Johnny Martinez, Head of Partnerships and Events at CrowdComms, discusses effciency, personalisation, and the technologies reshaping the events landscape.
Ahead of his talk at The Meetings Show, Johnny Martinez discusses a shift in the conversation around event technology: “It’s no longer just about logistics. It’s about data, revenue, and making sure the people delivering events can focus on what actually matters.”
Just over two years ago, Johnny joined CrowdComms, the event tech company which offers services from online registration and badge printing to hybrid platforms, mobile apps, and live streaming. As the events industry landscape has changed, so has his role: “We’ve become event tech consultants as much as providers. If a client comes to us with a problem we can’t fully solve ourselves, we’ll point them towards tools that, alongside our platform, will get them there.”
This highlights a fundamental truth about technology in the events sector: no single platform does everything, and the best results come from a considered stack rather than a single solution. For smaller agencies in particular, efficiency is everything: “It’s about maximising output, freeing people up to focus on delivering a great experience rather than drowning in admin.”
“It’s about maximising output, freeing people up to focus on delivering a great experience rather than drowning in admin.”
On the other side of the client equation, there are different challenges to which AI is increasingly offering solutions.
CrowdComms’ matchmaking tool collects interests ahead of an event, analyses the delegate pool, and builds schedules around the most relevant connections before anyone comes through the door: “People want to meet the right people and avoid wasting time on the wrong conversations. I like the phrase ‘don’t make me think’, it’s definitely a common feeling when it comes to navigating networking.”
Johnny believes data is where the real long-term value lies. The ability to summarise attendee feedback quickly, reflect on past behaviour, and demonstrate how such processes shape future programming is increasingly available to organisers:
“Event tech creates additional sponsor exposure, referral ticketing, and the ability to reward your most engaged community members. Saving time is really about redirecting effort to what matters most.”
As new technology becomes more prevalent, many fear it may result in events feeling increasingly impersonal.
Johnny suggests the solution is smarter segmentation: “You need to properly categorise your community – members, non-members, first-timers, lapsed contacts, different sponsor tiers – and communicate accordingly. It’s obvious when an email hasn’t been tailored to you. Make a focused effort to each part of your community in turn. People notice the difference.”
In terms of emerging tech that has Johnny excited, he points to two developments which stand out. The first is easier integrations: “They’re complex to build, time-consuming for developers, and historically one of the weaker points in any tech stack from a data privacy perspective.”
Secondly, AI-powered multilingual captions and real-time interpretation have improved dramatically in recent years, and Johnny – who speaks English as an additional language – sees them as a genuine step forward for accessibility and inclusion:
“People are locked out of valuable content simply because it isn’t in their language. Now, if I want to make a session accessible to someone in Brazil or China, I can. For highly technical conferences you may still need a human interpreter, but they don’t need to be on-site. That saves cost and opens doors.”