Development
run.events. Everything is under control.
Feb 01, 2023 / 4 min read
By: Adis Jugo, President (Technology) run.events GmbH
So, here it is. The date we officially launch run.events. The day each and every event organizer can obtain all the features of an advanced, fully integrated event management platform with a few clicks, within a few minutes, and with no upfront costs. But how did we get to this point? Why did we create run.events?
We are an IT company with a great deal of experience in event management. For 10 years, we have organized the two largest Microsoft-focused events in Europe (the European Collaboration Summit and the European Cloud Summit). And we know the dilemma: the choice that each event organizer has to make is between using multiple disconnected systems, which are each good for one task only but force event organizers to painful data migrations (on average, an event organizer uses 6 different disconnected systems!); or old-fashioned conference systems, which are mostly out of touch with event organizers’ reality and require high upfront costs.
That’s why we decided to merge our experiences as software builders and event organizers and create a Software-as-a-service platform that will offer event organizers a modern, state-of-the-art system that will cover all their needs. It will also provide a first-class experience for attendees, speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors, who will all have access to the different aspects of the platform and need to work together in order for an event to succeed. run.events is offered as a web application as well as a mobile app (available on the Apple and Google stores), which both cover different aspects of the functionality.
For us, it was important not to make any compromises with the quality. We would rather go to the market later after ensuring the features we offer are complete, tested, and proven with real events. We also did not want any distraction or interference from people who don’t know the industry that well. That’s why we decided to bootstrap the platform, using our own finances for development. Now that the initial version of the product is ready, trialed and checked, we might open up to financing possibilities, but the initial freedom to develop was very important for us. When I say proven, run.events might be opening up to the broad market today, but they have been functional and in use since February 2022. Eight events have been organized with run.events before this point: four paid events and four community ones.
During this past year:
So, yes, we are ready for the big day. All of this makes us confident that the platform is ready for the market, and the feedback from the organizers has been overwhelming.
The pricing of run.events is commission-based, which means that event organizers don’t need to pay anything in advance, and the price for using run.events will depend on their financial success. What we can say is that for the cost, which will be mostly smaller than with Eventbrite or similar ticketing apps, with run.events organizers will be gaining a broad set of functionalities which include complete ticketing and invoicing solutions, as well as speaker, agenda and sponsor management, in addition to a mobile app, faithful event companion for creating personal schedules, business networking, gamification and much more.
run.events will always be free for communities, charities, and non-profits, regardless of whether their events are free, they take a minimal fee to cover costs, or they are raising money for charity. Very soon, run.events will be gaining additional community-building features so that community organizers and champions can use a powerful toolset for managing and running their communities.
The same is true for private events: it is envisioned that for Q3/2023, run.events will be gaining features for private organizers to arrange office parties, birthdays, or any other kind of private events with run.events. As long as they don’t sell (paid) tickets, those private events will be free as well.
Next, a few words about security, compliance and the underlying tech. We are using the Microsoft Azure cloud for run.events, and all of the data are stored in Microsoft’s West Europe data centers in the Netherlands. We are a European company, and for us, security, compliance and data privacy are our top priorities, so we will make sure that our attendee data are safe and protected. We also have not implemented our own authentication providers. Instead, we allow our users to utilize their existing accounts (with any of the major authentication providers) to access run.events. We are not collecting users’ credit card numbers or any other payment data – that has been delegated to Stripe, who are the champions in that discipline. And, of course, we are not selling or passing for analysis any run.events data to any third party, and we will never do anything like that.
Finally, a bit of trivia. In the beginning, when we still didn’t know what to call the product, we called it “Project Modesty,” named after Peter O’Donnell’s fictional comic character Modesty Blaise, which many members of our team grew up with and enjoyed. It is a good match: run.events is in a way, just like Mam’selle Modesty. Classy, friendly, helpful, extremely capable, and kicks butts when needed.
Welcome to run.events!