Hosting an event can be a daunting task. Between managing logistics and ensuring your attendees have a memorable experience, it is easy to overlook the critical process of collecting feedback both during and after the event. However, feedback is the lifeblood of event improvement, giving you insights into what worked, what didn't, and how you can enhance future events. In order to ensure that you're prepared to take your next event to new heights, we will walk you through the significance of gathering feedback from events as well as the best ways to do so.

Why Is Event Feedback Important?

After the event is over, you might feel confident that you have a good idea of how well it went by looking at a number of indicators, such as ticket sales, attendance, activity participation, and food and drink consumption. Still, it's important not to overlook the most crucial aspect of any event - the attendee experience.

Since everyone's experience is unique, it's necessary to gather feedback from as many attendees as possible. Collecting feedback goes beyond being an evaluation tool; it's a goldmine of valuable insight, shedding light on the effectiveness of your content, logistical efficiency, and the overall attendee experience.

Asking for feedback is essential as it highlights strength and identifies areas for improvement, allowing you to learn from past experiences to improve future outcomes. This serves as a guide for refining strategies, optimising content, and enhancing engagement, shaping the trajectory of your event planning process.

How to Ask for Event Feedback

When seeking event feedback, it's important to create a user-friendly and open approach that puts attendees at ease and encourages them to share their opinions. By doing this, you can gather honest feedback that provides authentic insights, and allows for an accurate evaluation of the event.

One effective way to obtain feedback is through instant methods that record real-time responses and demonstrate your commitment to enhancing the current event based on participant experiences. Alternatively, there are delayed options, which are usually included in emails thanking attendees for attending the event. These can offer further insights and are typically more in-depth.

Event Feedback During Event

Getting input from attendees throughout the event is essential to improving the overall experience, especially in the midst of a busy event where collecting feedback in real-time is paramount. This real-time feedback shows your dedication to improving the current event depending on participant experiences, in addition to capturing impressions right away. To gather event feedback during the event, you can utilise tools like live polls, instant survey QR codes, comment cards, feedback walls, or event feedback buttons.

With the power of AI, The Brewery can help you to gather passive data using innovative XPAI technology. This technology continuously monitors and analyses every attendee, offering real-time analytics on engagement, audience demographics, emotional responses, and interaction levels.

Requesting feedback during the event not only facilitates on-the-spot adjustments but also contributes to refining future events based on instant reactions. By combining real-time feedback with post-event data, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of the overall event. This dual approach gives organisers the ability to make data-driven decisions and implement changes that will have a positive impact on attendee satisfaction.

Interaction

If you’d like to go interactive, position stations with feedback buttons that attendees can click to answer a question. You could locate these at the exit of the event, or near specific areas that you’d like feedback about.

For an event that focuses on technology, why not ask for feedback in the form of user testing? Attendees can try out specific products or brands and provide their thoughts through a questionnaire or an interview about their experience. You could also use this as a way to sign up beta testers for the future.

Cupcakes

This one probably shouldn’t be taken too seriously but, if you’re feeling creative, why not base your feedback around edible goodies?

Before your event, bake enough cupcakes for your attendees and decorate them with smiley, straight, and sad faces. At a break in your day’s event, offer cupcakes to your attendees and ask them to take the expression that they believe expresses their opinion about the day so far. You can do the same thing at other breaks during the day with different food or sweets and simply count up how many of each are left.

Event Feedback Post Event

To ensure that you receive valuable feedback, it's important to reflect on the event as a whole and think about ways to improve. One effective way to do this is to consider how to ask for feedback after an event. To gather opinions from attendees, you can use tools such as: 

Apps

Including feedback options in an event app can be a great way to ask people questions about their day while they’re still engaged and interacting. Some event apps can now be set up with tracking devices – as seen at some of last summer’s festivals – which can show where your attendees are spending their time and when they move on to look at something else. You can use the apps to help your attendees plan their days; giving them a calendar or itinerary that they can use to create their own event plan is a great way to see which elements of your events are the most popular.

Make sure that any app you create works on both Android and iPhones, as well as other providers, so that you don’t limit or exclude any attendees. Publicise the app at the beginning of the event, so that people are aware of it, and remind people to use them to plan their day.

Social media

Social media plays a huge part in customer feedback nowadays with many people voicing their praise, and sometimes complaints, on their favourite platform. Giving your event a hashtag can help you link their conversations to your brand and event. Providing polls on Twitter can also invite people’s responses.

Why not also add photos and videos of your key speakers to any posts you publish asking for feedback? That way, your attendees can recognise faces instead of having to rely on remembering names. Posting videos of your speakers can also share your event’s presentations with a wider audience, giving you more opportunities for feedback.

Feedback walls

Feature walls are becoming more popular at events simply as a way to cultivate photo opportunities for Instagram and other social medias, but you can also use them for another purpose. At the end of an event, when your attendees are beginning to leave, you can hand out post-it notes and ask people to write a piece of feedback and stick it on the wall.

At the end of the event, once everyone has left, you can then collect all the notes and review the feedback you’ve received. Since this is quite a relaxed way to collect feedback, it may not be quite as detailed as some of the other methods, but it is more likely to receive a large number of responses.

Traditional ways to get feedback

●      Event feedback questionnaires

●      Event feedback emails

●      Event feedback Google Forms

These tools enable a structured approach to collecting feedback and can be tailored to address specific areas of the event. To get more in-depth information, you can also include open-ended questions. After an event, whether if it is a large conference or a small meeting event, make sure to follow up with attendees to get their feedback while the experience is still fresh in their minds. This will ensure more accurate and useful comments.

Questions for Feedback Form for an Event

Coming up with questions that lead to useful responses can be tricky. Creating a well-designed feedback form for your event is critical to obtaining meaningful data. Think about include a combination of quantitative and qualitative questions in your event feedback form. Event feedback questions can range from rating the venue, speakers, and sessions to open-ended questions about the most and least enjoyable parts of the event. Make sure the questions are clear, concise, and relevant to the objectives of the event. Don't forget to include an option for additional comments, allowing attendees to share their own perspectives.

Here are some event feedback example questions that you can include in your forms:

1. How satisfied were you with the overall event experience on a scale of 1 to 10?
2. What specific aspect of the event contributed most positively to your experience?
3. Were there any aspects of the event that you found lacking or could be improved?
4. How likely are you to recommend this event to a colleague or friend? Please provide a brief explanation.
5. What suggestions do you have for enhancing future events or addressing any challenges you may have encountered?

Finally, to increase the likelihood of receiving thorough and timely feedback, think carefully about the timing and structure of your email sent to participants after the event.

The Brewery Helps You Get the Best Feedback

Choosing the right venue can make all the difference when it comes to gathering positive feedback from your event. The Brewery, known for its state-of-the-art facilities and excellent service, offers a unique setting that naturally encourages positive attendee experiences. Our skilled team is committed to ensuring that every event is a success. If you're aiming for a successful event with tons of positive feedback, The Brewery is the ultimate choice. Contact us today or take a look at our case studies to see the range of successful events we have delivered, and browse through our feedback from our satisfied clients. 

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