Social Tables has released a free version of its Event Planner Essential, a digital platform that helps organizers and planners bring events to life while allowing them to collaborate with event stakeholders, venues and each other in real-time.

By giving event professionals access to this complimentary event planning package, Social Tables hopes to empower more planners to bring people together face-to-face, regardless of event technology budgets.

“Whether you’re a professional planner who needs a powerful yet easy-to-use tool to design your event, a parent volunteering at the registration table of your child’s school fundraiser or a leader who needs to find a great location for your team building activity, we want to help,” said Dan Berger, CEO of Social Tables.

He continued, “Our software has been proven to help planners win more clients faster, save time, and have more fun while doing it, and in these stressful times, we need events more than ever to bring people together to achieve great things. We want to give you the tools that can take your event from memorable to unforgettable.”

The Free Planner Essential platform allows users gain access to the following features:

• Diagram: a full-service communication tool for creating accurate diagrams, with real-time collaboration and more than 700 custom objects, down to the 3D details.
• Check-In: a mobile app designed to improve the attendee experience, equipped with analytics to understand event attendee attrition.
• Destination: a new venue search engine that connects an extensive network of planners directly with event venues and their accurate floor plan content.

According to Social Tables officials, the company’s event management software has been used by more than 4,500 planners and properties to create more than two million events, with the platform boasting a growing community of hospitality and meeting professionals, and its venue search engine helping more than 100,000 event planners build direct relationships with venues.

Sarah Cissna, independent planner and owner of The Side Lobby, was fed up with what could often be a long, drawn-out venue sourcing process before adopting Social Tables’ Destination platform last spring.

“I have clients with very specific venue needs, so trying to get that information of how much space a venue actually has – not just total square footage but how that space breaks down – could be incredibly frustrating and time-consuming,” Cissna explained.

She continued, “I was talking to Social Tables about their other products and they told me they were trying out a venue search engine where I could pull up all these different properties in one place and look at floor plans right away. It was like shopping at Target – I could get everything done in one place. I love that there’s a mapping function, that I can see where the venues physically are on a map … the other go-to sources don’t have that feature.”

Although Cissna can’t quantify how much time she’s saved since adding Destination to her event planning toolbox, she knows she’s saved herself plenty of stress.

“It’s just reduced my frustration with that process, and I feel like it’s comprehensive and I’m not missing anything,” Cissna said.

She added, “The more time I can save on weeding out properties that don’t fit the needs of my clients, the more time I can spend talking to a venue and finding out details about their spaces that you can’t find out on paper. Any sort of time-saving or frustration-saving mechanism that you can incorporate into your world is valuable, especially if you’re a small business owner.”

For more information about Social Tables’ Free Planner Essential and Event Planner Essential software packages, go here.

​​​​​​