Switching from Stova

Stova is three event tech products wearing one name. Aventri, MeetingPlay, and the original Stova were combined into a single brand — but the software underneath is still multiple products, stitched together. If you've been working in that environment and wondering whether there's something better, here's what switching to ema actually looks like.

The merge problem

Stova's creation was a business decision, not a product design decision. Three companies with three separate codebases, three different interfaces, and three different ways of doing things were brought under one roof. That kind of consolidation makes sense on a balance sheet. It rarely makes sense in the product.

Teams on Stova tend to run into the same friction. Navigating between modules feels disjointed because the modules were, until recently, entirely separate products. The learning curve is steep — not because the features are complex, but because different parts of the system work differently. Terminology changes between sections. Workflows that should connect don't always connect smoothly.

Getting support adds another layer. When the product has multiple legacy codebases underneath, troubleshooting isn't straightforward. Your support ticket might need to be routed between teams who originally built different parts of the platform.

None of this makes Stova a bad product. It makes it a merged product, with all the friction that comes from merging.

What's different with ema

ema was built as one product from the start. Not merged, not acquired, not stitched together from parts. Every feature was designed to work with every other feature from day one.

Floor plans talk to schedules. Schedules talk to speakers. Exhibitor data connects to compliance tracking. Task management sits alongside your event timeline. The AI agent has context across everything — because everything lives in one system, not three.

This isn't a philosophical distinction. It shows up in daily work. You don't re-enter the same information in multiple places. You don't learn one interface for registration and a completely different one for speaker management. The patterns are consistent across the entire platform.

What you gain by switching

The practical differences add up quickly:

Consistent interface everywhere. One design language, one set of patterns, one learning curve. Your team gets productive faster because the schedule builder works the same way as the exhibitor portal works the same way as the email builder.

Packages from $499/month vs. custom enterprise pricing. Stova targets enterprise buyers with custom quotes. ema packages start from $499/month and are shaped around event volume, support needs, and included usage. No per-seat fees.

An interface organised around event work. ema brings programme, commercial and delivery workflows into a shared platform.

AI agent with full context. ema's AI agent has access to specialised tools and can work across your entire event — drafting schedules, checking exhibitor compliance, answering questions about your data. It works because it has one unified data layer to draw from.

Guided setup without enterprise theatre. ema is designed to be learned quickly, but serious event operations still deserve proper setup. The interface is designed to be understood, not trained on for weeks.

Unlimited team members. Bring your coordinators, volunteers, stakeholders, and sponsors into the platform. Collaboration shouldn't be a line item on your invoice.

Planning the migration

Moving from an enterprise platform takes planning. Don't rush it.

Export your data. Pull your event data, contact lists, and any historical records you need. Map out what you have and where it lives.

Map your workflows. Identify how your team currently uses Stova — registration, speaker management, exhibitor coordination, scheduling. Then map those workflows to ema's model. Most will translate directly. Some may work differently (and often more simply).

Start with a pilot event. Don't migrate your entire programme at once. Run one event through ema, let your team get comfortable, then expand from there.

Being honest about the trade-off

Stova has enterprise capabilities that come from combining three platforms' worth of features. If you need very specific functionality from those legacy products — a particular virtual event workflow from MeetingPlay, or a specific reporting feature from Aventri — check that ema covers your requirements before switching.

But if the fragmented experience is costing your team productivity, if your organisers are spending time navigating between inconsistent interfaces instead of managing their events, a purpose-built alternative is worth evaluating. That's what ema was designed to be: one product, built to work as one product, priced so you don't need a procurement process to try it.