Outgrown Momentus? Seven Signs Your Venue System Is Working Against You

If your sales team keeps a spreadsheet open beside the venue system all day, this post is for you.

We hear the same frustration from stadium and venue teams across Australia. The system is powerful, and somehow the work still happens around it. Holds live in a spreadsheet. Someone senior checks every booking by eye. The new coordinator is still asking how to pull a report in their second month.

This is not a post about Momentus being bad software. It isn’t. It is about the point where a broad system and a stadium’s daily work stop fitting, how to tell if you have reached it, and what to try before you replace anything.

It applies just as much if you run Ungerboeck, which was renamed Momentus, or Priava, which Ungerboeck (now Momentus) acquired in November 2021.

What reviewers actually say

Momentus is well regarded. Across Capterra, GetApp and Software Advice, which share one review pool, it holds 4.3 out of 5 from 98 reviews, and customer support is its highest-rated score. Reviewers describe it as “one single source of truth” for events across multiple venues and as “a highly flexible platform”.

The complaints are consistent, and they are about complexity rather than the product failing:

• “it is complex and requires training beyond what we had internally required before”
• “There was an extremely labor intensive onboarding and system buildout process.”
• “Steep learning curve to master.”
• “It has too many clicks to get things done.”

The reviewer who wrote “Steep learning curve to master.” also called it “Very powerful, infinitely customisable.” That is the honest picture. Flexibility and complexity are the same feature, seen from different desks.

Seven signs your system is working against you

None of these on its own means you need a new system. Together, they show where your team is doing the system’s job for it.

1. Holds and options live in a spreadsheet beside the system.

Venue sales rarely go straight from enquiry to confirmed. There is a first option, a second option, a promoter who is keen and a client waiting on their board.

If the system’s hold states don’t match how your team actually ranks that interest, the team builds its own list. The spreadsheet becomes the real pipeline, and the system only records the conclusions.

2. Double-bookings are caught by people, not the system.

A stadium is a hierarchy. A concourse contains suites, some rooms combine into larger ones, and booking one space quietly takes others.

If your safeguard is a senior coordinator who knows which spaces clash, you are relying on memory. Memory takes annual leave. And when it fails, it usually fails on the day.

3. Only one or two people know how to configure it.

Flexible systems reward the people who learn them deeply. They also create a single point of failure.

One long-time Momentus Enterprise customer on Software Advice, who calls themselves “a fan of the software”, wished complex reports and document merges were simple enough that local admins “could figure that out on their own without the need for special training”.

If changing a hold type or adding a space means waiting for one person, your venue runs at the speed of that person’s calendar.

4. New starters take weeks to find their feet.

Venue teams turn over, and event seasons don’t wait for anyone to finish training.

One Capterra reviewer calls Momentus “a beast, not because it is difficult or particularly hard to work with but because it is complex and requires training beyond what we had internally required before”. They now set expectations so new staff understand “what we learned with hours and hours of use”. An Australian events reviewer put it more briefly: “Momentus has quite a learning curve when starting out”.

Not everyone agrees. A theatre reviewer on Software Advice found the interface intuitive, “making it easy to navigate and train new staff quickly”. If your experience is closer to the first two, that is a sign worth noting.

5. Every report means an export to Excel.

If the numbers your CEO asks for on Monday need someone to export, pivot and tidy, your reporting happens in Excel, not in the system.

Reviewers split here too. One says “the reporting functionality is extremely valuable”. An Australian head of sales and events, reviewing Priava, listed “The lack of detail and options with reporting” as the main drawback. The long-time Enterprise customer above said a polished client-facing document “requires significant time and funds to commission a ‘Custom Report’”.

6. You pay for modules you don’t use.

A suite covers sales, events, catering, finance and more, and its price reflects that breadth. That is fine if you use it.

Value for money is Momentus’s lowest score on Software Advice, at 3.98 out of 5. The Priava reviewer above, on Capterra Australia, called it “very expensive for what it is in comparison to competitors”.

Fairness matters here. In a case study on Momentus’s own site, Gema Group, an Australian caterer whose venues include several stadiums, calls Momentus Enterprise “the Rolls Royce of event management systems” and says it “probably has capabilities our organization doesn’t need to use at this stage”. They chose it on purpose, to suit them “for the next 10 to 15 years”. That is a sound reason to buy a suite. It is worth asking whether it is still your reason.

7. The building, staffing and security teams re-key what the booking system already knows.

The booking decides how the building runs: air conditioning, lighting, security and staff. If someone reads the calendar and types it into the building management system, a roster and a security brief, the same event is entered several times by different people, with a chance to get it wrong each time.

To be fair to Momentus, it offers open APIs through Momentus Connect, so this is often an integration nobody has built rather than a missing capability. Either way, your venue pays for the re-keying every week.

Before you replace it

Be honest about which of these are the software and which are the setup. Several are often configuration and training:

• Hold types, space relationships and approval rules can usually be reconfigured.
• Reports can be rebuilt, and more than one person can learn to build them.
• Configuration knowledge can be spread beyond one administrator.
• Modules nobody opens can be raised at renewal.

Momentus itself says the critical variables in an implementation are “data readiness, stakeholder alignment, and pace of user training”. If your original implementation was rushed, or the people who configured it have moved on, a re-implementation with Momentus or one of its partners may fix more than a new system would, with far less disruption.

Replacing a venue system is a real project. If the cheaper fix might work, try it first.

When replacing makes sense

Replacement is worth a serious look when:

• the signs survive a clean re-implementation and proper training;
• the workarounds are structural, because the way your venue sells space, with competing holds, a space hierarchy and approvals, doesn’t fit the model;
• your team’s core job is selling stadium space and running event days, and you are paying for modules built for other jobs;
• the systems downstream of the booking still need manual work to know what is on.

If that sounds familiar, start with what a venue booking system actually needs and our overview of venue management software in Australia. When you are ready, plan how to move off Momentus without stopping trading.

What Booka does differently

We built Booka, venue management software for stadiums and venue networks.

It is narrower than a suite, and built around how stadiums sell space. It still has to be configured for your venues, and your team still needs to learn it. What it changes is where the work sits:

• Holds: tiered provisional holds, where the strongest commercial intent wins the date.
• Double-bookings: conflict detection across the space hierarchy, so the system catches the clash rather than a person.
• Approvals: sign-off happens in the booking, not in an email thread beside it.
• Event days: staffing templates become per-event rosters, and run sheets turn the day into a time-ordered checklist.
• Re-keying: an external API feeds event and space data to the building management system, which schedules HVAC, lighting and security around what is actually on.
• Governance: role-based access per venue, a separate permission for who can see contact details, and an audit log.

Booka has more than 4,000 commits and over 130 database migrations behind it, and it is still being extended. It does not do ticketing: Booka sells the space, ticketing sells admission.

It is available to license for other stadiums and large venues, and Shakewell is a Registered supplier under the NSW ICT Services Scheme.

If you genuinely use most of what a suite offers, keep it. We will tell you so.

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Sources: Momentus reviews on Capterra Australia, Capterra and Software Advice; Gema Group case study (Momentus); Momentus Answers; Ungerboeck rebrands as Momentus Technologies (Ausleisure); Ungerboeck acquires Priava (Sports Venue Business).