2026-04-02
Choosing conference management software
Academic meetings fail in the joins between tools. Choose software by the pipeline you must finish, not by a feature grid copied from a consumer events vendor.
Write down the pipeline before you book demos
List the jobs: open a call, collect abstracts, assign reviewers, issue decisions, build sessions, collect fees, publish a site, support people on site. Mark which jobs you already own and which a PCO owns. Software that is excellent at tickets and weak at conflicts is the wrong category if you run a peer-reviewed congress.
Demand a shared record, not a prettier export
Ask where the abstract object lives after acceptance. If the answer is “we export to the programme module”, you still have two databases. The same test applies to presenting authors and registration: complementary speaker places should not require retyping names.
Price conversations should match meeting shape
Campus symposia, society annual meetings and multi-track congresses are not the same product. A public rate card can be honest for simple events and misleading for scholarly ones. Eventumbot scopes Community, Society and Congress from enquiry rather than publishing dummy numbers. Other vendors publish lists; treat that as a real difference, not as a moral failing.
Check multilingual and accessibility needs in the open
If attendees need a second public language, ask whether the timetable is cloned or published once. If authors use assistive technology, ask to see the submission flow, not only the marketing site. Put those answers in the procurement note so they survive the next chair.
Read comparisons as methodology, not as trophies
We publish cautious pages on Fourwaves, Oxford Abstracts and Ex Ordo based on public sites, with a review date. They are not paid rankings and they do not claim bugs we have not documented. Use them to structure questions, then verify on a demo with your own call.