EEMA Connect: One app for every EEMA occasion, with AI session summaries the organisers approve

The occasion in two lines

The Event & Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) is the trade body for India’s events and experiential industry, with more than 1,000 members. Its flagship gathering, eemagine 2026, ran from 7 to 9 August at ITC Grand Chola in Chennai, and EEMA Connect is the one app it uses for that occasion and every other.

What EEMA needed

An association is a repeat client with a demanding audience. The same members return for different occasions through the year, and they run events for a living, so they notice every rough edge. EEMA asked for four things:

• One app, installed once. It should open whichever occasion a member belongs to, and keep the association’s own pages (its National Executive Committee, past presidents and the eemagine team) one tap from Home.
• Hospitality inside the app. That meant identity documents for venue security, arrival and departure details, and the hotel room once allotted.
• A real trade floor for partners. Members needed to browse, bookmark, chat with and scan exhibitor stalls, and stall staff needed to capture leads.
• Session knowledge members can trust. Short summaries of each session for anyone who missed it, without the association publishing anything about a speaker that nobody had read first.

What we built

Sign-in that works for overseas members

Members sign in with a one-time code sent to their phone or email, and the card tells international members to use email. First-timers add their name, designation, company and city, and pick one or more specialisations, such as exhibitor, corporate event planner, wedding planner or hospitality. Those details make members findable in Network.

A Home screen that follows the event

The top of Home carries a stories row, a sponsor ticker and a green NOW LIVE banner with a pulsing dot. The banner always points at what is happening right now; during eemagine it read “Inaugural Ceremony”. We specified the sponsor slots for EEMA in three kinds. One shows a single fixed creative, one rotates creatives on a timer set from the admin panel, and one scrolls them past as a ticker.

Your Hospitality Hub

The Hospitality Hub has three cards:

• Documents. Members upload the identity documents the venue uses for check-in and security clearance.
• Travel. Members add their arrival and departure by flight, train or road, with the number, date, time and whether they need a pickup. If plans change, they delete the entry and add it again.
• Your Stay. This shows the member’s hotel and room once the EEMA team has allotted them.

Agenda, programme and dress code

The Agenda has a tab for each day. Day 1 ran from arrivals at ITC Grand Chola through lunch and the annual general meeting to the opening night celebrations. The programme poster and an illustrated dress code open inside the app. For 7 August, the dress code set out a morning look and an evening look.

Exhibitors and My Stall

Visitors search stalls, read their details and reviews, bookmark the ones they want, chat with them, and scan a stall’s QR code to keep a record in My Scans. Stall staff see a different screen, My Stall. It gives a scan summary of stall scans, unique visitors and leads captured, along with Scan a Visitor, a scan log and the stall’s chats. Sponsors have their own page, grouped as co-sponsor, powered by and official hospitality.

AI session summaries the organisers sign off

A member who missed a session opens AI Session, picks a category and reads a short summary of the key points. At eemagine the list included the president’s address and an industry report presentation. AI writes the first draft, but nothing goes out on its own. In AI Session Admin an organiser approves a draft, rejects it, or edits its title, priority and points. Only approved summaries appear, and each one records who approved it and when.

Games, steps and the leaderboard

There are four games in EEMA artwork: a crossword, riddles, trivia and a jigsaw. The crossword was open first, and the other three unlocked on set dates in the days before eemagine. The step challenge reads from Health Connect or Apple Health. The leaderboard has three tabs, for overall rankings, games and steps.

Connect, essentials and the awards

Connect & Engage has three tiles:

• Live Feed, for posts from the event.
• Cherished Moments, a memory wall for the whole fraternity.
• AI Concierge, which answers questions about the occasion.

The Essentials grid covers the programme, network, gallery, sponsors, discussion, speakers, polls and dress code. The organisers added a Jury tile for the EEMAX Global Awards. A padlock marks any section that has not opened yet.

How it ran

The games opened from 5 August, so members had a reason to open the app before they travelled. During the event, the EEMA team sent scheduled announcements to members’ phones. These covered evening transfers from a partner hotel to ITC, with pickup times, and the evening when a guest session led into the EEMAX Global Awards.

Hospitality worked in both directions: members added their documents and travel, and the team published each stay. Organisers took attendance per activity by scanning QR codes, or by email and phone. A code from a different EEMA occasion is rejected, so one occasion’s codes can’t be used at another.

After eemagine, the approved summaries and gallery albums stayed in the app. EEMA Connect has been on the app stores since March 2025, and the next EEMA occasion will open in the same app.

Outcomes

Every eemagine module ran in the app members already had. That included hospitality, the agenda, the exhibitor floor, the awards, the games and the step challenge. The session knowledge members read had passed an organiser’s eye first.

What we would do again

• Put a person between AI drafts and members. It protects the association and its speakers.
• Unlock games on set dates before the event. It turns a downloaded app into an opened app before anyone travels.
• Collect travel and documents in the app rather than by email. The hospitality desk then works from one list.
• Keep the association’s own pages permanent. It makes the app the association’s home, not one event’s microsite.