of SaaS
Open Figma. Multiple people editing the same file, in real time, with comments and version history. Open Notion. Same thing. Open Linear, Slack, Vercel, any modern tool your team uses daily. They all work this way. Now open your event management platform.
It probably looks like it was designed in 2012. It probably works like it, too.
The gap is embarrassing
Event management software hasn't kept pace with the rest of SaaS, and it's not a small gap. It's a decade-wide chasm. Here's what's standard in virtually every other software category but still rare in event tech:
Real-time collaboration. Design tools, docs, project management — they all figured this out years ago. Most event platforms still operate on a "download, edit, re-upload" model. Two people editing the same schedule? Good luck. You'll find out about the conflict when something breaks on event day.
API-first architecture. Modern SaaS products are built API-first. Every action available in the UI is available via the API. Most event platforms either have no API at all, or offer a limited one that covers a fraction of their features. Want to connect your event data to your CRM, finance system, or internal tools? Prepare for CSV exports and manual imports.
Month-to-month billing. Name another software category where multi-year contracts are still the default. Project management? Month-to-month. Design tools? Month-to-month. CRM? Mostly annual, but you can leave. Event platforms? Two to three year commitments, often with auto-renewal clauses buried in the terms.
A modern interface. This one is subjective, but also obvious. Most event platforms look and feel like enterprise software from the early 2010s. Dense, confusing, built for the demo rather than the daily user. Compare the UX of your event platform to any tool built in the last five years. The difference is stark.
AI that does something useful. Other industries have AI that writes code, generates designs, analyses data, and automates workflows. Event tech has chatbots that answer FAQ questions. That's not AI integration — that's a help widget with a new label.
How we got here
This didn't happen by accident. Event software companies got comfortable.
The business model is built on enterprise contracts. Lock a client in for two or three years, charge per seat, make migration painful, and you've got a customer who stays whether the product improves or not. When revenue is guaranteed for 24 months, the sales team matters more than the product team. There's no urgency to ship better features when nobody can leave.
The switching costs reinforce it. Event data is complex — schedules, registrations, exhibitor records, speaker submissions, floor plans, financial data. Moving all of that to a new platform is genuinely difficult. Vendors know this. Some design their systems to make it harder, not easier.
The result is a market where the incentive structure rewards retention mechanics over product quality. Build a good sales process, make it hard to leave, and the product itself becomes secondary.
Something is shifting
Event teams are starting to notice the gap. They use Notion for internal docs, Slack for communication, Figma for design — all modern, fast, collaborative. Then they open their event platform and it feels like stepping back in time.
The contrast is getting harder to ignore. Organisers are asking reasonable questions: why does this cost $20,000 a year and still require me to export a CSV to get my own data? Why can't two people edit a schedule at the same time? Why does the mobile experience feel like an afterthought?
These aren't unreasonable expectations. They're the baseline in every other category.
What the baseline should be
We built ema on a simple assumption: event software should meet the same standard as every other modern tool.
Real-time collaboration, not "download the latest version." API-first architecture, not "we have a limited API." Package-led pricing without per-seat fees, not opaque contracts that punish collaboration. A modern interface that your team can actually use without a training session. AI that has access to your event data and can do real work — draft schedules, check compliance, generate reports — not just answer FAQs.
None of this should be a differentiator. It should be the minimum. The fact that it isn't tells you everything about where event tech is today.
The rest of SaaS moved on. Event software can either catch up or keep pretending that 2015 was good enough.