Buyer’s guide
How to evaluate event software: the venue scorecard
Most event software demos show the same polished happy path. This scorecard exists for everything else: the 5pm guest change, the allergy on table 14, the organiser who never replies. Score any platform, including ours, from 1 to 5 on each criterion, and make the vendor demonstrate rather than describe. Print this page and take it into every demo.
The scorecard
| Criterion | What to make the vendor show you | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Guest self-service | A real guest journey: link or QR code, no account, no app, working on an old phone. Ask for actual response rates. | / 5 |
| Allergen record | One guest declares an allergy late; watch it appear flagged on the chef report, food pass and place card, with a timestamped audit trail against the named guest. | / 5 |
| Live-updating reports | Change one seat and one menu choice, then reprint everything. Nothing should need re-exporting or retyping. | / 5 |
| Seating and place cards | Drag-and-drop plan the client can manage themselves, driving personalised place cards printed in one click. | / 5 |
| Revenue features | Drink pre-orders, upgrades, deposits and balances taken before the event. Ask for evidenced uplift figures. | / 5 |
| Scale and pressure | Proof at your peak: hundreds of covers, shared party nights, simultaneous ordering. Ask what their largest live event was. | / 5 |
| White-label guest experience | Whose brand does the guest see, from invitation to payment confirmation? It should be yours only. | / 5 |
| Data ownership | Who owns guest and marketing data, and what do you get back if you leave? Get it in writing. | / 5 |
| Migration and onboarding | Menus, packages and existing bookings moved for you, training included, live within days not months. | / 5 |
| The whole journey | Enquiry to proposal, pre-orders to event day, feedback to repeat booking. Every gap is a spreadsheet waiting to grow back. | / 5 |
How to read the score
40+ means the platform will genuinely remove work; 30 to 39 means it solves part of the problem and your team keeps the rest; under 30 means you are buying software and keeping the spreadsheets too. For context on what good looks like criterion by criterion, see the guides to pre-order management, allergen tracking, seating plans and ticketing.
Benchmarks worth holding vendors to: over 2 million festive dishes were ordered through Creventa at Christmas 2025, across events from 4 to 2,500+ guests, with 99.2% of guests responding to pre-order invitations.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most important thing to check when evaluating event software?
Whether guest-level detail flows through the whole system without retyping: each named guest’s choices and allergies feeding the seating plan, place cards, chef report and food pass automatically. If a human copies data between any two steps, errors will surface during service.
How should venues test allergen handling in a demo?
Ask to see one guest declare a shellfish allergy two days before an event, then ask to see every report that guest appears on. The allergy should be flagged on the chef report, food pass and place card instantly, with a documented, timestamped record.
Should we score the guest experience too?
Yes, heavily. Ask whether guests need accounts or apps (they should not), test the journey on an older phone, and ask for real response rates. Well-designed branded invitations achieve response rates above 99% in Creventa.
How do we compare pricing fairly?
Total all-in cost: licence, commissions, and the staff hours the system does or does not remove, then set it against revenue features. A Holiday Inn hotel using Creventa reported a 251% uplift in wet spend from drink pre-orders, which changes the arithmetic entirely.
Score Creventa against this list. Book a demo.
Last reviewed
Reviewed July 2026. Creventa results such as wet-spend uplift, time saved and reduced food waste are typical outcomes reported by customers and vary by venue and event.