Accelevents Reviews

Pros

I've used Accelevents to host virtual events for 3 years in a row. The product is straightforward for event administrators. It gives you the right control to design your event while providing a good interface for attendees. We have been very pleased with the ease-of-use for our attendees too. The 100% browser-based delivery means no downloads for attendees. Our event attendees have continually rated Accelevents very high in our post-event attendee survey. Their support team is fast, and the knowledge base website has answers to most questions.

Cons

The gamification aspect could be improved in the platform. It's not bad, but it could be better.

Alternatives Considered

Cvent Event Management

Reasons for Switching to Accelevents

The platform has the features we need, the pricing model is fair, and my experience as an attendee to a prior virtual event hosted on Accelevents.

Pros

Very simple to set up and customize. Able to upload logos, change colors, add speaker bios very easily with an intuitive interface. Customer service was fantastic.[sensitive content hidden] went above and beyond to walk us through all of our issues and help us test everything out.

Cons

There were a few limitations in full customization particularly around Sessions and how to move people from one room to another. Some of our team had issues navigating the software, but that was rare.

Alternatives Considered

Zoom Workplace

Reasons for Switching to Accelevents

Fairly low cost and all the features we needed for a small conference.

Pros

The product dashboard easy very intuitive and easy to navigate through.

Cons

The product is generally good no complaints.

Pros

Ease of platform use. Live chat and support.

Cons

Analytics - They are completely limited and no easy to get the actual information that has value.

Integrations - There no integrations to Salesforce and Hubspot are minimal with the necessary tracking requirements not possible to pass through.

Registration Source Tracking - There is none if you have host your event on your own landing page. You cannot track where a registration comes from i.e. social media, direct, etc.

Does not support events streamed in multiple time zones in any efficient and organized way

Pros

One of the things I liked most about AE is simply their responsiveness. We had a direct line of communication with [sensitive content hidden]
and he was always friendly, receptive to questions and requests, and eager to help make sure our events went off without a hitch.

Cons

I wish there were tiers for customization that my clients could taker advantage of. The "all or nothing" pricing for customization definitely put a couple clients off from making the site look exactly like what they wanted it to look like.

Pros

1. Platform layout- from attendees' view is easy to use. 2. Registration- creating the registration form, testing and dispatching was easy3. Speaker session- creating speaker sessions was easy to use4. Accelevents team- everyone was super helpful, responsive, and friendly5. Accelevents DES- having DES to assist with all the work prior to event start date and on event days was amazing and much needed

Cons

1. Speaker name tag on screen- when presenters are live in their session, their name doesn't appear on their window for attendees to identify the speakers on main stage2. Live stream lag time - major lag time from backstage to front stage3. Live stream screen sharing video- there was a major glitch when trying to screen share a video file in a main session4. Speaker background- doesn't have an option for speakers to choose or blur their background

Pros

The customer service at Accelevents is superb. I have work with many systems/platforms and by far this is the best customer service and response time I have ever experienced.

Cons

4-day event limitation. Some of our events span more than 4 days.

Pros

Easy to use, robust, amazing support, powerful hardware implications for onsite badge printing, friendly team of professionals.

Cons

I truly say enough good about the Accelevents product, other than I wish I would have found them sooner.

Pros

We have used Accelevents for bookings and it works well.

Cons

Nothing negative to say. Would recommend!

Pros

I loved the easy to use features and the ease of use for attendees was amazing. It gave us an opportunity to move all of our event tech into one place which made it easier for us as admins and for the attendee. A really great platform that has worked well for us and met all of our needs.

Cons

I have no negatives. They were very up front and transparent with pricing and in addressing my needs, which was great.

Pros

Top three would be 1) the service - from initial contact, first-time user, and follow-up - I felt completely confident in the Accelevents team. Timely, helpful, sincere responses. 2) user-friendly, and getting friendlier - don't need a ton of learning or training to get started quickly and execute successfully. 3) Customizable and lots of options - can bend it to my specific needs and their team is very good at helping you be creative. Made me think outside the box of how I thought of the way I was doing things.

Cons

Nothing I felt like, 'oh no, what is this?! ' The few thoughts and suggestions I had have workarounds, have been implemented or are on the road map.

Pros

I have used the Accelevent platform to host online auctions for the past three years. We just wrapped up our 3rd online auction and the process couldn't be easier. I love how we can cut and paste auction items and descriptions from previous online auctions. This makes the set up of the new auction so smooth. All of the choices and features of settling the credit card payments are robust and straightforward. The bidder interface is intuitive and easy. We couldn't be happier. It is complex enough to solicit auction items, to set a bid price and to write the descriptions. To have the Accelvent platform so efficient to use with all of the necessary bells and whistles makes the overall experience from set up, to live auction to settlement is seamless and awesome! I love that Accelevents is constantly enhancing the site to accommodate all types of events. I love the new feature of accepting online donations. Also, the customer service is excellent. Someone is always available when I have a question! Thanks Accelevents for another successful event!

Cons

The only drawback is that I could not copy the photos from prior auctions.

Pros

The site is extremely user friendly without the need to be a technical genius. It is very clear how to set up your main page and then to add items, including names, photos, and descriptions as well as bidding information.

The auction is also extremely user friendly for your bidders. People can simply bid from their phone or computer following an easy few step process. Bidders are also alerted immediately if they are outbid adding a competitive edge to the bidding. Because the auction is online, there is no limit on who it reaches. The site can be shared outside of your targeted group.

Cons

This was our second time using AccelEvents for our online auction. After our first auction, we made suggestions for areas that could be improved and all of those changes were implemented.

Pros

One phrase comes to mind - ease of use. My silent auction was easy to set up, easy to customize, and it was easy for our users to navigate/bid. Seriously - they thought of everything!

Cons

The only difficulty I had was in customizing emails to be sent directly from Accelevents. It was uncharacteristically complicated and difficult compared to everything else within Accelevents. I eventually gave up and sent emails through another platform. I would consider this a tiny problem in an otherwise fantastic platform.

Pros

This software is incredibly fool-proof and is accessible via multiple devices which makes adding late arriving items a breeze.

Cons

We have had issues in regards to the ease of operation of our guests and difficulties signing in and staying signed in. This does not fall squarely on the shoulders of Accelevents as I am sure that much of it was operator error. If this service came in the form of an easy to use phone apps, it would be hands down the best product on the market!

Pros

The user interface, for the most part, was very quick to learn. A lot of the features were very intuitive, such as the way the Agenda works, how transitioning between Main Stage sessions happened, and how easy it was to network with other attendees. The ability to have statistical data on specific sessions with the Analysis tab was also very useful as it allowed us to make some on-the-fly decisions to try to maximize attendee engagement.

Cons

There are some features that are less intuitive than we would have liked, such as the lack of ability for the moderator of a session to mute other speakers, the strict pixel requirements for photos and logos, and how the Zoom integration didn't go as smoothly as we had hoped.

Pros

If you are looking for a simple website to host a small silent auction that doesn't cost very much, I think this is a good website.

Cons

It is very basic. We picked it because it was the cheapest option for our fundraiser. If we had more bidders and auction items, I think this website wouldn't have worked. Basic software.

Alternatives Considered

Silent Auction Pro

Pros

I particulary liked it being an online platform which allowed me to work from anywhere and any computer.

Cons

There was some weird glitch while entering item descriptions that it would let me type a few letters and then refresh and what I had typed wasn't there anymore. We had the same the glitch the previous year. Customer service told me to hit the refresh button which did seem to work a bit before it would glitch again, in which case I would just hit refresh again. I didn't make entering the infomation difficult it just prolonged the process.

Pros

Its very easy to setup and get sponsors listed online. Super easy to use and setup a nice site. It got a lot of people asking me what website I used for their own events, and the pricing was by far the least expensive compared to so many other sites that tried to do half of what this site does.

Cons

They should allow the sponsor photos to not need to be a 2:1 ratio, caused some minor editing of photos by me. It would be nice to add a feature to see if everyone has placed their tickets and if not, remind them to enter them into prizes. It would also be nice to see how the end of the raffle works beforehand, to better answer participants questions about the results.

Pros

This software is so easy to use--very intuitive, not too many features, but it has the right ones. Customer support is great--in chat or email with quick simple responses! Low cost--we raised $8000 and were able to keep most of it last year. Integration for payment was awesome!

Cons

We have multiple items in our auction that are the same (parking spots)--would be nice to list it on time and give the 3 spots to the 3 highest bidders. Small feature that's definitely not critical -- but a nice add on.

Pros

We picked Accelevents for the video chat function as our event had a heavy emphasis on networking. It worked wonderfully for what we needed.

Cons

Having to set up Sponsors and Exhibitors separately - all of our Sponsors were Exhibitors as well, tho I understand the reasoning for this.

Pros

As a first-time user of this software, I highly recommend anyone looking to move their auction online. This was the first time our organization moved it online and it could not have been easier!! The set up was simple and easy to comprehend, and customer service was superb! I could message them at any time and they would typically answer within minutes -- even the day of our event! I also liked how you can pick and choose which features you want to use.

Cons

My only suggestions would be:
1.) I had difficulty printing some of your how-to articles. I would suggest making them available in PDF version so they are easier to print. When I reached out for help, I received the response "they're made for online reading only"
2.) I had difficulty uploading a photo for the banner on our event page. I would suggest looking into this.

Pros

Staff was very responsive from beginning to end. They would usually respond within a couple minutes to questions. The have a great banks of help tips and topics. Very adaptable to your conference needs, ease of administrating, great solid video and audio.

Cons

It is an adjustment for participants to shift form a zoom format to an interactive full round platform. Web based can limit zoom functions like breakout rooms (also limited in web based zoom).

Pros

The Accelevents program provided us a great platform to use for our virtual leadership conference that we held due to COVID-19 for about 120 of our employees from 9 different states and time zones. It was very intuitive and was easy for everyone to navigate.

Cons

The program is constantly evolving but I think if the networking function of the software was easier to use, it could create more opportunity for people to connect virtually. I think it would be great if it functioned like facetime, you click on an attendee and it contacted them by instant message and then if accepted you could have a video meeting.

Pros

We put on an annual black tie for over 300 guests. About five years ago we decided to go mobile with our silent auction and researched every provider available. Accelevents was hands down the most competitively priced but after our first year, it was clear to us that more importantly, their platform is the best out there! We’ve been using Accelevents loyally since day one, and couldn’t be happier with the service, pricing, and most importantly the product, which our guests also love!

Cons

We are completely satisfied with the product.