Evaluating, everyone knows it: gathering information to achieve a better result next time. Evaluation should not be missing at your event, that’s for sure. But what does an evaluation look like? When is the right time to interview the visitors of your event? These are issues that many organizers still encounter. We share some creative ways to evaluate and improve your event.

Who do you evaluate with?

First of all, you determine what you want to achieve with the evaluation. What do you want to measure? What will you do with the answers? How are you going to analyze it? And how are you going to feed back the results? In addition to visitors, you can also ask staff, volunteers, suppliers such as a caterer, speakers or artists to rate your event. Everyone has their own commitment, experience and objective. Therefore, adjust the questions, the form and the timing of the evaluation per stakeholder.

Evaluation should not be missing at your event, but how do you do that?

It is useful to get feedback during the event. Your audience is completely immersed in the atmosphere of the event. This is your chance to reach as wide an audience as possible to ask for input without any pressure. Not a mandatory number, but a creative part of your event. Halito! visited The Next Event and experienced very original ways of evaluating.

The inspiration tree

This is a playful but tactical way to let your participants reflect on the impressions and ideas that the participants experienced during the day. In the session “From Chairs to Goals” speaker Juup de Kanter said that a moment of reflection is often missing. As an organizer, you add extra value to the event when you ask participants to convert their experience into concrete actions. Have the participants write down ideas, bundle them together and stick them in the tree from the roots to the fruit. At the end of the day, both the organizer and the participants will immediately see the results.

Visual illustrations

These can serve as a reminder. Think of pictures of the speakers that you hang up at each session room or at the nearest coffee corner. Participants record feedback about the session they attended on post-its and then attach the post-its to the appropriate photo of the speaker. You not only make it accessible for the visitor, but you also define the information about which the participants can give their feedback.

Integrate the evaluation moment

Integrate the evaluation into the event by placing two bins at the exit. When leaving the event, ask attendees to throw their badge in the green bin if they liked the event, and in the red bin if they didn’t. Have you thought about using the back of a paper badge? Point out to visitors that they can write down their point(s) for improvement at any time of the day.

An event app

Are you planning to use an event app during the event because you want to share valuable and personalized information? Use it as a means to ask the visitor for feedback immediately after a session with a push message.
Interactive, visual or digital, it is decisive that you give the visitor sufficient time to assess the session. Keep this in mind when planning the event!

After the event

Evaluate your success with a survey. You can do a verbal survey during the event, however you can also send it with your thank you e-mail. Via an online survey you can reach a large group in a systematic way. You can tailor the survey to the visitors and other stakeholders of the event. Speaker Nico Meyer  told during his session “How your event creates value and how you demonstrate this” that you can only measure the value of an event by formulating a clearly desired end result for each stakeholder in advance so that you can also evaluate the goal afterwards. If you know why and for whom you are organizing the event, you can use the goals for each stakeholder to make a good translation into the concept of the event. Via Halito! you can easily send the desired survey questions per stakeholder. You can choose from input fields such as a text field, list box or rating scale. You can view the results in real time. Depending on the type of event, participants may find it convenient to complete the satisfaction survey anonymously.

To ultimately collect as many responses as possible, you can link a giveaway, discount for the next event or free downloads to the survey.

Looking back

Hold onto the positive experiences a little longer. When you thank the visitors for their presence, you can immediately show the results and share them. In addition to a feedback of figures, you make it even more interesting by sharing recordings or written reactions of visitors on the event website or photos, atmospheric videos and presentations of the speakers. Don’t forget that it should be easy for the visitor to share the content on your event website via social media.

Evaluation should not be missing at your event: conclusion

One thing is clear, evaluation should not be missing at your event. Include the wishes and goals of each party in the preliminary phase and evaluate during and/or after the event in creative ways that fit the target group and are in line with your event concept. Make your next event an even bigger success by applying the valuable feedback. Show how you did this in the next edition and share this with the visitors of your (previous) event.