Change a session time or room and every phone updates in seconds
GPS way‑finding plus custom overlays guide newcomers to exactly the right hall, shuttle stop, or tailgate
Nudge first‑years, parents, alumni, or VIPs with just‑in‑time messages based on role or location
Attendees build their own schedules and bookmark must‑see events, vendors, and map pins
In‑app sponsors, coupons, scavenger hunts, and badge passports boost participation and dollars
Live dashboards and heat‑maps reveal crowd flow, popular sessions, and sponsor ROI to fine‑tune future events
Grandstand is built to not only service short-term multi-day events but also facilities that serve the community throughout the year. We effortlessly let you swap icons and menu items seasonally to create the mix of content that is always up to date and pertinent to your users. With unlimited design tools and flexibility you can always keep your app up-to-date and update it on a schedule that works for you.
Even though it feels like we are always connected it is vital that your app work just as well offline as it does online. Our apps have been built with that in mind by periodically grabbing new content from the cloud and storing it in the app. This leads to a speedier, always-ready app.
The Grandstand App Management System gives you round-the-clock ability to change every design and content element in your app. Depending on your package, multiple administrators on your team may have access to keep your app up to date and perfectly match your brand.
After beginning with a starter template you can alter nearly every design element of the app and choose from multiple different design styles. You do not have to be a designer to design a beautiful app with Grandstand with dozens of default backgrounds, app icons, fonts, and more.
Control your app's content with the Grandstand AMS and push changes live to the app once you are ready. Whether we build the app for you or you build it yourself you can use our AMS to keep your app updated daily. If you are using our Grandstand Sites website solution your content can serve double-duty, saving you and your team hours of time, and helping with consistency of messaging.
It is vital to understand how your app is being used, and our analytics tools make it easy to see these trends. Analytics are available to view after launch and are pre-made to be easily shown in Powerpoint slides.
Fairs and festivals can be created as stand-alone App Store apps or as apps inside our larger container app, Grandstand Events.
Apps in containers are a great way to deliver a full app experience for a low annual price. Using the same app you use to preview the app, you can determine when the app goes live, including same-day publishing. Apps in containers do not require a developer account.
Full stand-alone apps allow you to put your brand in the App Store. These apps require you to secure a developers license from Apple and Google but once that is done we will handle all submission on your behalf.
From New‑Student Welcome Weeks to Golden‑Alumni Reunions, each campus calendar can live in its own feed with start and end times, speaker bios, and “Live Now” indicators. Students build personal agendas, then export to Google Calendar or Apple Calendar with one tap.
Each schedule item can be linked to venue information, the actual location on a map, websites, phone numbers or more. And best of all, all of this is controlled from Grandstand Build.
In addition, attendees can create their own list of can't miss events by favoriting select items and viewing them in their own custom list. This gives you valuable insight into which events your attendees find most valuable and which ones they view as can't-miss.
Events can be displayed on a multi-day calendar that shows all the days of the event at the top. Creating events using our admin tool couldn't be easier with the ability to setup recurring events that might occur, daily, weekly or even monthly.
Layer dining halls, lecture buildings, tailgate lots, and shuttle routes over Google or Apple basemaps. Pins link directly to sessions, exhibitors, or dining menus and can be filtered by category—handy for first‑years hunting for their next class or parents locating disability‑accessible parking.
Users can also search for a specific location right on the map page or filter by a pin group. App administrators control the pin color and can even control the look-and-feel of each pin to match branding. Grandstand also offers the ability to embed your own graphics on top of the native maps in some packages, giving your users the ability to navigate on top of your illustrated maps.
For many events, the native Google and Apple maps do not work well because they do not show tents or other non-permanent structures on either the street or satellite map view. In those cases you may want to use your own graphical map (PDF, PNG, or JPG). Just like with native maps you can add pins on top of the graphical maps and continue to use filters, search, and more.
Users can open your map and search for any word in your location titles or even in the description. This means they could search for 'Campus' on the map and show only the pins of places serving a 'Campus'.
One of our most powerful tools is our custom list builder that allows you to create and manage Attractions, Businesses, Restaurants, or anything else you might want to serve up in list form. Using the App Management System you control the order of the list, can set priority tiers to represent varying levels (donor levels, for example) and provide custom action items direct from each list item. For some lists you might want to send them to a webpage for each item. For some you might want to direct the user to a specific area on the map. Or you could mix and match.
Create sortable lists for Student Orgs, Academic Departments, Dining Locations, Local Hotels, or any resource your community needs. Prioritize sponsors or donor tiers, embed call‑to‑action buttons (“Donate,” “Book Room,” “Navigate”) and gate sensitive lists—like VIP reception hosts—behind role‑based passwords.
Like many of the pages in Grandstand, all lists can be password-protected. This gives you the ability to deliver select content, including content for volunteers or staff, to a select audience.
Nudge residents about housing deadlines, ping alumni about reception room changes, or geo‑target fans when the pep rally starts. Offer opt‑in channels for Parents, First‑Years, Faculty, VIP Donors, and more. Add deep links to livestreams, PDFs, or specific app pages.
You can even schedule all of your alerts in advance to have our system send them out at your predetermined time. This makes planning your push notifications easier and allows you to create a better strategy for your alerts.
Gamify orientation with a QR‑code campus quest, celebrate history with an alumni heritage tour, or drive foot traffic to sponsor booths on career day. Unlock bookstore coupons, swag pick‑ups, or donor lounge access when participants complete required stops.
You can reward your users for unlocking specific stops or successfully completing a certain percentage of stops by giving them exclusive access to coupons. Each stop can be tied to a locked coupon giving you the power to reward users at specific locations. Geofencing can be used on all stops in some packages to confirm the users location is within a specific radius after successfully redeeming the code.
Create an audio tour with multiple audio files that the user can play as they go from stop to stop. Upload audio files, description text, and an optional photo in the Grandstand App Management System.
Publish once, appear everywhere. Drop a few lines of widget code on your .edu site to surface live app content—orientation schedules, keynote speakers, or donor walls—without copying and pasting updates in multiple systems.
Web widgets can display schedule data and anything from any list in the Grandstand Admin. This might include artist listings, food vendors, commercial vendors, sponsors, faqs, and more.
Deliver one‑time promo codes for the campus bookstore, dining‑hall BOGOs, or alumni merch. Tie redemption to surveys (“Rate this session”) or scavenger‑hunt completions to capture valuable demographics before unlocking the deal.
Coupons and offers can also show custom messages like ‘FINAL WEEK’ or ‘FINAL DAY’ or other custom messages that draw attention to limited-time coupons. You can even add offer groups for special weekends or occasions that are pre-filtered lists of coupons.
Showcase corporate partners, grad‑school programs, or local businesses. Full control stays with you—rotate banners by department, track click‑throughs, and pull ROI reports for development officers and sponsorship sales.
Ads can be set to rotate as part of shared groups that can be used on just one page or multiple pages in the app. In addition, you can control the length of time each ad displays. For example, you could display one ad for 30 seconds and another for 1 minute.
Unique ad placements exist in select packages, including the ability to add a header ad between the dates and filters on multi-day schedules. You can also add advertising to the home page in select packages.
Once the app is launched Grandstand wants to make sure your audience finds the app. We offer a series of tools including a promotional website with links to both the Android and iOS versions. Other tools include a preset QR code and pre-made graphics using the screenshots you have uploaded.
Here are a few other capabilities to enhance your app.
Create fun and interactive quizzes for your app users with optional validation and scoring. Questions can be multiple choice, single-line text entry or longer-form paragraph entry. Similar to scavenger hunts, coupons and rewards can be unlocked based on performance in the quiz.
Turn your event logo, hashtag, and other design elements into photo overlays that can then be shared on social media. By swiping left and right your users can preview multiple filters after taking the photo. Filters can be custom created to match your brand and all graphics can be uploaded in the App Management System.
All of our apps have social media hooks built into nearly every screen of the app. If you are on the schedule page you are encouraged to share specific events via your social feeds and provided with one-click links to do so. If you are on the map page you are encouraged to check-in at various venues. If you are on the News page you are given the opportunity to post via a specific hashtag for your event.
Find out what your attendees are thinking with custom surveys. Each survey can be tied to an individual coupon or reward to incentive the user to provide feedback. In addition, add custom forms to start registrations, collect demographic data, add to your email lists, or other data-collection needs.
Conduct a short-term poll of your app users and see the results immediately in Grandstand Build. You can even show the results of the live poll immediately to users after submission if it makes sense for the topic.
Create mixed pages of links to external content, embedded photos, videos, links to PDF, embedded PDF and any other combination that you need to round out your app. Using content blocks you can craft unlimited combinations of content that will make the app more valuable to your users.
Keep your attendees on top of the current weather conditions. A simple weather module that will show the current conditions for your event location. In addition, all area and above and below the weather is customizable for you to include information about weather shelters.
Allow your users to search through schedules, vendor lists, sponsors, map locations, and results all from a single search box on the home page. In addition, each section has its own built-in search for context-sensitive searching.
Integration with various third-party services, like Google Calendar, Saffire, GrowthZone and others is now available. Let us know if you have a specific platform you'd like to see us integrate with.
Learn more about our flexible pricing options for apps, websites, and our unique unified, shared-content combos that include integrated apps and websites..
Start building your app now with our exclusive App Maker, available for free - no credit card required. Choose a template, enter some basic information and you will be on your way to launching an app. We are always available to help with development or content loading and have many packages and pricing options available.
There is no limit to what you can build or have built for you with Grandstand. Check out our gallery of designs created by our clients and Grandstand experts, including home pages, event schedules, maps, scavenger hunts, and more!