Let’s take a moment to talk about your post-event evaluation. Yesterday, we discussed how you can plan ahead to ask smart questions of your suppliers, venue and partners/sponsors. Asking the right questions throughout the event process will make everyone more informed, transparent and accountable. But when the attendees have left and you’re cleaning up the confetti, the hardest questions are the ones you must ask yourself. When it’s all over, take a critical and informed look at the event as a whole using these event evaluation questions. You will improve your process over time -- get vital information you can use to sell to sponsors and sign up great speakers next time, and understand where your budget went. Ask your post-event evaluation questions right away, and put your conclusions in writing! What should you be asking yourself?

Registration and Attendance

• How did your registration numbers compare against your goals?
• What was your no-show rate?
• Would you plan differently for food and budget, knowing the no-show rate?
• Was the registration process smooth all the way from signup to check-in?
• Would you work with the registration tool again?
• What can you do to increase registration numbers and actual attendance next time?
• Did your engaged audience grow before, during and after the event?

Once you’ve evaluated, reiterate your event registration process for your next event!

Event Budget

• What were some of the budget “surprises”?
• Were the big-ticket items worth the expense?
• What would you do differently next time?

As part of your event evaluation, get your budget in order and fight rising event costs!

Want to hear event budgeting tips from the pros?

Revenue or Funds Raised

• How did this stack up against your goal?
• What can you do to be more effective as a fundraiser?
• Were tickets priced appropriately?
• If you gave out free or discounted tickets, did you get a return on investment?

Tally up your revenue and consider new options to generate revenue with in-app event sponsorships!

Marketing Spend and Performance

• Which marketing channels gave you the best volume?
• Which channels generated the best cost-per-lead?
• Which channels performed poorly?
• Was there a correlation between specific channels and a specific type of attendee?
• How would you evaluate the tools you used for marketing?
• What kind of marketing mix would you use next time?

Perform the post-event evaluation of all your marketing programs and adjust accordingly for next time!

Attendee Satisfaction

• What did attendees say about your event in the surveys, in your follow-up calls, and on social media?
• Were there any sessions or parties that fell flat?
• Did attendees have complaints about the venue or the food?
• Did they seem happy with the networking opportunities?
• Was their perceived value of the event worth more than the price of the ticket?

Scratching your head on what questions to ask your attendees? Take a look at our list of post-event evaluation questions.

Learn how your attendees feel by sending out surveys and then optimize their experience at your next event!

Message Amplification and Lifetime

• How many people used your hashtag before, during and after the event?
• What was the volume of social shares, user photos, comments and follows?
• If you wanted to encourage a specific message or tone, were you effective?
• How engaged is your audience a week, a month, and 6 months after the event?

Measure your message synthesis and use tools to help you track and measure your influence!

Sponsor Success

• Were your sponsors happy with the volume of leads they collected and the conversations they had?
• Did they feel like the attendees were relevant to their customers?
• After a few months, are sponsors able to report a positive return on investment?

Perform a close evaluation of your sponsor program so you can properly maintain your relationships with event sponsors!

Venue/Vendor Performance

• Did the venue and vendor teams perform professionally and cohesively?
• Were they able to deal with contingencies?
• Would you work with them again?
• Was everyone on your team accountable and effective?
• Were there any gaps in accountability, or team members who weren’t pulling their weight?
• Did you have enough staff overall?

Learn how well the teams worked together for your event, and then plan ahead for the future so you have great relationships with everyone from sponsors to the venue to the security staff. Would you like to print these questions out? Grab the free event evaluation checklist. Did you know that you can deliver a post-event survey to your attendees on their smartphones? Guidebook makes it easy to collect attendee feedback in real-time -- pre, post, and during your event! Start building your mobile event app today: