Planana is a young, hip new arrival on the online registration scene. This Eventbrite copycat is distinguished by a single big idea: to reward your attendees for sharing your event on their social networks. The overall concept is smart and simple, and is clearly geared towards the younger crowd. This could be a great tool for organizing smaller parties, gigs or shows especially where the attendees are Facebook or Twitter wizards and are hungry for discounts.
Setting up your registration form with Planana is fast and simple,if only because you can’t do very much but set up some tickets, number limits and deadlines. All the same, the delivery is very nice and for Planana’s target customers it should be sufficient to cover the basic needs.
Planana’s strength is in the rewards. Once your form is set-up you can create rewards for sharing. For example you might offer a 10% discount for sharing on Facebook, or a free ticket to someone who emails 5 friends and they all register. Setting up your rewards is simple and once you are done you get a really fabulous rewards dashboard that shows you the sharing metrics, such as number of likes on Facebook, number of referral emails sent and so forth.
For some people offering discounts and freebies will be very appealing. However, be warned, your attendees need to be comfortable with social media to participate in this system and it may put some people off who would otherwise have simply bought a ticket. In order for anyone to buy a ticket they must sign up for an Planana account or login with Facebook. For some people this will be, frankly, annoying and there is no way around it.
The online registration landing page that gets created is very nice. I had a lot of fun importing a picture I wanted on my home page using a brilliant tool that allows you to resize, recolour and add all sorts of special effects to the picture. The functionality of the tool is way more than anyone would really want – but is so nicely executed and so much fun to use that I spent 10 minutes playing with it anyway.
Planana clearly studied Eventbrite in creating their application, it shows in the way the software handles deadlines and dates and even the bright coloring of their home page. I don’t have a problem with that – it’s smart to copy the best. However, I wish they hadn’t also followed Eventbrite’s aggressive privacy and marketing practices. Like the Big Orange Giant, Planana plays fast-and-loose with your attendee’s privacy, sending them shameless self promotion emails without any explicit permission to do so.
For larger events Planana does not have the ticketing, reporting and seat allocation tools that you are likely to want. But, if you are organizing a smaller event it is a nice, simple tool with an attractive price tag to match (see below).
Pricing
Planana costs 0.99c / person plus a payment premium of 3.5%. This compares favorably to Eventbrite who charge a payment premium of 5.5%. In other words, Planana will save you (and your attendees) $2 on a $100 ticket. Like Eventbrite, Planana will hold onto your money until after your event is over – so be sure you can handle your cash-flow while you are waiting for the money to roll in.
Summary
Planana is a a basic, easy to use tool with the unique ability to create rewards for sharing your event of Facebook, Twitter and E-mail. Recommended for smaller shows, workshops, concerts or parties catering to a younger or social media savvy crowd.
Pros: A basic, easy to use tool, modern, low-cost and features a unique rewards system.
Cons: Too simple for larger events and the rewards system may be off-putting for some. Attendees receive promotional emails from Planana with no opt-in.