Industry: Event Tech

Event Tech — What's Going On (May 2026)

The Short Version

Event tech is really two separate markets. One is big enterprise event-management software (companies like Cvent, Bizzabo, and Hopin/RingCentral) — that market isn't realistic for a solo founder to break into. The other is much smaller: tools to help independent event planners run their own small business — sending proposals to clients, coordinating with vendors, and tracking event budgets. That second market is where a solo founder actually has a shot.

A few tools already exist here — Aisle Planner ($75+/month, built for weddings), HoneyBook ($16+/month, built for many kinds of freelancers), and Planning Pod ($49+/month) — but each has gaps. The biggest gap: corporate event planners working inside small companies, who organize 5 to 30 events a year and have no dedicated tool at all — they just use email, Excel, and Google Drive.

How Big Is This, Really?

According to Grand View Research, the market for event-management software was worth $9.32 billion in 2025 and could grow to $17.33 billion by 2030 (about 13.2% bigger each year).

Here's who's actually paying, and whether a solo founder could realistically sell to them:

  • Big companies with dedicated event teams (1,000+ employees) use tools like Cvent ($800+/month), Stova, and Bizzabo. No solo path here.
  • Mid-size conference and trade-show organizers use Whova, Eventbrite Pro, or Hubilo. This space is already crowded.
  • Independent event planners (freelancers or small agencies) use Aisle Planner (built for weddings), HoneyBook (built for many kinds of freelancers), or Planning Pod. There's still room here.
  • Corporate event coordinators working inside small companies mostly use email, Excel, and shared Google Drive folders. This group is genuinely underserved.
  • People organizing ticketed events (concerts, community events) use Eventbrite (free, but takes a cut: 3.7% + $1.79 per ticket), Universe, or Ticket Tailor. This space is competitive.

The best target for a solo founder: independent event planners running their own business, who need help writing client proposals, keeping track of vendor contacts, and managing event budgets — not big attendee-facing event platforms.

The Real Problems People Have

Writing client proposals and contracts

On event-planning forums like r/eventplanning and r/weddingplanning, planners say things like: "I spend 3 hours writing a custom proposal for every client who asks, and 60% of them never book me." Independent planners send these proposals as Word documents or Canva PDFs with zero tracking — they have no idea if the client even opened it, or how long they spent reading it. HoneyBook helps a little, but at $16+/month it's built for all kinds of freelancers, not specifically for event planners, so it's missing event-specific templates. What planners actually want: "A proposal template that looks professional, shows my pricing clearly, and tells me the moment the client opens it."

Coordinating with vendors

Planners typically juggle 10 to 30 vendors per event — caterers, venues, photographers, sound and lighting crews, florists — almost entirely through email. There's no single place to track which vendor contracts are signed, when payments are due, or who to call on the day of the event. One planner described the nightmare: "On the day of the event, I couldn't find the caterer's direct number — it was buried in an email thread from 3 months ago." Aisle Planner does track vendors, but it's built only for weddings and costs $75+/month.

Tracking event budgets

In-house corporate event coordinators at small companies plan 5 to 30 events a year with no real budget-tracking tool. A common problem: "I have a $15,000 budget for this conference, I've already committed to 6 vendors, and I'm tracking all of it in a Google Sheet — I keep finding out I've gone over budget only at the last minute." Excel and email are what everyone uses today; there's no dedicated $29/month tool built just for tracking corporate event budgets.

Who Else Is Already in This Space

Big enterprise event platforms (Cvent, Bizzabo, Stova, Hopin) all require an expensive, drawn-out sales process. Don't try to compete here.

Wedding and event-planner business tools:

  • Aisle Planner — $75+/month, built for weddings specifically, good for boutique wedding planners
  • HoneyBook — $16+/month, a general tool for many kinds of freelancers; handles proposals and contracts, but nothing event-specific
  • Planning Pod — $49+/month, general event planning, but the interface is cluttered
  • 17hats — $45+/month, a general business-management tool for freelancers
  • The gap: a $39/month tool built specifically for event planners, with vendor tracking, client proposals, and budget management — lighter than Planning Pod, and more focused than HoneyBook

Ticketing tools: Eventbrite (free, but takes 3.7% + $1.79 per ticket), Ticket Tailor ($0.65 flat per ticket), Luma (free, for community events). This space is crowded and commoditized — companies compete on fees, not features.

Corporate event tools: Cvent Flex and Bizzabo are enterprise-only. The gap: a simple $29/month budget and vendor tracker built for in-house corporate event coordinators.

What You Could Actually Build

BEST BET — A CRM built specifically for event planners

  • The problem: independent event planners manage every client event across email, spreadsheets, and PDF proposals, with no single place to see client status, vendor contacts, and budget
  • Who would pay: freelance and boutique event planners, at $39/month
  • What to build: a pipeline that tracks each client from inquiry → proposal sent → booked → event completed, a vendor contact directory assigned per event, contract status tracking, and an automatically generated "day-of" sheet with all vendor info
  • How to find customers: r/eventplanning, wedding-industry Facebook groups, the International Live Events Association (ILEA) community, and event planner associations
  • What you're up against: HoneyBook ($16/month) is the main alternative but isn't built specifically for events; Aisle Planner ($75/month) only works for weddings and costs more
  • Verdict: a real niche — genuine day-to-day pain, a clear person who'd pay for it, though a fairly small pool of customers (roughly 150,000 professional event planners in the US)

Worth trying — A budget tracker for corporate event planners

  • The problem: in-house corporate event coordinators at small and medium companies track $5,000–$50,000 event budgets in Excel with no clear view of what they've committed to spend versus what they've actually spent
  • Who would pay: corporate event coordinators at companies with 50–500 employees, at $29/month
  • What to build: create an event with a total budget, add vendor commitments (both estimated and contracted amounts), track payments, see the remaining budget with warnings if you're going over, and generate a budget summary for manager approval
  • How to find customers: LinkedIn (targeting people with "event coordinator" in their job title), r/eventplanning, and communities for corporate assistants
  • What you're up against: no dedicated tool exists — Excel is what everyone uses
  • Verdict: a real gap, but hard to reach — corporate event coordinators don't organize in online communities the way independent planners do

Probably not worth it — Post-event surveys and attendee feedback

  • The problem: independent event planners don't collect organized feedback from attendees, which costs them testimonials, referrals, and ideas for improving future events
  • Who would pay: event planners who want a system for referrals and improvement, at $19/month
  • What you'd build: a branded survey sent after the event, an automatic email sequence to attendees, combined results with a simple satisfaction score, and a client-facing "event success report"
  • Verdict: skip it — survey tools are already a commodity. Typeform and Google Forms already solve this well enough that it's hard to stand out.

The Bottom Line

Event tech is a decent opportunity for a solo founder, but not a great one — call it a 5 out of 10. The attendee-facing side of the market is crowded, but independent event planners' own back-office work is genuinely underserved. The strongest path is a lightweight CRM built specifically for event planners — more focused than HoneyBook, cheaper than Aisle Planner. The total pool of customers is small (about 150,000 professional planners in the US), but they're running real businesses and will pay for something that saves them time on proposals and vendor coordination. Tracking corporate event budgets is the other real gap, but it's harder to reach those customers — often their company's IT department picks the software, not the person actually planning the event.

Where These Numbers Come From