A conference app is the delegate's window on the programme, and it is only as good as the programme record behind it. The category is sold on features, gamification, matchmaking, sponsor banners, and lives or dies on four ordinary jobs: showing the live programme, letting a delegate build their own agenda, telling them which room to be in, and pushing the change when a speaker withdraws at nine in the morning. This page is written for the organiser deciding whether the event needs a conference mobile application at all, what to demand of one, what academic conference management software adds for a society meeting with a paper track, and what the organiser has to have in order before any app can be fed. It stays vendor neutral: the jobs, the questions, and the honest case for a mobile web page.
The four jobs, and the record that feeds them
The live programme with rooms and times; a personal agenda the delegate builds by tapping sessions; wayfinding to the room, even if that is a floor plan image; and change notices pushed to the people who chose the affected session. All four read one thing, the programme record with its sessions, rooms and speakers, and an app fed from a PDF or a spreadsheet exported last week shows a programme that is already wrong. The programme builder on this site works the grid, and Pro keeps the sessions that the app would read.
Software for conferences: app, registration or the whole suite
Three things get sold under one name. The app is the delegate-facing layer; the registration platform sells and holds the tickets; the management suite keeps the programme, speakers, delegates, rooms and budget together and drives both. A small conference usually needs the registration platform and can serve the programme from a mobile web page; a large one needs the suite and the app on top. Buy the layer whose absence is costing you time, and check the export from each before you sign.
Academic conference management software is a different product
A society meeting with a call for papers needs submission, peer review with reviewer assignment and conflicts, acceptance, camera-ready deadlines and a proceedings export, and that is what academic conference management software does; the delegate app is a small part of it. The organiser's plan, programme grid, badge order and budget are the same as any other conference and the free tools on this site work them, but the review workflow is a category of its own and the choice of it belongs to the programme committee.
When a mobile web page is enough, honestly
If the event is one or two days with a few tracks and the programme is stable, a mobile-friendly web page with the grid, the rooms and a working search does the delegate's job, needs no download and costs nothing per delegate. The app earns its place when there are many parallel sessions, when the personal agenda matters, when changes are frequent, or when a sponsor is paying for the banner. The honest test is whether delegates at last edition asked for one; if the request was the organiser's, the web page wins.
Questions people ask about conference apps
How far in advance does the app need the programme?
As soon as it is published, which the timeline template on this site places in the last third of the runway, and then continuously. An app loaded once and never updated is a printed programme that cost more.
Do delegates actually install conference apps?
A share do, and the share rises with the number of parallel sessions and the length of the event. Plan on the printed grid and the web page as the baseline and the app as the layer for the delegates who want it, rather than on universal installation.
Does Lanyardo have an app?
No. Lanyardo is the organiser's record: the plan, the programme, the sessions, the speakers, the delegates and the budget. That record is what an app reads, and Pro exports it; the app itself is a vendor's product chosen on the jobs above.