A post event review that changes the next event

The week after an event is a strange interval. The team is tired, the invoices are arriving and the next project is already asking for attention. The review is easy to postpone, and a postponed review becomes a summary of what everyone already remembers.

A better review is short and specific. It does not try to prove that the event was good. It tries to find the decisions that should change.

Gather while it is fresh

Collect notes before the details disappear. Ask the people who worked the event to write down three things: what they expected, what happened and what they would change. Keep the answers separate from the general satisfaction scores. A warm feeling about the event can sit alongside a registration queue that nobody wants to repeat.

Skift Meetings and PCMA publish material on event evaluation, and both make the same distinction between measuring the experience and learning from the operation. You need both, but they answer different questions.

Review the decisions, not only the ratings

Go back to the brief and the run of show. For each major decision, ask whether it produced the behaviour it was meant to produce. Did the opening task get people talking? Did the room layout support the workshop? Did the changeover time hold? Did the closing session name a next step?

This is more useful than a single score because it connects a result to a choice. A rating tells you that people were satisfied or not. A decision review tells you what to do differently.

If the review does not change a decision, it is a report, not a review.

Use the evidence you have

Evidence does not have to be elaborate. Registration timestamps, session attendance, questions asked, supplier notes, the number of people who stayed for the close and the messages that arrived afterwards are all useful. So are the informal comments that never make it into a survey.

Be honest about what the evidence can support. A short survey of a self selected group is not a measure of the whole audience. A busy floor is not proof that exhibitors met the right visitors. State the limit and use the finding carefully.

Event Marketer and BizBash regularly cover measurement practice for live events. Read them for methods, not for benchmarks that may not apply to your audience.

Name owners for the changes

A review that ends with a list of improvements will produce the same list next year. Give each change an owner, a first step and a place in the next plan. If the change belongs to the venue conversation, put it in the venue brief. If it belongs to the programme, put it in the programme brief. If it belongs to the budget, put it in the budget with a note about the trade off.

Some changes will not be made. That is a decision too. Record why, so the next team does not reopen the same question without the context.

Keep a short record

A useful record fits on a few pages: the brief, the final run of show, the budget against actual commitments, the main decisions and the changes agreed for next time. Store it where the next organising team will find it. A folder that only the outgoing event manager can locate is not a record.

Close the loop with the people who helped. Tell them what changed as a result of their notes. That small act makes the next review easier to run.

For the planning phase this note supports, see the review phase. For the budget comparison, see the budget note. To turn the findings into a new programme, start with a brief.