Brella alternative: event67, a branded conference app without a matchmaking engine

Brella (Brella is a trademark of Brella Ltd.) publishes a feature set on its own homepage that puts matchmaking at the centre: intent-based AI matchmaking and meeting booking, a customisable event app described as a native iOS app, a native Android app and a web app, built-in ticketing and registration, lead scanning and contact capture for exhibitors, sponsor booths with sponsor matchmaking and monetisation tooling, meeting and engagement analytics with an API and native integrations, and multi-track schedules with speaker profiles and session planning (brella.io, accessed 3 September 2026). Read that list in order and the shape is unmistakable — the platform exists to put the right two people in front of each other at a stated time.

event67 has no matchmaking of any kind and no meeting scheduler. There is no algorithm reading stated intent, no suggested-connection engine, no 1:1 diary, no booked-slot mechanic and no meeting analytics, and none of that is on a roadmap we would ask you to wait for. What event67 has instead is a searchable attendee directory — by name or company, through to a full profile — and QR codes that two attendees scan when they are standing together. Remote attendees can browse the directory and send a connection request. That is proximity networking, not brokered networking, and the two solve different problems.

So the honest test is one question: if your delegates arrived and their diaries were empty, would they feel cheated? At a trade show where buyers pay to meet sellers, the answer is yes, and Brella is doing the thing you are actually buying. At an industry conference where the sessions are the draw and the corridor is a bonus, the answer is usually no, and the comparison moves onto ground where the two products genuinely compete: whose name is on the app store listing, and whether you can work out the price without a call. On the second of those, Brella's pricing page publishes no figures, no named tiers and no calculator on 3 September 2026, and directs visitors to contact the team; the same page publishes neither a free tier nor a trial. event67's rate and ceiling are on a page, and the comparison table on this page carries what each side publishes.

If your event sells meetings, buy the meeting engine. Brella's homepage leads with intent-based AI matchmaking and meeting booking, and pairs it with meeting and engagement analytics (brella.io, accessed 3 September 2026). For a buyer-seller programme, a hosted-buyer event, a partner summit or any trade show whose value proposition is a full diary, that engine is not a nice extra — it is the product, and the reporting that comes with it is how you prove the event worked. event67 offers a directory and QR scanning. Put those against a matchmaking platform for that job and we lose, decisively, and we would tell you so on the call.

Then the commercial surface. Brella publishes built-in ticketing and registration, lead scanning and contact capture for exhibitors, and sponsor booths with sponsor matchmaking and monetisation tooling (accessed 3 September 2026). event67 has none of that: no ticket sales, no attendee payments, no exhibitor lead retrieval, and sponsor pages that display a tier-ordered list rather than open a revenue line. Any organiser whose sponsorship deck promises exhibitors qualified leads needs a lead-capture product, and our QR is attendee-to-attendee, which is a different thing entirely and must never be sold as the same one.

Scale is the third reason. Brella's about page claims more than a million people across 60-plus countries and more than a million networking meetings (accessed 3 September 2026), and its homepage lists a native iOS app, a native Android app and a web app alongside white-label capability among its published features. An organiser buying a networking-led event from an established networking vendor is making a coherent choice, and a smaller, narrower product is not automatically the right substitute.

1. Audit what the diary was doing

   List the meetings your last edition produced and ask who was relying on them — exhibitors, sponsors, hosted buyers. If any of them bought on that basis, this migration stops here and the answer is no.

2. Export delegates and profile fields

   Name, email, company and whichever profile fields belong in the directory. event67 imports from CSV, so nothing in this step depends on the outgoing vendor beyond a standard export.

3. Rebuild the programme and the capacities

   Sessions, tracks, rooms, speakers and sponsors go into the console, plus workshop capacities if you want server-side RSVP limits with automatic waitlist promotion. At 1,200 delegates and several tracks, allow a couple of days.

4. Theme, invite, and watch activations accrue

   Logo, colours and typography flow through every screen with the WCAG AA advisory reporting alongside. Bulk invites carry per-recipient delivery tracking, and the console meter counts activated attendees from publication day. Charging follows 48 hours after the event ends.

The genuinely uncomfortable part is not the data — it is the conversation with your exhibitors. Delegates will download a new app, which is a communications problem you can solve with the invite email, the Wallet pass and the signage. Exhibitors who were promised booked meetings and scanned leads are a commercial problem, and event67 does not give you anything to replace either. Anyone whose sponsorship revenue is underwritten by matchmaking should treat that as a reason to stay rather than an obstacle to manage.