8.6 Event Assessment Stage
Once the event is over, how will you know it was a success or a failure? To conduct an event assessment, first reorient yourself with the goals and associated KPIs. For each goal, find the data that aligns with the KPI. After the data has been assembled, it is a good idea to gather the relevant stakeholders and have a post-event evaluation meeting. In this meeting, the full group can discuss their feedback and add additional information to the KPI data assessment. If this is an annual event, it is good practice to make scrupulous notes during the post-event evaluation meeting. Using the assessment notes to make the next event even better.
Gathering Assessment Data
Assessment data can be gathered in different ways. Event data can be either quantitative, meaning numbers and measurements, or qualitative, meaning descriptions and opinions. Quantitative data may include budget reports, attendance data, dollars raised, or products sold. Qualitative data may include what comments people made on social media posts about the event, online survey results, or how generally happy, talkative, or engaged the audience was.
Real World Example: Assessment
For Kelly and Mark’s wedding they had two goals, (1) to stick to a $10,000 budget and (2) To have their friends and family feel valued and included by offering them at least three ways to engage in the wedding, help plan, be in photos, and have time at the reception to offer personalized messages.
To assess whether their wedding met those goals, they would first look at the quantitative data in the budget report to see if they stayed at or under $10,000 for their expenses.
To assess whether they met their second goal, they could look at qualitative data. They could look to see if they did actually include those three activities and if so, did people participate in them and did they seem, or say, that they felt valued and included.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics that a property uses to make informed management decisions. Standardized KPIs also help managers compare their property’s successes or failures to other properties in the area.
A person or group of people that has a stake (or a role) in the event.
