Powerful, Enterprise-Grade Event Management Software
Sell tickets & Collect registration fees online
Full-Service Abstract Management Software: Collect âž© Assign âž© Review âž© Decide âž© Notify
Customizable forms to collect & review abstracts, symposia, proposals & grants
The Complete Event Schedule Builder to Create Virtual & Hybrid Sessions
Create Event Schedule with Slides, Group Chats, Survey forms & more
Engagement Tools to Host Virtual Conferences & Online Community Website
Engage attendees & Produce knowledge with online networking portal
Have you ever walked into a store thinking you’ll spend a little, only to leave wondering where all your money went? Conference software shopping can feel exactly the same.Â
At first, every platform seems like a good deal. Then you book a demo, discover a few must-have features aren’t included, or find out the price depends on how many submissions you receive. Before you know it, comparing platforms isn’t nearly as straightforward as you expected.
Do you like being all over the place? At work? At home? Or at school? Perhaps you are much of the time. But do you truly enjoy it? We reckon you don’t. And it’s likely that you’re taking (or thinking of) actionable steps to change your ways. So why then are you and your team still succumbing to the hidden costs of separate abstract and registration tools?Â
Artificial Intelligence. AI. Automation. Words that appear almost everywhere. You go to the grocery store and find an AI-based self-checkout more sophisticated than anything you’ve ever seen. AI is listing your groceries and according to many, about to take all of our jobs. Well, that’s not what this blog is about. In the event management space, artificial intelligence is creating ripples of positive, upwards movement. Event professionals get to automate tasks that were previously tedious and impossible to work through without losing one’s mind. There are these AI tools for event planners that aren’t usurping any meaningful jobs. The human intent, the core purpose and objectives of the event, the things that make the event or conference truly yours is something that AI will be unable to replicate. Not now, not ever. Event management is a human business that caters to a human audience. So for as long as you are not expecting to host a conference for a bunch of humanoid robots, one can ascertain that the job of event planners shall remain important. And needed.
You’ve just planned on hosting an event or conference. In no time, your registration tab goes live. And your event officially begins. The first registration, perhaps a demo or a dummy filled in by someone from your team, is what breaks the duck. However what often follows is hollow silence until the next registration comes in. And they don’t come in a few minutes or a few hours for most event organizers working in smaller volumes, for those just starting out. It takes days, sometimes weeks. Weeks of anticipation and agonizing waiting, wondering if enough people will turn up for the show to even happen in the first place. Forget an audience.Â
Did you know that, according to Dataintelo’s 2025 industry report, the education sector accounts for 11.9% of the global conference market? That is a huge slice of the pie. Yet, knowing how universities manage research conferences successfully is still unfamiliar to most organizers.
Unlike corporate events, there is no single team making every decision. Universities work across different departments with busy faculty members.
And if you have ever wondered how universities organize research conferences so successfully, we’ve got you covered. Keep reading.
When you’ve settled into a routine way of working and your stratagem has turned static, upscaling can feel like resistance. However, such resistance and aversion to change is what often precedes true development.
As a modern event planner, one ought to keep consistently raising the bars. And hitting them. Bars that are raised but without practical effort amount to nothing more than another unchecked item on your company’s 10-year vision. Say you are an academic event organizer and hope to augment your presence and operations. The upper hierarchy has finally approved bigger, better events. However, you may find yourself constrained by limited resources and a fiscal inability to draw in more. You want to manage hundreds of thousands of abstract submissions for a mega event headlined by a prestigious educational institution. But you can’t afford to hire hundreds of new employees to manually sift through submissions that run in the 1000s.
When event planners find themselves wanting to manage abstract submissions at scale, what do they do?Â
Enterprise teams organize more events, in different formats, and across several regions. The rise of hybrid work, global audiences, and data-driven marketing has pushed to prioritize event technology. In this landscape, choosing the right platform matters more than ever because it will automate registration, prove ROI, and give sales warm leads the moment a session ends. However, choosing the wrong tool leads to slow processes, data silos, clunky workflows, sponsor complaints, and a weakened event ROI.
Conference planning has become more complex in recent years. Organizers must handle registrations, speaker schedules, sponsor partnerships, event tech, mobile apps, and event data all at once. At the same time, attendees expect everything to run perfectly. With so many events competing for attention, the pressure to prove your conference is worth the money is higher than ever.
A medical congress is not, in any meaningful sense, a standard conference. It asks organizers to coordinate hundreds of scientific abstracts through formal peer review, to run dozens of sessions in parallel, to satisfy regulatory requirements for continuing education credits, to uphold strict standards of data security, and to manage sponsorship arrangements that often carry significant financial stakes.
According to a comprehensive study, a staggering 92% of virtual meeting attendees admit to multitasking during online calls. For conference hosts, this highlights an obvious barrier when competing for audience attention. Sending out a video streaming link just doesn’t cut it anymore.Â
While Zoom is a great choice for everyday meetings, multi-track conferences demand much more. Enterprise events now need advanced scheduling, attendee engagement, sponsor management, and networking features that go well beyond basic video conferencing. If you’re planning a large-scale event, these are the best Zoom Events alternatives to consider in 2026.
It is a big deal to plan a scientific event, symposium, conference, or academic meeting. You should have proper event management software to ease your trouble of managing registrations, collecting and reviewing abstracts, handling event workflows, constructing schedules and keeping track of attendee engagement.
In 2026, managing a high-stakes enterprise event requires an absolute powerhouse of a system. But you shouldn’t need a computer science degree just to build a custom registration form or run a hybrid webinar. You need an event platform that keeps your data synchronized while giving you total control over your branding.
Whether you’re frustrated by Stova’s transaction fees or missing features that your events depend on, you’re not short on options. Fortunately, today’s market offers hundreds of event platforms built to offer a better experience for both planners and attendees.
Let’s take a closer look at the 10 best alternatives to Stova in 2026.