Do you enjoy filling out forms and surveys? If your answer is yes, you’re one of the very few people who do. Two-thirds of people who start a form never complete it.
That’s not to say that surveys and evaluation forms aren’t important. After helping event organizers with millions of successful events, we know gathering guest feedback is essential to shaping future event experiences.
That’s why we’ve created a free event evaluation template to gather feedback from your attendees. You’re welcome. 💁♀️
Plus, we outline everything you need to know about gathering post-event feedback — including the different evaluation forms, creating a successful form from scratch, and overcoming common hurdles.
Table of Contents
The strategic value of event evaluation
Types of event evaluation forms
How to create an effective event evaluation form
Common issues with evaluation forms and how to address them
The strategic value of event evaluation
You’ve spent months planning and organizing every last detail of your event, and it’s finally over. Time for some well-earned R&R. 😴
But wait — what about event evaluation forms? Are they worth the fuss after all the time and effort you’ve already put into organizing the event?
Yes, and here’s why.
Measure event success against objectives
Evaluation forms assess whether your event achieves its goals and KPIs, helping you measure event success.
For example, if one of your goals is to ensure 90% guest satisfaction, you can use the evaluation forms to directly measure this metric. You can also use Eventbrite’s analytics dashboard to track success metrics like ticket sales, attendance rates, and check-in data in a central location — and in real time.
Pair this with post-event surveys, and you’ve got a complete picture of event success.
Pinpoint areas for improvement
Gathering event feedback is the perfect opportunity to identify the following:
- What you did well and can replicate in future events
- What you can change to improve the guest experience
An evaluation form might show that attendees appreciated the interactive workshops because they were engaging and provided practical takeaways. But the event schedule? It was too packed. Guests had little time for networking and breaks.
With these insights, you know that the best course of action is to:
- Continue offering hands-on sessions
- Adjust the pacing of the schedule for future events
You can also review performance insights with Eventbrite’s attendee reporting.
Quickly identify patterns, such as low attendee engagement by specific ticket tiers or areas with slow attendee check-ins, to identify potential improvements. Then, cross-reference this data with attendee feedback to pinpoint actionable next steps.
You can find reports in the “Reporting” tab of your event dashboard, where you can choose which report to review.
Understand audience preferences
Leverage feedback to understand what truly resonates with your audience. If attendees consistently praise the panel discussions for featuring diverse and expert voices, you can prioritize similar sessions in future events.
This ensures that you deliver engaging events that align with attendee expectations. As a result, guests have better experiences, which means they’re more likely to:
- Attend future events
- Recommend you to other potential guests
Plus, when you understand audience preferences, you can promote future events more effectively. For example, Eventbrite’s email marketing tools help you segment your audience based on their event feedback or behavior.
Use these insights to create tailored communications that boost ticket sales for future events. If guests loved the indie stage at your music festival, you can promote similar indie performances in the future.
To send emails with Eventbrite, go to your event dashboard and select “Emails to attendees” (under “Manage Attendees”). You can send emails anytime while your event is live and up to 10 days after it ends.
Inform budget allocation and demonstrate ROI
Use evaluation insights to make informed decisions about budget allocation and resource future planning.
For example, if feedback highlights that certain keynote speakers didn’t resonate with the audience, you can allocate more resources toward securing speakers who better match your audience’s interests.
You can also present data-driven results to stakeholders to show your event’s return on investment (ROI). If you demonstrate that your event increased brand awareness by 20%, you can justify expenses and secure support for future events.
And don’t forget — Eventbrite’s reporting makes it easy to pull and review this data. Use our reports to illustrate how marketing spend or ticket pricing directly influenced revenue and audience satisfaction.
Types of event evaluation forms
There’s no one-size-fits-all format for evaluation forms. Each form differs based on the structure and content of your event, as well as the information you want to collect.
Let’s look at some of the popular types of evaluation forms. But remember — the format isn’t set in stone. You can change it to suit your event.
General post-event evaluation template
A generic event feedback form helps you gauge how people feel about the event as a whole. It’s not as specific as other forms, making it useful for general feedback on different types of events.
Think about a cheese-tasting event as an example, like the events hosted by Murray’s Cheese. For this event, you might ask the following questions in your event feedback form:
- What was your favorite part of the cheese tasting?
- Do you have suggestions for improvements next time?
- Would you recommend this cheese-tasting event to others? Why or why not?
- Do you feel the cheese tasting was worth the price you paid?
- How satisfied were you with the quality of the cheese?
- How satisfied were you with the host’s knowledge?
Don’t worry if you’re not hosting a cheese-tasting event — you can adapt these questions to any event. Use our event evaluation form template and customize it to suit your event.
Session or workshop event evaluation form
Unlike a general feedback form, this one drills down into the details of a particular session or workshop. This feedback helps you understand the session’s effectiveness and how it resonated with attendees.
A workshop from Deep House Yoga, for example, might ask the following questions:
- Was the session content relevant to your needs or interests?
- Was the yoga session engaging?
- Was the instructor clear and supportive? If not, why?
- Did the ambiance and tone of the session meet your expectations?
By tailoring the feedback questions to specific workshop elements (like engagement, clarity, and ambiance), Deep House Yoga could gather actionable insights for future events. For example, if the ambiance wasn’t right, they could make changes to improve the guest experience.
Speaker or presenter event evaluation form
A presenter evaluation form gathers feedback on speaker performance, content delivery, and quality of information.
Here are some example questions:
- Did you find the speaker engaging? Please explain why (or why not).
- Was the content of the presentation clear and easy to understand?
- How well did the speaker manage their time during the presentation?
- Did the content of the presentation meet your expectations? Please explain why (or why not).
The ideal questions vary depending on the type of speaking event.
Think about events from the Alchemy of Insights (like the Psychic Medium Mini Reads) as an example. In these spiritual events, the speaker engages directly with guests. When gathering feedback, you might ask questions about:
- The level and quality of engagement
- Their enjoyment levels
But if you’re running a professional event, feedback questions focus more on the quality of the information. For example, at Protect Wealth Academy events, guests expect:
- Speakers to be extremely knowledgeable
- To come away with actionable advice
Keep your event goals in mind when creating this survey to ensure your questions are relevant to your audience (more on this later).
Virtual event evaluation form
Virtual event forms gather feedback from online participants. The questions focus on elements unique to virtual events, such as platform usability, technical quality, and virtual interaction.
Host engaging virtual events
Let’s use Ken Dunn from Expedition Recovery as an example.
Ken hosts online mindfulness classes. If he wanted feedback from participants, he might ask the following questions:
- Were you able to participate in the session fully while joining remotely?
- Did the event meet your expectations while joining remotely?
- Did you experience any technical issues (audio, video, connection) during the event?
- Were you kept informed about any changes to the schedule or platform?
The responses indicate whether participants were able to fully immerse themselves in the class (which is what you hope to achieve from a mindfulness session). If it didn’t, he could make changes to ensure virtual participants don’t experience the same challenges in the future (like improving the technology or changing the format of the session).
How to create an effective event evaluation form
We’ve covered the different types of feedback forms. Now, let’s walk through the steps for creating your own evaluation form.
1. Define clear goals
Clarify what you want to learn from the feedback. Without clear objectives, you risk collecting irrelevant or superficial feedback, which isn’t ideal.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- What are your KPIs for event success? Clarify your metrics for measuring event success. Is it to increase attendance engagement? Provide good value for money? This will put you in a good position to gather relevant feedback.
- What feedback will show that you’ve hit these KPIs? Identify the specific insights you need to show that you’ve hit these KPIs. For example, things like attendee satisfaction, speaker performance, or logistical efficiency.
When listing the feedback you need, prioritize essential information over “nice-to-know” data. This keeps forms focused on the information you need and prevents them from being too long (which means people are less likely to fill them out).
💡 Pro Tip: Outline your key goals by category (like event content, venue, overall experience) to streamline data analysis. Instead of sifting through scattered feedback, you can quickly identify patterns within each category, such as consistent praise for the speakers or recurring complaints about the reserved seating arrangement.
2. Choose the right format
There are two main formats for event feedback forms: online and physical.
Choosing the right format for your event form is crucial. Why? Because it can directly impact response rates.
An obvious example would be using physical forms for a hybrid event, where only some attendees can complete the forms. A less obvious example is if your audience is less tech-savvy, they might prefer physical forms to online forms.
So, how do you know which forms to use?
Some food for thought: Unless you really need to use physical forms, online forms are the better choice. They’re easier to distribute and analyze, allowing you to compare data in a matter of clicks instead of manually comparing notes and adding all the feedback to a database. Plus, they’re better for the environment.
3. Keep it short
A clear and concise survey boosts response rates. HubSpot’s study shows that conversions drop by nearly half when four fields are added to a form instead of three. And other research suggests that the sweet spot for survey length is 10-14 minutes.
Here are some tips for creating a compact survey:
- Have your goals in mind. Reduce the number of questions by making sure each question relates to a specific event goal. For example, if your goal is to assess the effectiveness of your keynote speaker, you don’t need to ask questions about catering.
- Use a mix of question types. Keep the survey interesting by mixing up the structure of your questions. Use multiple-choice for quick and quantifiable feedback, Likert scales to gauge satisfaction levels, and open-ended questions for detailed and valuable insights.
- Keep text boxes to a minimum. Limit the number of sophisticated fields (like multi-line text areas). These questions make the survey longer and trickier to complete.
A concise survey also reduces survey fatigue, which can improve the quality of responses.
We’ve all been there when completing a long survey — the more it drags on, the less thorough your answers become. Keeping the survey short prevents this from happening, meaning you’re more likely to collect thoughtful and useful feedback.
4. Time it carefully
Timing affects response rates and feedback accuracy. Send forms too soon, and attendees might provide rushed or emotionally charged responses. Send them too late, and they may forget important details or lose motivation to respond.
So, how do you know when to send the forms?
Combining immediate and delayed follow-ups is a good tactic.
Send a quick survey immediately post-event for instant impressions, followed by a reminder email a few days later (SurveyMonkey says that anywhere between 48 and 72 hours after your initial survey invite is the best time to send reminders). That way, you capture spontaneous reactions as well as more reflective feedback.
You can also use Eventbrite to automate email follow-ups.
Emails are automatically sent to participants when the event ends with embedded links to your online forms. Then, you can schedule another reminder a few days later.
💡 Pro Tip: Boost response rates by scheduling emails during high-response periods (which vary depending on your audience). Review your previous events’ email history and look at industry reports (like this research from Omnisend) to pinpoint the ideal times.
5. Make it easily accessible
If your form isn’t accessible, response rates will take a hit.
Think about mobile users as an example. 35% of SurveyMonkey respondents complete surveys on mobile devices. If your form isn’t mobile-friendly, you risk missing feedback from a large number of your guests.
Here’s some advice for ensuring accessibility:
- Use a responsive design. Ensure your form works across all devices — including mobile — by using a responsive design that automatically adjusts to different screen sizes and orientations.
- Cater to different needs. Make sure your form is accessible for people with visual, hearing, and physical impairments. For example, use clear fonts with high-contrast colour schemes to make the text easily readable for individuals with visual impairments. Also, having a label that clearly describes each field’s purpose allows screen reader users to understand what information is required.
💡 Pro Tip: Use QR codes to streamline access to digital forms. Place them strategically and at different heights to ensure everyone can scan them. Position them close to exits or in high-traffic areas and use clear, compelling calls-to-action like, “Share your thoughts — shape our next event!” or, “Submit your feedback — win free tickets!” to encourage completion.
Common issues with evaluation forms and how to address them
Gathering feedback isn’t without its hurdles. As an event organizer or event coordinator, you’re responsible for identifying these challenges and putting preventative measures in place.
But don’t worry — we’ve got your back. Here are some of the common issues — and how to overcome them.
Low response rates
Survey response rates vary greatly, with an average response rate of approximately 44%. But the more responses you get, the more valuable the data is.
So here are some ways to boost survey response rates:
- Offer personalized incentives. Provide incentives based on your audience’s preferences to pique their interest. For example, attendees of a tech conference might appreciate a 20% discount for future tech events.
- Embed feedback opportunities into the event flow. Use real-time polls or micro surveys during sessions via event apps or live polling platforms. This engages attendees in the moment and gathers immediate feedback.
And don’t forget — use the steps listed above to make sure your forms are concise, well-timed, and easily accessible. All of these things make it easier for guests to complete the forms.
Ambiguous or unclear questions
Vague questions can lead to inaccurate or incomplete feedback. For example, asking, “Did you find the event useful?” leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
What part of the event? The sessions, networking opportunities, or venue? And useful in what way? Professionally, personally, or something else?
Here’s how to ensure your evaluation questions are as clear as possible:
- Use clear, straightforward language and avoid technical jargon
- Test your questions with your team first to gauge clarity and understanding
- Provide examples or context for open-ended questions
Bear in mind that too many open-ended questions can make the survey more complex and time-consuming, so limit how many you include. In some cases, a simple “yes” or “no” answer tells you what you need to know — like when determining if people would recommend your event.
Leading or biased questions
Questions that suggest a certain answer affect how people respond. Here’s an example: “Don’t you agree that the keynote speaker was inspiring?”
This question assumes the speaker was inspiring, pressuring attendees to agree. As a result, respondents might provide dishonest feedback, skewing your results. If they thought the speaker wasn’t inspiring, you’ll never know (and future guests will have to suffer through the same experience — not cool).
Prevent this by using neutral phrasing and avoiding judgmental language. For example, stay clear of words like “excellent” or “terrible” that imply that you feel a certain way about the event.
With multiple-choice questions, provide a full range of balanced options. Cover all your bases from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree” to give guests a full spectrum of choice.
Get the event feedback you need
Event evaluation forms are a gold mine for understanding what worked, what didn’t, and how to improve your next event. With thoughtful design and perfect timing, you’ll gather valuable feedback and practical ideas to make your attendees love your events even more.
With our free evaluation form template and guide, you’ll learn to design forms that gather actionable insights, streamline the feedback process, and save time using Eventbrite’s built-in tools.
