The cycle of event management
Event management is a loop of planning, delivery, and then improvement.
Don’t stop thinking about your event once you’ve pulled it off!
Your post-event review is most critical part in the whole cycle – if you don’t do it well, your event won’t remain competitive and relevant to consumer trends.
Take the time to measure your successes and your events’ needs for improvement, and plan to adjust your event accordingly:
Research other events, and go experience other events for inspiration.
Learn about trends in events and event tourism.
Research to understand your visitors and target markets.
Some of your review will require preparation before the event, such as creating attendee surveys to get filled out during the event and to send out right afterwards, along with surveys for your other stakeholders: committee, sponsors, suppliers, etc. Create these once well, and it’s done for all time.
Our article on how to increase and measure your event's economic impact has tips on what to include in your survey questions.
We recommend using an online survey such as SurveyMonkey that automatically collates all the responses into an easy-to-read report (SurveyMonkey is free to use for up to only 10 questions and up to only 100 responses).
Here is a 10-minute podcast by event expert Linda Tillman on reviewing your event. It covers
What is involved in a post-event review
Who should do it – the Review Coordinator and their support
Where to get information from
What three things to include in a simple event report
Set up your surveys, debrief meeting agendas, and your budget templates accurately – and then you only have to tweak them in years to come to help you be more productive but less busy.
We have easy-to-use DIY templates to streamline your review.
We'd love to hear if you've ever learned something really helpful for your event through your review process. Please leave your comment below.
