Organizing an event takes a lot of effort, from planning and promoting it to collecting RSVPs and ensuring everything runs smoothly on the day. But even after the last attendee has left and the equipment has been packed away, there’s still one crucial step left – gathering feedback.
While hosts may think that the event was a success and met goals and expectations, attendees might not share the same sentiment. Asking for their opinions and suggestions through post-event surveys is an essential part of improving future events and keeping a target audience engaged.
Post-event surveys often yield the most meaningful (and significant!) feedback. This is the place for event attendees and participants to assess different factors and parts of the event – from topics, speakers, participants, or sponsors to accommodations, food choices and their overall experience and satisfaction with the event. Hosts should survey absolutely everyone that participated in your event (not just the guests). Vendors, sponsors, volunteers and VIP guests all have their own unique perspectives on the event experience and will be able to give valuable insights.
After the feedback has been collected, it’s time for to review the answers. These answers help hosts determine whether your event-planning efforts met the needs and expectations of event attendees and participants. The most valuable information from a post-event survey is whether participants found it worth their investment, time, and resources. It is also important to ask if they found value in the event and if they would participate in the future event(s).
Some key factors that you can analyze through responses to post-event surveys:
Attendee satisfaction: A post-event survey can help hosts understand how satisfied attendees were with the event, and what they liked and disliked about it. This feedback can help identify areas for improvement and make adjustments to future events.
Areas for improvement: A post-event survey can help identify areas where your event fell short and where improvements could be made. Having this feedback helps event planners make changes to future events that address these issues and create a better experience for attendees.
Event success: Post-event surveys can help determine if the event met its pre-defined goals and objectives. By gathering feedback on what attendees found most valuable, event hosts can determine if the event was successful in meeting its intended outcomes.
Attendee engagement: By soliciting feedback from attendees, event hosts can demonstrate that they value opinions of attendees and are committed to continuously improving the event experience. This can increase attendee engagement and foster a sense of community around future events.
Inform future event planning: The feedback gathered from post-event surveys can inform the planning process for future events. By learning what worked well and what didn’t, hosts can adjust their approach to event planning to create even better experiences for attendees.
It is not enough to just throw in the questions into a survey and send it to attendees and participants without planning. Surveys need to be carefully thought-out and crafted. Apart from making sure questions are relevant to the event, event participants need to know their feedback matters. Here are some best practices to incorporate before sending out the survey:
© 2024 All Rights Reserved
To provide the best experiences, we and our partners use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us and our partners to process personal data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site and show (non-) personalized ads. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Click below to consent to the above or make granular choices. Your choices will be applied to this site only. You can change your settings at any time, including withdrawing your consent, by using the toggles on the Cookie Policy, or by clicking on the manage consent button at the bottom of the screen.