Event management software in Saudi Arabia and the UAE: what a trade show organiser should check

Searching for event management software in Saudi Arabia or the UAE brings up event agencies, wedding planners and global tools built for conferences. A trade show in Riyadh, Jeddah or Dubai asks more of its software: two languages on every page, exhibitors and delegations from dozens of countries, VIPs who are expected at the door, a working week that is not the same in both countries, and exhibitors who judge the show on the meetings it got them. Here is what to check before you choose, and the questions to ask in the demo.

Event management software in Saudi Arabia and the UAE: start from the trade show

Type “event management software” with a Gulf city and the suggestions turn to event companies and planning services. They organise events for clients; a trade show organiser runs a business that sells stands, prepares exhibitors and brings in visitors, edition after edition.

So the first test is vocabulary. Does the tool know a stand, a hall, an exhibitor’s team, a stand builder, a sponsor’s benefits? If they have to be rebuilt with custom fields, your sales and operations teams will go back to spreadsheets within a month. Our guide to stand sales from an interactive floor plan shows what that part of the work involves.

Arabic and English, on every page and in every email

In the Gulf, a show rarely works in one language. The organiser’s team may write in English, part of the audience reads Arabic first, and the exhibitor list is international. Check three things:

• registration forms, badges, emails and public pages exist in both languages;
• Arabic reads right to left without breaking the layout, on a phone as well as on a laptop;
• each message reaches its recipient in their own language, without your team sending two campaigns by hand.

The quickest test in a demo: ask to fill in the Arabic registration form, then read the confirmation email it sends. In Moultaka, reminders, sequences and workflows run on their own, in each recipient’s language, and the registration forms sit on your show’s own website, in your colours.

Exhibitors from everywhere: currencies, visas and teams

A Gulf show often counts more foreign exhibitors than local ones. Each of them asks for things a local exhibitor never does:

• a price in their currency, so they can compare your stand with other shows;
• an invitation letter for their visa, early enough for the visa to arrive;
• a place to declare their team, so badges are ready when the staff land.

Check that stands can be priced in foreign currencies, that visa requests are tracked step by step until the letter is issued, and that every exhibitor completes their own file in a portal instead of by email. Our article on exhibitor management covers that preparation, and the Exhibitors & operations page shows how Moultaka handles visa letters, staff accreditation and orders.

Delegations, VIPs and the people who host them

Official delegations, ministers, chamber presidents and hosted buyers are part of most large Gulf shows. Their visit is prepared like a programme of its own:

• who is expected, on which day, and who greets them at the entrance;
• their visa letters, when they travel from abroad;
• transport from the airport, interpreters and hotels;
• the hostesses and interpreters on your team, accredited and briefed.

Ask the vendor to show you a VIP record during the demo. In Moultaka, each VIP has a host, arrival alerts reach the entrance, and dietary needs and benefits are noted; concierge services such as airport shuttles, interpreters and partner hotels are booked by participants and fulfilled by your providers.

Registration and the entrance, at scale

The queue on opening morning is decided weeks earlier. Three questions:

• is a person who registers twice recognised, or counted twice?
• can each visitor category, from trade visitor to VIP and press, have its own registration type and badge?
• can the badge go out by email, then be scanned at every gate, with each entry on record?

More detail in eight things to check in a visitor registration system and in our article on badges and access without a queue.

B2B meetings and leads exhibitors can count

Many exhibitors come to the Gulf to meet buyers. What brings them back is a number: how many meetings, how many qualified contacts. Check that visitors and exhibitors can book meetings with each other in time slots you open, that rooms and tables are never double-booked, and that exhibitor staff can scan badges on their stand and leave with their leads after the show. See B2B meetings at trade shows and lead retrieval at trade shows, and the Meetings & networking page.

Plan around the working week and the season

Two calendar details catch out teams coming from elsewhere. The weekend is Friday and Saturday in Saudi Arabia, and Saturday and Sunday in the UAE. A reminder that lands on a weekend morning is read on Sunday or Monday, too late. And the show season runs mostly from autumn to spring, around the summer heat and Ramadan, which moves about eleven days earlier each year.

Ask whether reminders and sequences can be scheduled by date and triggered by actions, such as a confirmed registration, so that each one goes out on a working day, in the right language, without anyone pressing send. Our guide to trade show invitation emails gives the sequence, message by message.

Your data: where it lives and how you get it back

Saudi Arabia and the UAE both have personal data protection laws, and large organisers, often linked to public bodies, ask more questions about data than they did a few years ago. Ask the vendor directly:

• where is the data hosted, and who can access it?
• is your show’s data kept apart from other organisers’ data?
• can every list be exported at any time?

In Moultaka, each organiser’s data and files are kept apart from every other account, your team and every participant see only what their role allows, and every list, order, scan and answer can be exported.

Questions to ask in the demo

• Show me the Arabic registration form, then the confirmation email it sends.
• Show me a stand priced in a foreign currency.
• Show me a visa request, from the exhibitor’s form to the invitation letter.
• Show me a VIP record and what the entrance team sees when that VIP arrives.
• Show me a reminder scheduled for a working day, in two languages.
• Show me the export of every list.

For more, see what to ask a trade show software vendor before you sign, or, if you also run shows in North Africa, what event management software must cover in Algeria.

In short

Event management software for a trade show in Saudi Arabia or the UAE must:

• speak Arabic and English everywhere, right to left included;
• price stands in foreign currencies and track visa letters;
• prepare delegations and VIPs as carefully as exhibitors;
• register, badge and count visitors at every gate;
• run B2B meetings and lead capture;
• send each message on a working day, in its recipient’s language;
• keep your data apart and let you export it.

Moultaka brings stand sales, exhibitors, registration, badges, meetings and campaigns together on one database, in English, French and Arabic. More than 14 trade show editions, 165,000 registrations and 1,700 exhibitors have gone through it. To see it on your own show, book a demo.