PULTEVENT
Event app with no download: 6 things your audience does in the browser
An event app with no download is the difference between 40 people joining in and 400. Ask a conference hall to find an app in the store, wait for it to install, create a password and confirm an email, and you lose most of the room before the first poll. Ask them to point the camera at a QR code, and the page is open in about the time it takes to read this sentence.
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Event producers have learned this the hard way. The native app built for a flagship conference gets installed by the speakers, the sponsors and a loyal fraction of attendees. Everybody else carries on with the printed agenda. For the interactive parts of the program, the moments where the room is supposed to respond, that low adoption is fatal: a poll answered by a tenth of the hall tells you nothing.
PULTEVENT takes the other route. The audience side is a web page. Attendees scan the QR code on the projector or on a table card, and they are in: no store, no account, no password. The organizer controls everything from a laptop browser, and the results go to the hall screen. Everything runs through the server in real time, so both the phones and the laptop need an internet connection.
6 things attendees do in the browser, and when to use each
1 Join from the screen or a table card
The QR code sits on the opening slide, on printed cards at each table and on the badge insert if you like. Scanning opens the event page with your logo and colors. For people whose camera app misbehaves, show a short link next to the code.
How to run it. Keep the code on screen for a full minute during the welcome, and say out loud that there is nothing to install. People hesitate until they hear it.
The first join is the hardest. Once a phone has the page open, every later activity in the day is one tap away.
2 React during a talk
A panel of reactions appears on the phone: learned something new, strong case, hot discussion, agree, thank you, unclear. One tap sends it, and the room's mix grows as bubbles or bars on the screen within a couple of seconds.
How to run it. Set a rate limit, for example one reaction every three seconds per person, so enthusiastic tappers don't drown out everyone else.
It gives speakers a pulse from the room without stopping the talk, and it gives you a chart per session to compare afterwards.
3 Send a question to a speaker
The attendee picks a speaker from a list, types a question and gets an animated confirmation. The organizer decides whether names are required, optional or hidden. Other attendees upvote questions they also want answered.
How to run it. Put a moderator on the control panel with pre-moderation on. They approve, reject, mark as passed to the speaker, and send the best one to the big screen.
Questions arrive during the talk, not in the thirty seconds after it, and quiet people ask things they would never say into a microphone.
4 Take a side in a debate
Two positions appear on the phone, each with the speaker's photo and name. The attendee taps one. On the screen, a large percentage split updates live, and a chart records how opinion moved during the discussion.
How to run it. Decide in advance whether people may switch sides. Allowing it makes the trend chart far more interesting in a real debate.
Panels often end with polite agreement. A live split gives the moderator something concrete to push on.
5 Invest in projects
Each attendee gets a budget of virtual coins, named whatever you like, and spreads it across project cards. A counter shows capital, allocated and remaining, and a summary appears before confirming.
How to run it. Use this for startup showcases, internal idea competitions and prioritisation sessions, where you want to see strength of support, not a yes or no.
A budget forces trade-offs, which produces a far more useful ranking than a thumbs-up on every card.
6 Watch the result on the big screen
The attendee's own phone is only half of it. The shared result lives on the projector, LED wall or TV, opened in full-screen mode from the organizer's laptop: flying reactions, a question in large type, a live split, a growing investment board.
How to run it. Test the screen output at the venue with the real cable and resolution. Something that looks fine on a laptop can be tiny on a wide LED wall.
People engage when they see their tap change something in front of the whole room. Without the shared screen, a phone poll feels like filling in a form.
Scan and you're in
The QR code opens the page in Safari or Chrome on iOS and Android. No install, no sign-up form.
Nothing to update
No version in the store, no push to reinstall. Change a label in the control panel and every phone sees it.
Reconnects on its own
If a phone loses signal, it returns to the same session and the attendee's choices are still there.
Your branding on every phone
Logo, colors, background and button texts are set by the organizer, without a developer.
Why the browser wins for one-day events
A native app makes sense when attendees will use it for weeks: networking, schedules, maps, messaging. For a one-day forum, a conference afternoon or an industry summit, the maths is different. The effort of installing is paid up front, and the benefit arrives only if the person bothers to open the app again later.
A web page flips that. The cost of joining is almost nothing, so people join at the moment you need them, in the hall, when the moderator asks. You also avoid the store review cycle: if the program changes at 8 am, you edit the speaker list and every phone sees it on the next refresh.
What "no download" does not mean
It does not mean no internet. The page talks to the server, and the server counts votes and pushes results to the screen. The phones need Wi-Fi or mobile data, and the organizer's laptop needs a stable connection. In a basement hall with poor coverage, ask the venue for a guest network and put the name and password on the same slide as the QR code.
It also does not mean no control. Moderation, rate limits, one-vote-per-phone and session management all sit on the organizer side, in the control panel. The attendee sees a simple page; you see everything.
Privacy and data for attendees
Attendees do not create accounts, so you are not collecting emails or passwords through the voting page. In Q&A, the organizer chooses whether a name is required. Results can be exported after the event and then cleared. Data is stored on servers located in Russia, which is worth mentioning to your legal team if your event has specific data rules.
Setting it up the day before
Open the forum interaction section in the control panel, add your logo and colors, rename the buttons if you want, enter the speakers and the debate topics, and create project cards if you plan an investment round. Then open the audience page on your own phone and walk through each activity once.
On the day, the only technical step is connecting the laptop to the screen and putting the stage window in full-screen mode. Keep a spare HDMI adapter in your bag. Venues lose them.
Typical mistakes
Showing the QR code for five seconds and moving on. Printing the code too small on table cards, so phones can't focus from a seated position. Forgetting that the venue Wi-Fi has a splash page that must be accepted first. Not testing on an Android phone as well as an iPhone. None of these are about the software; all of them decide how many people take part.
About the author
PULTEVENT was built by Ruslan Barashkin, who hosts forums, corporate conferences and industry events. He has run over 500 events since 2014 and was named best host of Moscow 2024 and of Saint Petersburg 2023 at the TOP 100 Awards. He built it for his own stages first. The rest is at pultevent.ru/en.
How to run an event app with no download
- 1
Brand the attendee page with your logo, colors and button texts.
- 2
Add speakers, debate positions and project cards for the activities you plan.
- 3
Print the QR code on table cards and put it on the opening slide.
- 4
Connect the laptop to the hall screen and open the stage window full screen.
- 5
At the welcome, ask the room to scan and confirm there is nothing to install.
- 6
Run each activity from the control panel, then export results and clear the data.
FAQ
Does it work on both iPhone and Android?
Do attendees need an account?
Does it work without internet?
What if someone's phone drops the connection?
Can people vote more than once?
Can we match it to our event brand?
How much does it cost?
See also
Run brighter events — with PULTEVENT
All audience interactions, a second screen and timing in one app. Guests join by QR — internet is needed for you and for them.
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