Let’s be honest with each other for a minute.
If I asked how many of you feel fully in control of your event technology: not ‘hopeful’, not ‘we manage’, but genuinely in control; a few hands would go up, not many. Obviously, I couldn’t count anyway, but I suspect most of you would be shaking your heads at your screen right now.
What most teams are really struggling with is an overcomplicated event technology stack that grew without a clear owner.
This didn’t happen because you made bad decisions; it happened because events grew, expectations multiplied, and technology kept showing up with very convincing promises.
So let’s get practical; no philosophy, no future-gazing, just the moves that separate event teams who feel calm from those who feel busy.
Start With a Tech Stack Audit
Let’s decide what tech stays on your shortlist
This is where simplification starts, and it’s where most teams avoid looking.
A real tech stack audit isn’t an inventory exercise. It’s how you regain control of your event technology stack by understanding what actually supports the event journey.
- What part of the event journey does this support?
- Who owns it?
- What breaks if we remove it?
If the answers are fuzzy, event technology complexity sneaks in. Not through bad decisions, but through tools added to solve temporary problems that never get removed.
Most teams discover they are running parallel systems for the same job; or worse, tools nobody feels responsible for anymore, instead of a unified event management platform, for example. S&P Global research found that 39% of highly data-driven organizations manage more than 50 distinct data silos simultaneously, forcing teams to spend hours in ‘operational firefighting’ rather than actual analysis.
The goal is not to replace everything,
but to shorten the list until every tool earns its place.
Assign One Owner for the Entire Event Journey
If everyone owns a piece, no one owns the outcome
Most event teams are organized by function: registration, content, on-site, and reporting. Very few are organized around continuity.
Without a single owner for the entire event technology stack,
no amount of tooling will ever feel under control.
This single move reduces complexity fast, so decisions stop bouncing, trade-offs get resolved earlier, the event starts behaving like one system instead of a relay race.
The impact is backed by research: Gallup found that only 60% of American workers report knowing what’s expected of them in their role. When 40% lack role clarity, decision-making slows and accountability dissolves. Clear ownership doesn’t just improve efficiency, it reduces the ambiguity that Gallup identifies as a primary driver of employee burnout.
Map the Journey Before Touching Technology
Workflows first, platforms second
Before renewing a contract, adding a tool, or ‘just testing something new’, map the actual journey. Not the deck version, the real one:
- What happens first?
- Who touches what?
- Where does data move?
- Where handoffs occur?
- Where do people rely on memory, instead of process?
This exercise exposes redundancy in minutes. It also reveals where technology is compensating for unclear ownership or broken workflows.
Once the journey is visible, technology decisions stop being emotional; they become obvious.
Decide What ‘Good Enough’ Looks Like
Perfection is the fastest way to lose control
Overcomplication thrives on edge cases: one stakeholder request becomes a permanent feature, one unusual attendee flow becomes a new system. Soon the event is designed for exceptions instead of reality.
Define standards:
- What does good registration look like?
- What level of reporting actually changes decisions?
- What customization truly improves the attendee experience?
- When ‘good enough’ is clear, teams stop building for hypotheticals.
When teams chase perfection, they usually end up with brittle systems that fail the first time something changes
Stress-Test the System Before the Event
If a small change feels risky, that’s a warning!
Before the event, deliberately simulate common disruptions: change a session, swap a speaker, adjust capacity, update badges.
If those actions feel fragile or require workarounds, you have found your complexity hotspots. This is where systems break under pressure. Not during calm planning cycles.
Fixing brittleness here prevents chaos later, when the audience is already onsite and patience is gone.
Design Measurement at the Start! If your team dreads post-event reporting, the issue is upstream.
Define success metrics before execution begins, decide what leadership needs to know, and how that data should exist naturally as part of the journey.
Run a Post-Event Simplicity Review
After the event, ask a different question.
Not “What went wrong?” but “What felt harder than it should have been?”
Capture moments of friction, confusion, duplication, or unnecessary effort while they’re still fresh. These are your signals. They tell you exactly where complexity crept in and where to simplify next.
This review feeds directly into your next tech stack audit and journey map.
The Real Upgrade Is Control
Simplifying your event technology stack is about designing a system your team can actually control.
If your event technology stack doesn’t create control, no matter how modern it is, it’s a liability.
Research Sources
- Astera – What Are Data Silos? Causes, Consequences, and Solutions: https://www.astera.com/type/blog/data-silos/
- Gallup – Employee Burnout, Part 1: The 5 Main Causes: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/237059/employee-burnout-part-main-causes.aspx
