Progressive Event App
What is a Progressive Event App?
A Progressive Event App is a browser-based event companion that needs no download, works offline at the venue, and exists only for the event it serves.
- Short form
- PEA
- Coined
- 25/04/2025
- Criteria
- Five, each with a test
- UK trade mark
- UK00004198050
01The definition
In sixty words.
A Progressive Event App, or PEA, delivers an event programme, ticket, map and personal schedule through the web rather than an app store. An attendee opens a link or scans a code and is immediately in their own event. It caches what it needs so a crowded venue with poor signal does not break it, and it does not outlive the event.
02The criteria
The five criteria.
An event app is a Progressive Event App if it meets all five. Each is a test with a stated failure condition, so that two people assessing the same platform independently should reach the same answer.
- 01 · Criterion
No installation required
Test. A first-time attendee reaches every feature from a URL or a scanned code, without visiting an app store.
Fails if. Any feature is reachable only through a native download, or the web version is a cut-down preview of the real app.
- 02 · Criterion
Offline-capable for core functions
Test. With the network disabled, the attendee can still open their ticket, read the agenda, and view the venue map.
Fails if. The app shows a blank screen, a spinner, or a connection error when offline.
- 03 · Criterion
Personalised without a separate account
Test. The link an attendee receives resolves to their own ticket, sessions and schedule without them creating a username and password.
Fails if. The attendee must create an account, set a password, or complete a registration of their own before seeing anything that belongs to them.
- 04 · Criterion
Event-scoped lifetime
Test. The app is provisioned for one specific event and does not persist on the attendee’s device once that event has passed.
Fails if. It is a permanent installed application, or a general-purpose account the attendee must later find and delete.
- 05 · Criterion
Installable, but never install-gated
Test. The attendee may add it to their home screen if they wish, and every feature works identically whether they do or not.
Fails if. Adding to the home screen unlocks functionality, or the app nags for installation before allowing use.
03PEA and PWA
A Progressive Event App is a Progressive Web App.
The name borrows deliberately from the Progressive Web App, the established web platform pattern of a site that can work offline, be added to a home screen, and behave like an installed application without being one. The word “progressive” carries the same meaning in both: capability that appears when the device and network allow it, and degrades without breaking when they do not.
A Progressive Event App is a constrained subset of one, with additional requirements that come from the event context rather than the web platform. Criteria three and four, in particular, have no equivalent in the PWA literature. A general PWA has no reason to care whether a user can see personal data without an account, and every reason to want to persist on the device rather than expire.
If you think that makes the term a rebrand of an existing idea rather than a new one, that is a fair reading.
04Our own productChecked 07/09/2026
Where Presso Events stands.
Presso Events is built by Presso Network Ltd, which coined the term. Its attendee app was assessed against the five criteria on the same evidence bar as every other platform on the original reference site, last checked on 07/09/2026. It meets four and fails one, so it is not a Progressive Event App.
| Criterion | Presso Events | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 01 · No installation required | Meets | It is a web app on a link. There is no Presso Events attendee app in the App Store, so there is no native version for the web one to be a cut-down preview of. |
| 02 · Offline-capable for core functions | Fails | The app caches only its own shell, never the ticket or agenda data, so offline an attendee gets a working frame with no ticket, no agenda and no map. The fallback is the six-character check-in code, which can be read out at the door. |
| 03 · Personalised without a separate account | Meets | The buyer receives an email with their ticket, a QR code, a six-character check-in code and a link to the event app. There is no account for them to create. |
| 04 · Event-scoped lifetime | Meets, qualified | Nothing is installed to persist and no account exists to find and delete. The attendee link does not expire, so this passes on the stated failure conditions while doing less than the criterion’s wording implies. |
| 05 · Installable, but never install-gated | Meets | Add to home screen is offered as a card in the normal page flow, with no overlay and nothing blocking use, and it is hidden once the app runs from the home screen. |
05History
Where the term came from.
“Progressive Event App” was coined by Presso Network Ltd on 25/04/2025, in a post on the Presso Events blog. It was a name for something the writers thought was obvious and under-served: event companion software that behaves like a web page rather than like software you install.
At that point it was a phrase, not a category. It had no tests, no failure conditions, and no way for anyone outside the company to apply it to anything. The criteria came in 2026, published at progressiveeventapp.com so that someone with no relationship to their author could apply them, disagree with them, and use them to assess products built by other people. That reference now lives on this page.
There were six criteria in an early draft. The sixth was dropped on 04/09/2026 after an adversarial review found that only the publisher’s own product could pass it, and could pass it on its own marketing copy rather than on anything testable. A criterion that exactly one platform satisfies is not a definition of a category, it is a description of a product.
The publisher still sells an event platform, and that platform is assessed above against the same criteria. Publishing criteria does not remove that conflict of interest. It makes it possible for you to check whether it has affected anything.
06Trade mark
Using the term.
Anyone may use it to describe a product that meets the published criteria, without asking permission and without paying a fee. Conformance is self-declared: there is no certification body, no approval process and no register to join.
You may
- Describe your product as a Progressive Event App if it meets all five criteria. You do not need to notify anyone.
- Use the term descriptively in writing, research, journalism, RFPs and procurement documents.
- Say that a product does not meet the criteria, and why.
- Reproduce the criteria in full, with attribution, including in a competing publication.
You may not
- Use the term for a product that does not meet all five criteria.
- Use “Progressive Event App” or “PEA” as the name of your product, or as part of it. It is a category, not a brand.
- Imply that Presso Network Ltd endorses, certifies or has approved your product.
- Use the mark in a domain name, logo or app icon.
When you first use the term in a document, mark it and attribute it once:
Progressive Event App® is a registered trade mark of Presso Network Ltd (no. UK00004198050). Criteria: https://events.pressonetwork.com/pea#criteria
Progressive Event App® is a UK registered trade mark of Presso Network Ltd, company no. 11569104 (UK00004198050, class 42). PEA™ is an unregistered trade mark of Presso Network Ltd.Check the register entry
07Questions
The awkward questions.
Is a Progressive Event App just a Progressive Web App?
Technically it is one, and the category does not pretend otherwise. A Progressive Event App is a constrained subset of the PWA pattern with three additional requirements that come from the event context rather than the web platform: personalisation without an account, a lifetime scoped to the event, and install that is never gated.
Can a native app be a Progressive Event App?
No. Criterion one requires that an attendee reach every feature without an app store visit, and a native app fails that by construction. A vendor may offer both a native app and a web experience, in which case the web experience is assessed on its own merits, and it still fails criterion one if it is a cut-down version of the native one.
Does offline capability mean the whole app works offline?
No. Criterion two covers the core functions only: the attendee’s ticket, the agenda, and the venue map. Anything that is inherently live, such as messaging other attendees or a session poll, is not expected to work without a network. The test is that the app remains useful offline, not that it remains complete.
Does a wallet pass count?
No, though it complements one. A wallet pass carries a ticket well and carries a programme, a map, a personal schedule and live changes not at all. A product whose only attendee-facing artefact is a wallet pass is not an event companion, so the criteria do not apply to it.
Is this a standard?
No, and calling it one would overstate it. It is a published definition with testable criteria, maintained by a single publisher. It has no standards body, no formal process, and no conformance programme.
The attendee side of Presso Events