An event app helps attendees on the day: the ticket, the agenda, the room, the changes. A store app for one event has costs, though. Somebody has to build it and get it through review. Then you have to convince attendees to download it, and many will not.
There is another way. A progressive web app, or PWA, is a website that installs on the phone's home screen and behaves like an app. The AttendBeacon event app works this way. This guide explains what that means for you and your attendees, and what to watch out for.
One address for everything
Every event has its own address, such as attendbeacon.com/e/your-event/. The public event page, registration, the ticket and the attendee's own day are the same pages at that address. Somebody who registers is already in the app. There is no separate download step.
The same address works on a laptop, a tablet and a phone, in any modern browser.
Installing it
The app asks people to install it when it makes sense, never on a first visit. It asks after somebody buys a ticket, opens their ticket, signs in, or comes back on another day. If they tap "Not now", it waits three days, and one event asks at most three times.
How it installs depends on the phone:
- Android with Chrome: one button, from the browser's own install prompt.
- iPhone and iPad: Share, then Add to Home Screen. The app shows these steps itself, for Safari and for other browsers on recent versions of iOS.
- Inside Instagram, LinkedIn or a mail app: those built-in browsers cannot add apps to the home screen. The app tells people to open the page in their own browser first.
Your reports show how many devices installed the app. The count carries no names.
What works offline
Venue Wi-Fi is often weak. The app keeps the event, the agenda and the attendee's ticket on the phone, so they open without a network. When it shows a saved copy, it says so. The venue map works offline once it has loaded.
Your event's look
The app takes your event's colours, fonts and logo, in light or dark. On the home screen, it carries your event's own icon. Attendees see your event, not a generic app.
Each attendee can also choose any language you offer for the event.
Signing in without a password
Attendees sign in with a six-digit code sent to the email address on their ticket. The code works for fifteen minutes. After that, the phone stays signed in for sixty days, renewed while they use the app. There is no password to forget or reset.
Notifications
The web app can send push notifications for announcements, chat, meeting requests, waiting-list offers and session feedback. Attendees choose which kinds they want, and can set quiet hours or an evening digest. When a room runs late, people who saved a session there get an urgent message.
On iPhone and iPad, web notifications only work once the app is on the Home Screen. That is Apple's rule, from iOS 16.4. Mention it when you ask people to install the app.
Wallet passes
Some attendees prefer their ticket in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. Once you have set up the signing credentials, they add the pass in one tap from the confirmation email or the app. The pass scans at the door like any other ticket, and it updates when the time, the venue or the ticket changes.
What a web app does less well
Be honest about the trade-offs:
- Some people expect to find an event in the app store, and have never used Add to Home Screen. Put the steps in your confirmation and reminder emails.
- Older iPhones and some browsers cannot install a web app or receive web notifications. They can still use the app in the browser.
- A web app cannot reach some hardware a store app can, such as the built-in barcode scanner of a rugged handheld at the door.
And the store apps?
The AttendBeacon event app also comes as a native app for iPhone, iPad and Android, built on the same pages. One app holds every event. Attendees open yours with its event code, such as BEACON26, or by scanning the QR code on your poster. Get it from the App Store or Google Play.
Nobody has to install anything. The web app is the same event, at the same address.
A launch plan
- Publish the event page and open registration. That address is the app.
- In the confirmation email, say that the ticket is also in the app, and how to add it to the home screen.
- Print a poster with the event's QR code for the venue.
- Send a reminder the day before, with the same steps and one tip: open the app once at home, so it is saved for the venue.
- On the day, let the info desk help people install it, away from the check-in line.
For the door itself, see How to run phone-based check-in for a 300-person conference.