Being productive is easy when you have the right tools. Here are 29 leading apps event planners can use to stay organized, do their jobs better, and get more things done!
Time will always be your most precious asset and, as many readers already know, event planning doesn’t afford organizers the luxury of time. According to CareerCast, event planners have the 5th most stressful job in America thanks to the long hours and high pressure.
To help event organizers work more efficiently and ease their stress, we’ve compiled a list of 29 great productivity tools to try.
30 Productivity Tools For Event Planners
1. Guru
Think of the hours and hours you spend training and retraining people on your team. Guru is a knowledge sharing tool that makes training new hires, and instituting best practices much simpler. With Guru, users write guides that are then contextually displayed in your browser. Outline the exact steps a member of your team should follow when posting to Twitter, and Guru will overlay your directions the next time a team member goes to tweet.
2. Rapportive
Streamline all of your social media research through Rapportive. Let’s be honest, we all check social media websites to get the scoop on new co-workers, speakers, clients, etc. This Gmail extension allows you to fuse you research directly with your email inbox. Rapportive displays a profile picture, and social media links whenever you mouse over an email address in Gmail.
3. Bizzabo
Bizzabo is an all-in-one event success platform that allows event organizers to plan all aspects of an event, from event registration, to event marketing, attendee engagement and much more. The platform has won two Event Technology Awards and has been shortlisted for many more since. Learn more about how Bizzabo can help you become a more productive event organizer by clicking the button below.
4. StayFocusd
StayFocusd is a Google Chrome extension that blocks and/or limits the amount of time you can visit a website for. This is a great way to stay on top of the important tasks that need to get done. Though simple, StayFocusd has been featured by USA Today, TechCrunch, and more as one of the best productivity apps out there!
5. Rescue Time
Rescue Time helps you optimize your work day through its innovative data-tracking system. It gives you an accurate picture of how you spend your time during the day. Not only will this help you become more productive, it will allow you to relieve stress caused by missed deadlines. Altogether, Rescue Time allows you to gain perspective on your projects, set goals and take the appropriate action to bring your event planning to the next level.
6. Slack
The future of workplace productivity, Slack, is a cloud based team collaboration tool that allows easy messaging between coworkers and through group threads. It also has integrations with Trello, Giphy, and 148 other tools (including Bizzabo). It’s a great way to create constant contact between team members, and will leave you wondering how you communicated at work without it.
7. Momentum
Aesthetically pleasing and effective, Momentum is your new in-browser screensaver. Momentum provides a new, high-quality photo every day when you open a new window in your browser. Not excited yet? Well, Momentum also greets you with a Good Morning/Good Afternoon, displays the time, weather, a motivational quote, and lets you build a to-do list.
8. Trello
This freemium, easy-to-use web-based project management platform mixes sticky notes and organization in a digital service. Plan, collaborate, and stay focused with Trello’s “boards.” Create cards for boards with reminders, due dates, color coded tasks, notes, comments, and more.
9. Headspace
Headspace is a platform that provides guided mindfulness and meditation lessons. Used by over 6 million people, this app may allow event planners to de-stress throughout the planning process. Expect a clear mind and a refreshed attitude after using this tool. Headspace has a 10-day free trial, and costs $12.95/month to access their entire library of exercises.
10. Pomodoro Time
Ever heard of the Pomodoro technique? Pomodoro Time helps you follow this time management theory that you should separate work into 25 minute segments. Not only will this improve efficiency, it’ll allow you to plan work better! Think, how many of these 25-minute sessions, or, “Pomodoro’s” it will take to accomplish a task? Pomodoro Time is the timer that keeps you on track!
11. GoToWebinar
Webinars are a great way to market your live event but planning one of these alongside all your other duties can be a challenge. GoToWebinar saves you time by providing presentation tools that help you plan, present, and follow-up with ease. Polls, user surveys, and automatic thank you emails are just some of the great features that will help make you more productive.
12. Highfive
If you’re planning an event out of town and need to coordinate with caterers, venues, and speakers, Highfive might become your new best friend. User-friendly and cost effective, Highfive gives event planners some much needed face time with their team regardless of where everyone is located. This premium in-room conferencing solution helps save you travel time between meetings while also making those meetings more productive thanks to immersive media tools.
13. Facebook Live
Facebook Live is a great tool for engaging your audience and spreading the word about your upcoming event. It’s easy to use, provides advanced audience insights, and the best part is you can stream from your phone. If fast, direct, and effective marketing makes you feel productive then you might want to give this tool a spin. 
14. Livestream
Brought to you by Vimeo, Livestream helps event planners like you capture, store, and share high-quality video. The platform allows you to distribute content from a single place to all of your online properties including your event landing page, Facebook Live, and YouTube. It’ll save you the hassle of having to download and upload your marketing videos over and over again.
15. Keynote
If you or your event speakers need help streamlining the presentation process all in one place, Keynote might be for you. Real-time collaboration is available across all your devices so you can avoid messy or unnecessary email chains. And when you’re planning an event, the little things really add up. Plus it has some gorgeous effects your speakers might be really into.
16. Google Drive
If you’re not already using it you should know that Google Drive is the king of all things cloud when it comes to docs, spreadsheets, forms, and slideshows. You get a wild amount of storage for free and it gives your team the opportunity to collab in real time. So if you need help streamlining your workflow and hate wasting time sending and re-sending important event notes to your colleagues, consider using this productivity tool.
17. Prezi
Another great online productivity tool for event planners, Prezi helps you create and share beautiful presentations. Even if you’re great at graphic design, this tool will help you be more productive with engaging and interactive templates and professional design elements already built in. Not everything has to be DIY to be amazing – use Prezi to save yourself a little extra time before your event.
18. Visme
In addition to presentations, Visme helps keep event planner productive with drag-and-drop visual storytelling tools to market to prospects, sponsors, and more. Their infographics and content tools translate data into the persuasive visuals. So if you need to share some great survey results from last year’s event on Facebook really quickly, Visme will help you make it look great and get it out into the world faster, allowing you to concentrate on your big picture to-do list items.
19. Slido
As far as tools that help make event planners more productive on the actual day of the event, nothing beats Slido for attendee engagement and feedback capturing. While you’re running around making sure everything is going smoothly, you can set up Slido to help enhance your guests’ experience while also capturing extremely valuable data. Things like Q&As and live polls are now mobile-friendly and make joining in the fun more convenient for attendees. And because you can set it up ahead of time, it’ll give one less thing to do the day of.
20. Glisser
Event analytics is an important part of any live event. But trying to track down, manually enter, and analyze data by yourself is very time consuming. If you need help using your time wisely, consider using an audience participation app like Glisser.
21. Estimote
If you’re looking to add that “wow” factor to your event but you need help pulling it all together in a small amount of time, Estimote might come in handy. It’s an indoor location tracker with bluetooth beacons and mesh. So basically you can impress your guests, save time with this easy to set up experience, and stay focused on all the things that make you most productive throughout the event while attendees enjoy a truly magical time. 
22. Sightcorp
Real time deep-learning face analysis is saving event planners hours and hours on manual research and note taking. This AI-powered market research solution helps make users more productive by using scanning customer faces in photos, videos, and in person to form a more complete audience persona. Backed by real data, event planners can use these personas to create and distribute more effective marketing, saving both time and money in the long run.
23. Speecheo
There’s nothing quite like having to deal with keynote speakers who ask a million questions or, even worse, confidently let you know they plan to “wing it”. Well not anymore. Keeping you, the event planner, focused and on task is very important, so make sure you have something like Speecheo available to handle your guests of honor. It’s billed as an innovative presentation tool and it will help keep you and your speakers on track on one collaborative and streamlined platform.
24. CrowdMicsX
Audience mic experiences are often messy, take longer to set up, and require more management on days where you need to be your most productive. That’s where CrowdMics comes in. This app will turn your audience’s phone into a powerful wireless mic with features like live polling, text commenting, and more. Work the crowd without doing any extra work thanks to CrowdMics.
25. Catchbox
If you don’t want to make your attendees download yet another app, you can still delegate this event planning task to your audience with Catchbox. It’s a totally fun, totally throwable microphone. It helps save event planners time they’d normally spend lugging mics up and down attendee seating. They’re also perfectly manageable for keynote speakers and hosts to use on their own without much outside help.
26. TINT
TINT by FileStack is a social media aggregator and content curation tool. If you spend way too much time searching for event shoutouts on Instagram or rave reviews on Twitter, you’ll probably love this productivity lifesaver. TINT uses all social networks, review sites, and offline sources so you can do a search for certain hashtags, filter out social media influencers with a certain amount of followers, etc. Then, simply click to share their content on your own profiles, building social trust and spreading the word for your upcoming event.
27. MailChimp
MailChimp helps event planners be their most productive with email campaign templates, automated monitoring, and scheduled newsletter options that help keep your brand’s email account kosher with your provider. Best of all, it’s free! Set up your next automated drip campaign with cohesive email designs and simple list segmentation in mere minutes.
28. CampaignMonitor
Being highly efficient as an event planner means keeping a close eye on all your moving parts at the same time, which is why we love CampaignMonitor. It’s similar to MailChimp in that you can use drag and drop tools to build an email campaign. But it also allows you to create personalized customer journeys in minutes, eliminating the need for constant review and analysis every step of the way. They have plenty of other great productivity enhancing features as well!
29. Engagio Dash
Multi-touch marketing is perhaps one of the most time consuming yet necessary evils planners slog away at in the months and weeks leading up to their big event. If KPIs, dashboards, and instant access to attendee journey analytics would help make you more productive, then Engagio Dash is your new best friend.
Conclusion: Best Productivity Apps for Event Planners
Using the tools listed here, you’ll find that you have a few more hours free each day. Use your new-found time to learn about event software buying best practices by downloading this free report.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published August 23, 2016 and has since been updated.
