The company’s new Georgia HQ signals big ambitions, but its pitch to planners is surprisingly simple: don’t use every bell and whistle
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“Discretion is the last act of achievement.”
That’s not a line you expect to hear at an event-tech roadshow, but Will Custard, product director of CrowdComms, dropped it like a mic as he faced a room full of meeting planners at CrowdComms Live NYC. The stop marked the kickoff of the company’s U.S. debut tour, though, truth be told, CrowdComms is hardly a stranger here.
“We’re already doing 500 events a year in the U.S.,” CEO Matt Allen told the crowd. Still, the victory lap feels different this time: the Australian-born company has officially planted its flag with a new North American HQ in Suwanee, Georgia. Think of it as moving from house guest to permanent resident.
And they’re moving in with some serious furniture. Deloitte. Coca-Cola. Radisson Hotels. American Express. Nestlé. These aren’t trial clients—they’re established CrowdComms accounts. The move stateside caps more than a decade of innovation that’s stretched from event apps to badge-printing kiosks to virtual platforms robust enough to survive the pandemic’s curveball.
The Langleys Tee-Off
To christen the New York kickoff, CrowdComms played a smart opening card: Brad Langley, the newly minted SVP for the Americas, led a Q&A with his son, Scott Langley, the former PGA Tour pro who now runs player experience for every U.S. Golf Association championship (yes, including the U.S. Open).
The younger Langley dished on what it’s like to design athlete journeys at the sport’s biggest stages—think logistics, performance psychology, and a thousand tiny details that make or break an elite event. For CrowdComms’ audience of planners, it was a masterclass in how much invisible work it takes to make things feel seamless.
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One App to Rule Them All?
Then came the philosophical debate: event apps. Should you have one mega-app that does it all, or cobble together a stack of specialized tools through your CRM?
Allen didn’t flinch: “It’s okay to integrate separate apps that do onsite registration, badge printing, live polling, and networking tools. The idea is to put together the best suite of tools possible. Don’t use every bell and whistle. Just use what you need.”
In other words: event-tech minimalism.
The Endgame
CrowdComms’ U.S. expansion isn’t just about opening an office. It’s about staking a claim in a hypercompetitive market where event planners are increasingly overwhelmed by a glut of platforms promising to be everything, everywhere, all at once.
By leaning into discretion—the art of doing more by doing less—CrowdComms is betting that simplicity and flexibility will win over a client base that has seen too many over-engineered solutions.
The tour continues across the country, but the message was clear in New York: the future of event tech isn’t louder, it’s smarter.
Any thoughts, opinions, or news? Please share them with me at vince@meetingsevents.com.
Photo by CrowdComms
