Attendee Networking & AI Matchmaking
Make networking easier for every attendee with Zoho Backstage. Use AI matchmaking, meeting scheduling, and discussion channels tailored to your event and audience.
Zoho Backstage draws on every attendee's interests, role, and event activity to identify the most relevant connections. You decide who gets access, how networking is configured, and what gets measured.
Zia—Zoho’s native AI engine—analyzes attendees’ interests, roles, and live event activity to recommend the most relevant people to meet. The longer your event runs, the sharper the suggestions get.
Zoho Backstage lets attendees book meetings directly from the event app—no email chains, no external calendar tools, no connections lost to someone's notes app. Your attendees can:
Not every conversation happens in a scheduled session. Before the event begins or between sessions (for virtual events), lounges give attendees a dedicated space to meet, chat, and connect.
Not everyone networks the same way. Discussion channels let attendees self-organize around topics and interests they care about so conversations start naturally and go somewhere.
Gamification gives every attendee a reason to break the ice. Points for connecting, attending sessions, and visiting booths make the harder parts of networking more rewarding.
Give attendees a full directory of everyone at your event, with enough context on every profile to make every introduction count. Your attendees can:
Attendees had been asking us for years to be able to browse sessions, add them to their calendar, and set up meetings. With Backstage, people were coming in saying they already had six or eight meetings lined up. The feedback on that was fantastic.
Join thousands of event organizers who use Zoho Backstage to turn every event into a room full of the right connections.
Networking is one piece. Zoho Backstage covers the entire event lifecycle — in one platform.
Multi-tier pricing, online payments, and registration approval flows — all from one place.
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Build and publish a professional event website without code. Customize, update, and go live in minutes.
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A fully branded attendee app for agendas, networking, push notifications, and gamification.
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QR-based check-in with onsite badge printing. Fast entry, no queues, full attendee visibility.
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Live polls, Q&A, session feedback, slide reactions, and post-session analytics — from the mobile app.
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Digital booths, lead capture (Hot/Warm/Cold), and exhibitor analytics that prove ROI to sponsors.
Learn moreYou define the interest categories that matter at your event—think AI, healthcare, investors, or compliance. Attendees select their interests when setting up their profiles, and Zia—Zoho’s AI assistant—uses those interests, along with their role and live event activity, to recommend the most relevant connections. The more attendees engage, the sharper the recommendations get.
Yes. You can open networking to everyone or limit it to specific groups—speakers only, Gold and Silver ticket holders, sponsors, or any combination. Changes go live immediately across your event website.
Yes. Attendees control their own visibility at any time—they can make their profile private, turn off direct messages, or disable meeting availability. You can also require explicit consent before any profile appears in the directory at all.
Yes. As soon as attendees set up their profile and enable availability, they can start booking meetings—even before the event opens. They pick a date, time, duration, and add a reason to meet directly from any attendee's profile.
Gamification is available on the Premium and Ultimate plans of Zoho Backstage. You set a start and end date, pick from 25+ predefined challenges, assign points, and set limits on how many times each challenge can be completed. The leaderboard is shareable via a password-protected link and fully exportable.
No. AI matchmaking, the attendee directory, discussion channels, direct messaging, meeting scheduling, and gamification are all built natively into Zoho Backstage, available on iOS and Android. No third-party tools, no extra apps for attendees to download.
