Switching Event Platforms: How to Migrate Data and Matchmaking Without Losing an Event Cycle

From 12 January 2027, providers of cloud services to customers in the EU may no longer charge them for switching to another provider (Data Act, Regulation (EU) 2023/2854, Article 29). For event teams that have stayed with a platform mainly because leaving looked expensive, one argument disappears. The harder one remains: how do you change systems without losing a year?

An annual event gives you exactly one chance per year to get registration, ticketing and meetings right. If the new platform is not ready when registration opens, exhibitors wait, sponsors ask questions and returning buyers fill in profiles they already completed last year. The software is rarely the problem. The calendar is.

This guide is for the head of events who prepares the decision and the managing director who signs it. The managing director will ask one question before signing: will our exhibitors, sponsors and buyers notice anything? The aim of a good migration is a plain answer: no, except that things work better.

Below: how to plan the switch around your event cycle, what to read and export first, how to move matchmaking and how to cut over without a gap.

Why a switch is a calendar problem

Most migration guides start with features and data. Start with the dates instead, because every event platform carries a live cycle. Before the event it holds registrations, tickets and meeting requests. After the event it holds the lead reports sponsors are still downloading, the invoices finance is still reconciling and the follow-up lists sales is still working through.

That leaves one sensible window: after the post-event work has closed and before registration for the next edition opens. For an annual trade show in March, that window often runs from late spring to the end of summer. The preparation starts earlier, during the current event cycle; the actual move falls in the window. For a programme with events every quarter, the window may be a few weeks, and you may switch with a smaller event rather than the flagship.

Count back from the day registration opens, not forward from the day you sign. The timeline below assumes a mid-sized B2B event with ticketing and pre-scheduled one-to-one meetings.

Six months sounds generous until you count the waiting: for the notice period, the export, the IT security review and the CRM team. If matchmaking is part of the event, the configuration itself often takes only a few weeks, but the rules and the registration questions take longer, as our guide on how long it takes to set up event matchmaking shows.

The calendar decides, not the feature list.

Read the exit terms before the sales demo

The first step on that timeline is a document, not a demo. Your old contract decides how fast you can leave and what you take with you. Since 12 September 2025, the EU Data Act sets minimum switching terms for data processing services, a category its recitals describe as including software as a service.

For your plan, this means the old provider must let you start a switch quickly and help you through it. It does not mean every contract ends when you want. The Act still allows early termination penalties, which providers must disclose before signing (Article 29(4)). Services built mainly for a single customer are partly exempt (Article 31). A pending EU proposal, the Digital Omnibus, would also exempt contracts with smaller providers signed on or before 12 September 2025, so check its status before relying on these rights. Whether your own contract is covered is a question for your legal adviser. This article is not legal advice.

Data protection law adds a second exit rule. Your platform provider processes attendee data on your behalf. Under Article 28(3)(g) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the processor must, at your choice, delete or return all personal data when the service ends. Ask for the return first, then a written confirmation of deletion once your reconciliation is complete.

Three questions belong in writing to the old provider: when is the next renewal date, in which format do we receive a full export, and does it include meetings, scans and consent records?

Export more than the attendee list

That last question matters most. An attendee list is the easy part. What makes next year’s event run is everything around it: who paid what, who agreed to what, who met whom.

Picture the alternative. In April, a sponsor clicks the lead report link from last year’s event and lands on a login page that no longer works. Nobody on your team noticed the link pointed to the old system. That sponsor is now deciding about renewal with one bad memory fresh in mind. Old links outlive old contracts.

The consent records deserve a separate check. Usually, attendees gave consent to you as the organiser, not to the software, so a change of provider does not by itself require new consent. But you can only rely on that if the records travel with the data. Update your privacy notice where it names the platform provider, and sign a data processing agreement with the new provider before the first import. Our GDPR checklist for event software lists the documents to request.

Matchmaking: export the decisions, not just the data

Profiles and meetings travel as rows in a file. The logic behind them does not. If your event runs pre-scheduled one-to-one meetings, the hardest part of a switch is the set of decisions that produced last year’s meeting schedule.

Write them down before you leave the old platform:

• Who may meet whom: which groups can request meetings with which, and which pairs are excluded, such as competitors or existing customers.
• Priorities and quotas: how many meetings each group gets, and which buyers or exhibitors get first choice.
• Slots and formats: meeting length, table numbers, breaks and online slots.
• Categories: the list of products, markets or interests people chose from. A category called “Nordics” in one system may need to become five countries in the next.

With a rule-based set-up, this list is the configuration. You can rebuild it in any system that supports the same kind of rules, and you can explain it to a sponsor who asks why a meeting was suggested. With a learned ranking model, the rows move but the model’s behaviour does not, so plan time to check the first results by hand.

Meeting history is worth more than it looks. A buyer who met the same exhibitor three years in a row may want a new contact this year. A participant who missed four meetings last time may need a reconfirmation step. Both decisions depend on data that is easy to leave behind.

Export the decisions, not just the data.

Rebuild the connections before you move the data

Once the data and rules are clear, look at everything the old platform talked to. Forrester’s Q1 2026 State of B2B Events survey of more than 400 event decision makers found that two thirds of organisations have integrated their primary event platform with their sales and marketing technology. Those with deep integration reported much higher satisfaction, 62 per cent compared with 37 per cent without it (Forrester, blog post, 25 June 2026).

The consequence for a switch: the more integrated your platform is, the more you have to rebuild. Our overview of the event technology stack maps these layers. In practice, four connections cause most of the trouble:

1. CRM and marketing automation. Lists, lifecycle stages and scoring rules often depend on field names from the old system. Map them and test them with sample records. The event CRM guide explains which fields are worth carrying over.
2. Payments. A new ticket shop needs its own payment set-up, tax settings and invoice numbering. Test a real purchase and a real refund before you open sales.
3. The sender domain. Invitations and confirmations will now come from a new system. Since 1 February 2024, Google requires all senders to Gmail accounts to authenticate with SPF (Sender Policy Framework) or DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail). Senders of more than 5,000 messages a day need both, plus DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) and one-click unsubscribe for marketing messages (Google, Email sender guidelines, retrieved 9 November 2026).
4. Your website. Redirect old registration and agenda links in newsletters, partner sites and search results to the new pages.

The sender domain is the one people forget. Picture the first invitation wave of the new edition going out on a Monday. By Wednesday, the registration numbers are half of last year’s. Not because the invitation was weaker, but because half of it landed in spam. Ask your IT team to set up and test authentication for the new platform weeks before the first send.

Run the pilot, then cut over

With connections in place, test the whole chain once before it matters. A pilot is a small event that runs on the new platform from invitation to report: an internal training day, a customer webinar, a regional meetup. It shows whether confirmations arrive, whether tickets scan at check-in, whether meetings appear in calendars and whether the CRM receives the leads.

Then set a cutover date, close to the day registration opens:

• Freeze changes in the old system and take the final export.
• Import in a fixed order: organisations, then people, then tickets and meetings.
• Reconcile the counts. If the old system had 4,212 registrations from last year, the new one should show 4,212, or you should know exactly why not.
• Keep the old system readable until the counts match and the data retrieval period ends, so you can look up a record if a question arrives.

Agree a rollback point as well. If the final import fails a week before opening, you need to know who decides, you or your managing director, whether to delay opening or to open with a reduced set-up.

Tell exhibitors, sponsors and returning attendees

A clean cutover is only half of “nobody notices”. The people outside your team do not need the technical story. They need to know what changes for them, and the answer should be short. Returning buyers want to know that their profile is still there. Exhibitors want to know where to find their lead reports from last year and when meeting booking opens. Sponsors want the same reporting they were promised.

Send one message to each group, timed with the opening of registration, and make the new system feel like a service improvement rather than an internal project.

Solution: In Converve, registration, ticketing, the matchmaking profile and the meeting schedule sit in one data set. Tickets are set up per participant group, and each ticket includes the invitation to register on the event platform, so the profile captured at registration feeds the meeting matrix directly. The matchmaking runs on a rule-based meeting matrix that you configure: who may meet whom, how many meetings each group gets and which slots are available. Data is hosted in Germany, and leads and contacts can pass through APIs and integrations into your CRM.

Conclusion: plan the switch around the calendar

Switching event platforms is a calendar problem first and a data problem second. Find the window between the end of post-event work and the opening of registration, read the exit terms before the sales demos, and export consent records, meetings and matchmaking rules along with the attendee list. Rebuild the connections, run a pilot and reconcile the counts before you open. If you plan it that way, your managing director’s question has a plain answer: nobody outside will notice, except that things work better.

If you are still choosing between platforms, our guide on how to choose a virtual or hybrid event platform sets out the criteria by event type.

If you are planning a switch and want to see how registration, tickets and meetings work in one system, get in touch with Converve.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to switch event platforms?

For a mid-sized B2B event with ticketing and one-to-one meetings, plan around six months from reading the old contract to opening registration on the new platform. Most of it is waiting for notice periods, exports, reviews and new CRM and payment connections.

When is the best time to switch event platforms?

Between two editions: after sponsor reports, invoices and follow-up lists from the last event are closed, and before registration for the next edition opens. Avoid switching while registration is open.

Do attendees need to give consent again after a platform switch?

Usually not, because attendees gave consent to you as the organiser, not to the software. You must still be able to prove each consent under GDPR Article 7(1), so export consent records with timestamps and wording versions. Also sign a data processing agreement with the new provider.

Can my old event platform provider charge me for switching?

Under the EU Data Act, providers of cloud data processing services may charge only reduced switching charges limited to their direct costs until 12 January 2027, and no switching charges after that date (Regulation (EU) 2023/2854, Article 29). Early termination penalties under the contract may still apply.

What data should I export from my old event platform?

Registrations with all custom fields, consent records, orders and invoices, exhibitor and sponsor data with lead scans, and meeting requests and attended meetings. For matchmaking, also write down the rules: who may meet whom, quotas per group, slot lengths and the category list.