Networking software for independent groups and breakfast clubs

Where the tooling went

Event networking software is sold per event, banded by attendee count. That pricing works at a conference with a budget line and a team, and it does not scale down. At forty people paying twelve pounds for a bacon roll, a four-figure licence is more than the room takes, so the organiser buys nothing.

So the market has arranged itself backwards. The 800-person conference, which already has a programme, an app and three staff, has the best tools. The thirty-person room, where a bad morning means nobody spoke to anybody new and two people quietly stop coming, runs on a spreadsheet, a WhatsApp group and a printed list with a wonky header.

We checked what the alternatives publish. Most publish nothing at all; the one that does starts at €3,400 for an event of up to a hundred people.

Free, and not as a trial

Event owners pay nothing on The Gantry. Not nothing for the first three events, not nothing until you hit an allowance, and not nothing until a trial expires. Unlimited listings, the delegate upload, full-room access for everyone who comes, and the analytics. There is no card to put in.

The reason is not generosity. Rooms are what make the platform worth having for the people in them, so charging the person who creates the Rooms would be charging the wrong end. That logic is set out in full in what event networking software actually costs.

What it does for a small recurring room

People arrive knowing who is there. The room opens 14 days before. Every profile leads with what that person is working on now and what they will happily be asked about, so a guest walks in with two names instead of a lanyard and a hope.

Guests stop being strangers. The hardest moment in a small group is the newcomer standing at the edge while thirty people who already know each other catch up. If they have read the room beforehand and sent one nudge that was accepted, they arrive with somewhere to stand.

You find out whether it worked. Verified check-in rather than a head count, how many approaches were made and accepted, relationships formed, who came back and who came once. In a group that lives or dies on regulars, "who came once and never returned" is the single most useful number you are not currently collecting.

Nobody can work the room badly. 2 approaches per person per event, one per person, and declining is easy and invisible. Everyone who has run a group has had the member who treats it as a lead list. The cap handles that without you having to have the conversation.

The admin, honestly

You have no time, so here is the whole job. List the Room: date, venue, town, industry, capacity. Upload a CSV with a name column and an email column, which is the spreadsheet you already keep. Press the button that grants everyone the full room. Afterwards, check people in with a QR code if you want verified attendance, or do not bother and lose only that one number.

That is it. There is nothing to install, for you or for them: it opens in a browser from a link in the invitation email.

Keep what already works

The WhatsApp group, the Eventbrite listing, the spreadsheet of regulars: leave them alone. This is not a platform migration and a group that runs fine on three free tools does not need a fourth that duplicates them. The Gantry adds the one thing those cannot do, which is letting people read the room before they are in it.

Common questions

I run this on my own. How much work is it to set up?

Listing a Room is a form: date, venue, town, industry, capacity. The delegate list is a CSV with two columns, name and email, and if you have been keeping your regulars in a spreadsheet you already have it. Granting everyone full access is one button after that.

What does it cost?

Nothing. No listing fee, no per-event charge, no allowance, no card and no trial. Attendees can pay £15 a month inc VAT for Premium Membership if they want the whole platform, and most never do.

Will it replace my WhatsApp group?

No, and do not try to make it. Keep the group for the chat and the reminders. The Gantry does the part a WhatsApp group is bad at: who is actually coming, what they do, and who is worth five minutes when they get there.

My group is thirty people. Is that too small?

Thirty is the size this is most useful at. A room that size is where one badly spent morning is obvious and where one good introduction pays for the year. It is also the size that every per-event licence in this market prices out.

Run by one person, on a Tuesday, for no money.