14 Questions That Spook Conference Organizers — Answered by Summitware
Over the past few years, we’ve talked with a lot of event organizers, from first calls to the days on site. Whatever the size of the event, the same questions keep coming back: where the data lives, how to get set up, how to reach attendees and speakers, and how to run a smooth event day. In this post, we’ve gathered the 14 questions we hear most often. For each one, we share how Summitware handles it today.
1. GDPR, hosting and data protection
“Where is our data hosted, who is responsible for it, and are you GDPR compliant?”
When managing a conference, organizers collect plenty of personal information, from attendee contact details to speaker profiles and registration records. Naturally, they want to know where that information goes, who has access to it, and how it is protected.
How Summitware answers:
Everything is hosted in the European Union. The application and database run in Frankfurt, with backups in Ireland. When we send emails, we use an EU-based connection.
Organizers remain responsible for deciding how their event data is used, while Summitware processes that data on their behalf. We provide a Data Processing Agreement and maintain a list of subprocessors.
Registration Town also supports recording consent during registration, including optional consents for photography or sharing information with sponsors. Attendees can delete their accounts, with personal data anonymized after the applicable retention period.
2. Setup, onboarding and reusing last year’s edition
“How long does the setup take, what do you need from us, and can next year’s edition start from this year’s?”
Starting a new conference from scratch every year sounds exhausting, especially when many elements remain the same. One of the questions we often hear is whether organizers need to recreate registration forms, tickets, emails, and program settings for each new edition.
How Summitware answers:
New customers provide us all details on how they worked in the past. We accept any format of input – text, excel, word, pdf, powerpoint. Then we process that information and create a customized sandbox where the user flows and the admin backend can be tested and adjusted. Once we have the requirements, the setup takes only from minutes to a couple of hours. We review the final configuration and forms, check the compliance requirements and move to production.
A new conference edition starts using the previous one as a starting point. Registration forms, ticket categories, email templates, pages, program options, and automation settings can be carried over, while AI agents can run through the email templates and flag the ones that use hardcoded dates or links, so you would never send an email with last year’s conference details.
A separate sandbox lets you try new flows without touching the live event.
3. Emails to attendees and speakers
“Can each ticket type get its own confirmation email, sent from our own address, and why do our emails land in junk?”
Every attendee doesn’t necessarily need the same email. A physician registering for a medical congress might need different information from a speaker, sponsor, student, or industry representative.
Organizers also want to make sure emails arrive from their own event address and don’t disappear into spam folders.
How Summitware answers:
Registration Town includes an email system with customizable templates and merge fields.
Organizers can create different confirmation emails based on ticket type, registration status, or other relevant information. These messages can include details such as the attendee’s name, ticket information, payment status, or links to their account.
Emails can also be automated for actions such as registration confirmations, payment reminders, faculty invitations, and abstract decisions.
Messages are sent using the organizer’s own domain, helping maintain a consistent identity across conference communications.
We also help with sender authentication and email delivery settings, because even the most carefully written email isn’t useful if nobody receives it.
4. Abstract submission and review
“Can authors submit abstracts online, and how do accepted abstracts end up in the program?”
For scientific and medical conferences, abstract submissions are often one of the earliest and most important stages of preparation.
Collecting abstracts is one thing. Keeping track of deadlines, co-authors, revisions, decisions, and accepted presentations is another.
How Summitware answers:
Registration Town allows organizers to create online abstract submission forms with guidelines, deadlines, and opening and closing dates.
Authors can save drafts, make revisions, and provide information about co-authors. Organizers can manage submissions, export the collected information, and communicate acceptance or rejection decisions.
Once an abstract is accepted, it can become a presentation in the scientific program, maintaining its connection to the original submission.
This reduces the need to transfer information manually between separate abstract collections and program management tools.
5. Managing speakers and faculty
“How do we invite speakers, collect their bio, photo and travel details, and keep them informed when the program changes?”
A medical congress can involve hundreds of speakers, moderators, panelists, and other faculty members.
Collecting their biographies, photographs, travel details, and session confirmations is already a substantial task. Then come the last-minute changes.
How Summitware answers:
Registration Town provides a central faculty database where organizers can manage speaker profiles and their assignments.
Speakers can be invited directly from the platform and access their own portal to accept or decline assignments, answer additional questions, and provide photographs, biographies, and travel or hotel information.
Each faculty member can see their scheduled activities, while organizers can monitor assignment statuses without maintaining separate spreadsheets.
Speakers can also connect their schedules with Google or Outlook calendars.
When the scientific program changes, the information available through the platform stays connected to the updated assignments.
6. Badges and on-site check-in
“Can you print badges on site, can attendees check themselves in, and who brings the printers?”
The registration desk is often the first point of contact between attendees and the conference.
Nobody wants to start their conference standing in a long queue, especially when hundreds of people arrive shortly before the opening session.
Organizers frequently ask whether badges can be printed on demand, whether attendees can check themselves in, and whether they need to arrange all the equipment.
How Summitware answers:
Registration Town supports on-site badge printing and attendee check-in using QR codes.
Attendees can check in using their registration QR code or search for their registration at a self-service kiosk. Once their registration is verified, their badge can be printed.
Organizers can customize badge layouts, including attendee details, QR codes, and other information required for their event.
The same scanning system can also be used to track attendance in individual sessions or control access to specific activities.
Printers, scanners, and on-site staffing can be provided as an additional service, so organizers can decide how much of the on-site setup they want us to handle.
7. Integrations, API, import and export
“Can registrations flow into our CRM, accounting or BI tool, and can our app vendor pull the program?”
Conference organizers rarely work with just one piece of software.
They may already have accounting systems, CRM platforms, marketing tools, or external applications. The last thing they want is to copy the same information manually between them.
How Summitware answers:
First we start with a question - why do you need an export? Each export creates a copy which gets stale and needs to be handled with care according to GDPR rules. Most customers get surprised by how much functionality our platform covers and that there’s no need to move data at all. That being said, Registration Town supports data imports and exports, as well as integrations through its REST API and webhooks.
Organizers can import existing information from Excel, including speaker data and scientific program details. Excel exports are available for attendee records, registrations, orders, abstracts, speaker information, session attendance, and other conference data.
The API allows external systems to access relevant information, while webhooks can notify connected applications when particular actions occur, such as a new registration or a program update.
Registration Town also supports connections with services such as QuickBooks Online, HotelMap, Google and Outlook calendars, and analytics platforms.
For systems without a ready-made integration, our team can simply build one.
The idea is to keep information moving between the tools organizers already use, rather than forcing everything into separate workflows.
8. Branding, websites and pages
“Can it look like our event, live on our own domain, and fit into our existing website?”
Every conference has its own identity, and organizers naturally want that identity to remain consistent across registration, communication, and the attendee experience.
Nobody wants attendees to feel as though they’ve suddenly been redirected to an unrelated platform.
How Summitware answers:
Registration Town can run on an organizer’s own domain, with a theme that follows the event’s colors, fonts, and visual identity.
Registration pages, abstract submission forms, speaker portals, invoices, and attendee communications can follow the conference branding.
Organizers can also embed registration forms, ticket sales, and scientific programs directly into their existing websites.
The platform includes a website and page builder, allowing organizers to create and publish event pages without requiring a separate website for every workflow.
Our team prepares the initial theme and templates, while organizers remain in control of the content.
9. Reporting and dashboards
“How are registrations tracking compared with last year at this point, and can finance get revenue by country and ticket type?”
As a conference approaches, organizers want answers to questions such as:
How many people have registered? How does this compare with last year? Which ticket categories are selling? Where are attendees coming from?
And often, someone needs these numbers for a meeting in the next ten minutes.
How Summitware answers:
Registration Town includes reporting dashboards that provide an overview of conference activity.
Organizers can track registrations, orders, revenue, abstracts, badge printing, and session attendance, depending on the data collected for their event.
Reports can include weekly trends, filters, and comparisons with previous editions.
For more specific reporting requirements, our team can create custom dashboards, including year-on-year comparisons and other relevant breakdowns, even compare it with external data that you provide to us.
Dashboard information updates regularly, and reports can be exported to Excel when organizers need to share or analyze the data further.
10. CME credits, certificates and visa letters
“Can we prove how long each person attended each session, and send certificates afterwards?”
For medical and educational conferences, attendance isn’t always just about knowing who showed up.
Organizers may need to demonstrate how long participants attended specific sessions and provide evidence for continuing medical education (CME) accreditation.
How Summitware answers:
Registration Town supports session attendance tracking through QR code scanning.
When attendees enter or leave sessions, the system can record their attendance and calculate the time spent in each session. Organizers can then export this information for their accreditation reporting.
Registration Town also supports certificates based on organizer-defined templates and eligibility rules.
Certificates can be made available for download through the attendee portal and sent by email.
The platform also supports generating invitation letters for attendees who require documentation for visa applications.
CME credit calculations themselves remain subject to the accreditation body’s rules. Attendance data can be exported and calculated credits imported for use in certificates.
11. Building and publishing the program
“Can we import our program from Excel, show it on our own website and keep it in sync everywhere?”
A complex scientific program isn’t simply a list of sessions. There may be several parallel tracks, hundreds of presentations, multiple speakers per session, and constant changes to times, rooms, and assignments.
One change can affect the website, attendee schedules, venue screens, and speaker information.
How Summitware answers:
Registration Town includes a scientific program builder for managing rooms, sessions, presentations, speakers, and tracks.
Organizers can build programs visually or import information from Excel. The platform can also identify scheduling conflicts, helping organizers spot overlapping speaker assignments.
Once published, the same program information can be displayed on the conference website, in the mobile event app, and through the public API.
Slideshow City can use the program to display the current session, upcoming presentations, speaker information, and other content on lecture hall screens.
Rather than maintaining several separate versions of the program, organizers can make changes in one place and keep the connected displays up to date.
12. Exhibitors, sponsors and lead retrieval
“How do sponsors order and assign their passes, and how do exhibitors scan leads at their booth?”
Sponsors and exhibitors are an important part of many medical conferences, and they often need more than just a registration ticket.
Organizers want to know how companies can manage their staff passes, how exhibitor registrations are handled, and whether exhibitors can collect information from interested visitors.
How Summitware answers:
Registration Town provides an exhibitor portal where participating companies can order their packages and passes.
Exhibitors can manage and assign passes to their team members, individually or through spreadsheet uploads.
During the conference, exhibitors can scan attendee badges using their own phones or handheld scanners to collect leads.
They can add relevant notes and export the collected information to Excel for follow-up.
This keeps exhibitor registration and lead collection connected to the same system used for conference registration.
13. A mobile event app
“Do you have an app with the program, a personal schedule and push notifications?”
Attendees increasingly expect to access conference information directly from their phones.
They want to find the next session, check their personal schedule, view speaker information, and receive important updates without searching through printed programs or emails.
How Summitware answers:
Summitware offers a native event app for iOS and Android, connected to Registration Town.
Attendees can access their conference using a code, QR code, or link.
The app includes the scientific program organized by day and track, personal schedules, speaker biographies, practical information, and announcements.
It also provides access to attendee ticket QR codes, allowing participants to use their phones during check-in.
Organizers manage announcements through Registration Town, while program information remains connected to the central conference program.
The app gives attendees access to the information they need without organizers having to maintain a completely separate event application.
14. Ticket types, discounts and group bookings
“Can we offer early-bird, member and student rates and discount codes, and let one person book for a whole group?”
Conference registration isn’t always as straightforward as selling one ticket at one price.
Medical congresses often have early-bird rates, society member discounts, student categories, industry tickets, and group registrations.
Some categories may require additional approval or documentation.
How Summitware answers:
Registration Town allows organizers to create different ticket categories with their own prices, registration periods, and eligibility requirements.
Organizers can set early-bird and late registration rates, create percentage-based discount codes, and request additional information or documentation for particular attendee categories.
For group registrations, one person can purchase multiple tickets and assign them to individual attendees, including through spreadsheet uploads.
Each participant then receives their own ticket and can complete their personal information.
This allows organizers to manage a variety of registration rules within the same platform rather than handling exceptions manually.
So, are conference organizers still spooked?
Organizing a conference will always come with surprises. Speakers change their schedules, registrations arrive at the last minute, and there is usually at least one unexpected request just before the event begins.
We can’t promise to make every challenge disappear, but we can make many of them easier to manage.
That’s what we work on every day at Summitware: building practical tools for the people behind medical, scientific, and educational conferences. Have a spooky Weekend!