Stova

RATING:

4.3

(81)

About Stova

Stova (Formerly Meetingplay, Aventri & eventcore) is a cloud-based meeting and event management solution that helps businesses of all sizes across various industry verticals to manage various processes in an event's planning lifecycle. Stova lets users create events, manage and customize event sessions and agendas, add and manage speakers and generate customized reports. It also offers features such as email marketing, event surveys, networking and matchmaking, a seating plan manager, project management, event budget management, room and resource inventory management and venue and hotel sourcing. Stova offers integration with several third-party applications that include Salesforce, Silverpop, Eloqua, Clickatell, OnWire and Marketo among others. Stova also offers user...

Awards and Recognition

FrontRunner 2020
Software Advice's FrontRunners report ranks top products based on user reviews, which helps businesses find the right software.
Stova’s event technology ecosystem helps you simplify event planning for all your all your events from SKO’s & field marketing programs to large scale user conferences or trade shows. More than a technology platform, we are your partner for the long term.

Stova Reviews

Overall Rating

4.3

Ratings Breakdown

Secondary Ratings

Ease-of-use

4

Customer Support

4.5

Value for money

4

Functionality

4

Most Helpful Reviews for Stova

1 - 5 of 80 Reviews

Susan

Non-Profit Organization Management, 51-200 employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed June 2016

Our complicated ticketing was made much simpler!!

TEDxSydney is a one day event, with a complicated ticketing/purchasing process and many categories of attendees. In the past, we have managed this complexity via a combination of spreadsheets and home-grown databases, which has often resulted in loss of information or registrants on the day, as well as created challenges with reconciling multiple lists of registrants. We used etouches for our event this year, and it made such a difference to have one source of truth for all our registrations, payments and refunds, and to allow us to have an easy and quick snapshot of all our attendees at our fingertips.

PROS

I enjoyed having a one-stop shop for all our registrations and the super-flexible configuration capability that handled most of our complex needs. We were able to accommodate all of the attendee categories with the variety of set-up options within eReg. I also liked the ability to link events to mailing lists in eMarketing, which we only really scratched the surface with this year. Next year, we plan to integrate them together even more. We also really benefitted from the ability to print badges for the event on the day directly from etouches. Again, we did not use this to its full potential this year, so looking forward to utilising the software even more in this area next year.

CONS

One big challenge we had was the requirement to have at least one public category of attendee that, apparently, cannot be sold out. There had to be an option for people to select when they went to register. Our event is not a public event and purchases/registrations are by invite only, but invitations sometimes went out to more people than we had tickets available for or, alternatively, had an expiry date set for them. If these categories hit capacity or expired, there was no clean way to display a simple unavailable or sold out message without offering another public option. While the software is very customisable, this flexibility does come with some downsides. There are a number of different areas/screens we had to remember to change and update if we added new categories. This was probably made more difficult by the fact that we had a lot of categories, but it did mean that a few categories did not get set-up correctly because we missed one of these many steps.

Alex

Information Technology and Services, 51-200 employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

3

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed March 2019

Robust product with some limitations, great support - worth considering if you can afford it

Mostly positive experience. Interface is relatively modern looking - I think it got a facelift recently. Aventri is a solid product. Big companies use it, presumably they have done their due diligence when selecting an events management platform. I also evaluated others like Cvent, eventbrite, etc. Naturally it’s way more capable than simpler yet way more affordable systems that are bolted on like Wix or Constant Contact. It is mostly geared towards larger events that require some relatively complex logistical planning. Organizing Conferences, trade shows, summits etc. Anything with 70+ people with different attendee types, it will have more value. It is still suitable for running things like smaller events like lunches, or dinners for under 50 people. Its a very good RSVP system to track various attendees types, needs and selection choices. It has good logic built in for mailing invitations and sending invites or messages to specific groups of attendees. The hardest part will be standing up the system, populating it with data, and getting your team properly trained and using it competently.

PROS

Mostly easy to use - lots of online resources and guides to self-learn - online and phone support is quite responsive and knowledgeable. Robust feature set. - rsvp reporting is solid - custom field questions is solid - pre populated field in registration form is useful - almost any sort of option has been built in - I primarily focus on RSVP, attendance and invites - can set agendas for breakout sessions etc. - can build a website based on backend info of the event - i.e. update info in the backend and it is immediately reflected on website and reg form. - easy to send invite and rsvp reports by specific filters (e.g. sales rep) - integrates with boomset which makes badge printing almost completely painless

CONS

- Can be expensive to purchase - Does take time to learn the platform - Website builder needs updating for responsive design (beta was released and it’s good) - Difficult to access event information or update event via mobile device - i.e. there is no mobile app for the event planner. This is a huge pain, actually - mostly for getting guest list or dashboard level info. - costs even more for additional features compared to similar competitors

Leah

Events Services, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

1

EASE OF USE

1

VALUE FOR MONEY

1

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

2

Reviewed November 2019

Run. Run Away Fast.

Overall experience: terrible. Benefits I've realized: literally any other software would be better than this. I'm counting down the days until our contract is up.

PROS

The ONLY positive thing I have to say about this software is this: The customer service team seems to have it pretty much together...which they'd have to because I can imagine they are quite busy with all the customers trying to figure out their convoluted system.

CONS

Where do I begin? - Upon trying to get out of our 3-year contract (after suffering through months of painful training), we were told by our sales rep that "Aventri is incredibly intuitive" and "there are endless features if you'd just go through the training". Well we did go through the training. The free training, that is. Aventri wanted another $2,500 for private training with our team! If your product is so intuitive, why would we need 16 hours of training valued at $2,500? - I absolutely abhor this software. I dread having to figure out new features. 90% of the time, I end up emailing customer service because I cannot find what I need. This software makes about as much sense as a purple llama named Tuesday that didn't like his doorknob for the fuzzy coffee cup. - Their "client support portal" is a joke. Supposedly you type in a phrase and it comes back with helpful tips and articles to solve your problem. Well, in my opinion someone screwed with the algorithm and it spits back the most useless junk you've ever seen. It is NEVER relevant or helpful.

Reason for choosing Stova

Sales pitch. Biggest mistake ever.

Reasons for switching to Stova

RegOnline was acquired by Cvent.

Martin

201-500 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed January 2017

etouches for association management

Kellen has partnered with etouches since 2012. We have seen the company grow & prosper, and we are very pleased with the results. Top successes include continued ease of use, great customer support, good online learning, useful API, great integration between modules, great onsite experience. Some of the challenges include lack of development of the online booth sales & management module (ebooth), slow development of integration with association management systems (AMSs, such as NetForum, YourMembership, i4a...), limited scope of the appointment-scheduling module (esocial). We have used other systems, and for an all-around event management solution, or just as a registration management tool, we feel etouches can't be outdone. We feel we've been part of their development, through sharing challenges and helping design solutions. They've come a long way with their Call for Abstracts module (eselect), and we provided a lot of feedback on that in the early stages. We use ehome quite often, and it's very easy to learn & use, in support of the ereg module. We do not use the task management or budgeting solutions. We have used both emarketing and escan successfully. Their customer service department is responsive, and we are happy to report that senior management is also very responsive to inquiries (when we feel more urgency is required). We process around 10,000 registrations, plus 1000 eselect uses, annually. We chose etouches based on projected ROI and have not been disappointed. We also appreciate and utilize the system's ability to work with multiple currencies, multiple global payment gateways, and multiple languages, including Chinese.

Kasee

Government Administration, 51-200 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed October 2019

One of my favorite event management platforms!

I have been able to better coordinate discount codes for certain registrants plus offer various registration types, which has saved me a lot of time and communication. Another prior issue was CEU scanning, which with Aventri will be much more streamlined, will reduce congestion and will require less staff volunteers.

PROS

The most helpful tool for me is their Custom Reporting feature. I can find exactly what I need, when I need it. I also really enjoy being able to see the website update automatically as I make any changes or updates. The new BETA version is so much better!

CONS

I have no complaints at this time other than its high price. Any issues I encounter are quickly remedied by their fantastic support staff. They typically respond pretty quickly and escalate the issue if needed. I also appreciate the opportunity to leave feedback on each ticket.

Reason for choosing Stova

None

Reasons for switching to Stova

We wanted to have a more inclusive platform with a global reach.