A conference, festival, trade show or community event can have its own companion app, with the agenda and a personal schedule, speaker profiles, a venue map, live announcements, session Q&A and a check-in screen, by pasting the programme into App Builder Agent. The AI agent writes the code, shows a phone preview in the browser, and you refine it in plain English. The programme lives on a hosted backend, so room changes reach every phone without a rebuild. Building a first version fits in the Free plan (500K AI tokens a month); unlimited builds are $1.49 per 30 days on the Member plan at the time of writing. Ticketing stays on the platform you already use.
Event app vendors in the US, UK, Canada and the EU quote per event, per attendee, or both, with a minimum that makes a 200-person meetup or a regional trade show think twice. The printed programme is wrong by the first coffee break. A companion app built from your own programme costs the plan you are on, is ready in an afternoon, and lets you move a session from Room B to the atrium at 9:40 and have every attendee know by 9:41. This guide covers what the app needs, the prompt to paste, what the first minutes look like, getting it onto attendees' phones in the week before the event, and what it costs. The category mechanics (feeds, bookmarks, categories) are covered in a news app with categories and bookmarks; this article is the event-specific version.
What the app needs
Two roles share one hosted backend: attendees (an account is optional for browsing, needed for a personal schedule) and organisers (admin).
- Agenda. Sessions by day and track, each with time, room, speakers, abstract and tags; filter by track and search by title or speaker.
- My schedule. Star sessions, see them in order with room and time, get a reminder ten minutes before, and see a clash warning when two picks overlap.
- Speakers and exhibitors. Photo, bio, company, links, and the sessions they appear in; exhibitors with stand number and a map pin.
- Venue map. A floor plan image with labelled rooms and stands, plus directions to the venue, parking and transit notes.
- Announcements. Organiser notifications with an archive: room changes, lunch is served, the keynote is starting.
- Session Q&A and polls. Attendees submit questions during a session, upvote others, and the moderator sees them sorted; a quick poll per session if you want one.
- Ticket and check-in. The attendee's ticket QR (pasted from the ticketing email or imported from a CSV) and a staff scanner screen that marks them checked in.
- Organiser screen. Edit sessions, rooms and speakers, post announcements, see check-in counts and session popularity, export a CSV.
The prompt to paste
Sign in to the AI app builder with a Google account, create a mobile app project and paste this with your programme:
Paste the whole programme after the prompt, even as a rough spreadsheet dump. The agent turns it into seed data, and the first preview shows your real Tuesday morning rather than "Session 1".
What you get in the first minutes
The agent writes the app in React Native, deploys the hosted backend (database, sign-in, file storage on the platform's servers) and shows the attendee app in a phone-shaped preview. Star two overlapping sessions and check the clash warning, then switch to the organiser login, move a session to a different room, and confirm the agenda and the starred schedule both update. Post an announcement and see it arrive.
Then refine in plain English: "show 'happening now' at the top of the agenda", "speaker photos should be circular", "the map needs a 'you are here' marker per floor", "Q&A should let the moderator mark a question answered", "add a sponsors tab with logos in tiers". Each small change lands in the preview in under a minute. Ask early for the agenda to be cached on the phone so it opens instantly in a venue with poor signal, refreshing on open and every minute, and for the floor plan image to be zoomable.
Getting it onto phones the week before
Your team's phones get the APK first: Download APK from the preview and install directly, then walk the venue with the map open. For attendees, put the download link and a QR code in the pre-event email, on the badge and on signage at registration. Android installs after one confirmation; installing an APK on Android covers the warning screen and is worth linking from the email.
A Play Store listing makes the install friction lower for a public event, but it takes time: as of 2026 a Play Console account is a one-time US$25 with identity verification, apps upload as AAB, every app needs a privacy policy URL and a Data safety form, and a personal account opened after November 2023 must run a closed test with 12 testers for 14 days before production access. Ask for a signed store build (the builder generates and encrypts a signing key and produces a signed APK and AAB with your own package id and an auto-incrementing version code) at least three weeks out. See publishing on Google Play from the US, UK or EU.
iPhone attendees, often half the room at a business event, use the web version of the same project at a link on appbuilderagent.com, added to the home screen from Safari; it shares the same backend, so the personal schedule and announcements work there too. A native iPhone app requires exporting the source (Member plan and above) and building with Xcode or Expo EAS on a Mac, plus Apple's US$99 per year program.
What it costs
At the time of writing: the Free plan includes 500K AI tokens a month with all features and no card; a free APK download is included. A companion app like the one above is typically a few hundred thousand tokens to build and refine, so a first version fits. Member is $1.49 per 30 days for 5M tokens, unlimited builds and source export, which is the practical plan for the two or three builds you will push in the final week. Pro is $5.72 per 30 days for 10M tokens. There is no per-attendee fee. Prices can change; check the site.
Event app vendors commonly list per-event packages in the hundreds to thousands of dollars, pounds or euros, often with a per-attendee element, and a custom app from an agency runs roughly US$20,000 to $150,000 or more. How much it costs to build an app compares the routes. For an annual event, the same project is reused next year by pasting the new programme.
Notes for the US, UK, Canada and the EU
- Attendee data. Names, emails, ticket codes and Q&A questions are personal data under GDPR (EU), UK GDPR and California's CCPA/CPRA. Publish a privacy notice, let attendees delete their account, and do not share the attendee list with sponsors from the app without consent. If you are collecting dietary or accessibility needs, that is sensitive data and should stay with registration, not the app. A privacy policy for your app covers the notice. General information, not legal advice.
- Time zones. Store session times in the venue's time zone and show them that way even to attendees whose phones are set elsewhere; say the zone once in the prompt (Pacific, Eastern, UK, CET).
- Accessibility. Ask for large text support, high contrast, and step-free routes marked on the map; venues in the UK and EU are used to being asked, and attendees notice.
- Lead capture for exhibitors. Scanning badges to collect leads is common at US and UK trade shows; in the EU it needs the attendee's consent per scan. A "share my contact with this exhibitor" button on the attendee's phone handles it cleanly.
Tip: Freeze the programme in the app three days out, then make every later change from the organiser screen during the event. Attendees trust the app precisely because the room change at 9:40 arrived on their phone before it reached the printed sign.
Browse the news and feed apps in the gallery to see how a finished agenda and announcements screen look. A related community format is in a nonprofit volunteer and donation app, live audience mechanics are in a multiplayer quiz game app, and the general playbook is in an app for your small business without hiring a developer.
Frequently asked
How quickly can a conference app be ready?
A first version with the agenda, speakers, map and announcements is typically built in an afternoon by pasting the programme into the prompt and refining it in the preview. Allow a week before the event for testing on real phones and for a Play Store listing if you want one.
Can attendees build their own schedule?
Yes. Each session has a star or add button; the My Schedule tab shows the attendee's picks in order with room and time, and a reminder fires ten minutes before each one. Clashes are flagged when two picks overlap.
How do last-minute changes reach attendees?
Organisers edit the session or post an announcement from the admin screen, and every phone gets a notification and the updated agenda on next open, because the programme lives on a hosted backend rather than inside the app build.
Does the app sell tickets?
No. Ticketing stays on the platform you already use (Eventbrite, Tito, your website). The app can show a ticket QR code the attendee pastes or that you import from a CSV, and a check-in screen for staff to scan it.
What does it cost for a one-off event?
At the time of writing the Free plan includes 500K AI tokens a month (with a free APK download), which covers a first version; the Member plan is $1.49 per 30 days for 5M tokens, unlimited builds and source export. Google Play adds a one-time US$25 registration if you list the app.
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