The 30 Best Questions to Ask in Your Post Event Survey

So you’ve done all the hard work, and run your event and you’re probably already thinking about what’s next. But we would always recommend asking for feedback (when appropiate) so you can evaluate not just the financial and statistical data from your event, but also the feelings, sentiments and advice from your participants, to help you fully measure your success and prepare for the next event. But what questions should you be asking in yoru post event survey?

Today we’ll be looking at some of the very best questions to help better inform your event strategy for the future. We’ll also be assessing when they should be asked - for instance, a digital event will not have the same questions as a physical event!

General Advice

Before we get into our lists, let’s first discuss what kind of questions you want to ask. The main goal for your survey is to get an honest assessment of your event that will help you make decisions about running that type of event again. To do that, you’ll want as many responses as possible. That means keeping questions short and quick to answer is essential. 

Multiple choice questions are often far better than long text responses in any survey. It’s easy for the respondee to click an option that can be informative. With questions that require more thought they may provide a short, unhelpful response (or even leave the response blank). Plus it’s also easier to run reporting on multiple choice questions. 

If you ask everyone for a paragraph, you’ll manually have to scan and sort answers into categories if you want to produce analysis of their answers. That being said, sometimes you will want those longer answers, so mixing it up can be a good idea - just be sure to have a healthy mix!

Also strongly consider your mix of mandatory vs non-mandatory questions. While it’d be fantastic to get every respondee to fill in every question, the more questions you force them to answer (especially text ones!) the higher the barrier to completion and the more likely they are to abandon it and not submit. Consider what answers you absolutely must have and think if there are any that are just nice to haves.

Must-ask questions

These are questions that you should be asking after any event you run. If your form is missing them then you're missing out on critical data.

How would you rate the event? 

For this provide a straightforward scale. Be it 1-5, Very Good - Very Poor, or one of your choice. This is so you can get a quick internal assessment of sentiment.

What did you enjoy/ like most about the event?

A chance to follow up on the previous one! Asking your attendees to start thinking about a positive early on in the form is a good move. You can provide multiple choice here if you wish (e.g. speaker, food) or a text field. Though if you are asking multiple choice be sure to leave an ‘other’ option.

Was there anything that could have been improved?

Notice the framing of the question - ‘improve’ and not saying that anything was bad. Because an improvement might just be how to make a good thing great! This is an invaluable question though as it really lets people write feedback and can spark some great ideas.

Any extra comments?

The last question on your form. There might be something your attendee really wants to say that just didn’t fit into your other questions. This question may well not be responded to (so never make it mandatory!)

Valuable General Questions

These questions are a little less crucial, but still very valuable. You might not put them on every form - but you should at least consider them each time. You might even want to rotate some of them, keeping in mind the aim of not overdoing the length of an event survey.

How did you hear about the event?

You might know this from how you track your signups. In which case you don’t need to worry about this question! If you don’t, then strongly consider asking this question. It can let you know where it’s worth spending more time promoting your event and what’s working.

Did you find the event's date and time convenient?

This is a fantastic time to ask this and understand your audience’s habits. Maybe you picked the perfect time - or maybe there’s a trend about which time or day of the week would have worked better. Or maybe you’ll find another event your audience wanted to attend that you should plan to avoid in the future.

How likely are you to attend future events organised by us?

A very good question to ask. If you’re doing a series of events, it’s maybe not one you need to ask every time (perhaps at the end of the series). But for larger events it’s super useful and can help you predict how many people might attend again and is another source of information about how good your event was.

Would you recommend this event to others?

A simple yes/no is best here for an answer. And then ask them why/why not as a separate question. There’s two purposes to this question. Number one, it’s another test of sentiment. Number two - if they say they’d recommend it, well that might be a useful way to help promote events in the future!

How did you find the registration process?

If you’re running a new system this can be a great thing to ask, or it can also highlight some ways you could make it easier. With any ‘how’ question, keep in mind a simple scale (e.g. 1-5) is great for an initial question for your reporting, with a text field being a powerful follow-up if you want more feedback.

How was the pre-event communication?

Very similar to the last question. Understanding the attendee experience with your systems is crucial. Maybe there’s a common thing more people would have liked to know more about earlier or maybe they would have preferred more or less emails in advance reminding them of the details.

How would you rate the event’s organisation on the day?

This is great to get some feedback on. Try to distinguish between the pre-event experience and the on-the-day experience for the attendee (they might have different opinions of both!) and find out what went well and what could be improved.

What suggestions do you have for future events?

This is somewhat like the improvement question, but good to ask if you’re running speaker events with topics or themed events to get new ideas suggested for you. If you are running practically identical events (e.g. training courses) then this might double up a bit with the other question.

Did the event meet your expectations in terms of value for money?

Only applicable for paid events and obviously demands a follow up question if someone answers no. While this probably isn’t a question you’d always ask for something like a fundraising event, for a more complex event like an annual conference it is another good way of assessing how people feel.

For events with speakers

If your event has one or more speakers, then there are several questions you’ll want to make sure you ask to get specific feedback.

How would you rate the quality of the speakers/presenters?

A basic but very good question here. This is to make sure the quality of the speaker matches what your guests expect. ‘Quality’ is also a fairly neutral way of asking this question as it makes your attendee think about the experience/knowledge of the speaker and not just their public speaking skills.

Were the topics covered relevant and engaging?

This is a way of divorcing the topics from the speaker. Perhaps you have a very strong speaker, but the topic wasn’t quite what the attendee was looking for. Or vice versa. Understanding the full picture here is important.

Were there any topics or areas you wish had been covered in more depth?

An addition to the previous question, this can help you change up talks for the future or identify a topic you may wish to spin off into their own future talks.

Did you find the event's format engaging and effective?

You might want to specify in the question what you mean here by format (e.g. panel, workshop, keynote speeches), and you can even spin off each type into its own question if you’re doing several formats at your event. This again isolates something else - not just the speaker and topic, but the way the information was presented.

Were there any specific sessions or speakers that stood out to you? Why?

This is a great way to really see who connected with your audience and might be a good idea to invite back. Or it might just be something they did well which others could learn from going forward.

Physical event questions

When you’re running an in person event there are all sorts of questions that might come up that simply will never be part of a digital event. And some of them are vital to ask!

How did you find the venue?

Present a simple scale and see if your attendees liked where the event took place or not. If you’re on a tight budget with venues, it’s good to see if it quite hit the mark or whether next time you should look for somewhere alternative.

How were the refreshments?

You might even break this down more if you served different food during the day (refreshment breaks vs lunch/dinner).

How well were dietary requirements met?

This is not a mandatory question, but if you’ve got a lot of attendees with specific requirements an interesting one to ask. It can be tricky sometimes to handle multiple complex catering needs and if someone with a particular need felt like you had limited options then this can be useful information.

How did you get to the event?

If people have several options e.g. car, train, bus, then this could be worth an ask as it can help understand how your audience prefers to travel for future venues.

How easy was it to get to the event?

This is a good question to ask if you’ve picked somewhere slightly out of the way  and you’re worried about how your audience might feel about that.

How was the parking?

For any event where the venue has parking or you expect a lot of car travel, it’s good to understand if parking was simple and if there was enough. You might even make this question only appear if someone selects car as the way they travelled to the event.

Did the event provide valuable networking opportunities?

If your event has sections which are just open discussion between attendees, you want to see if you’ve had the right mix of people present. This is good to cross-reference against specific individuals and their job roles.

How would you rate the event's sustainability efforts (e.g., waste reduction, eco-friendly practices)?

While not entirely irrelevant to digital events, certainly way more applicable to physical events. This is something that you should actively consider and also to see what your audience cares about. 

Digital event questions

There are a few digital specific questions that you might want to consider for virtual events. They’re, in general, less important than the physical event questions are to those types of events, but can still offer a lot of insight.

How easy was it to join the event?

This is a nice and simple question to assess how easy the attendees found it to get into your event. A lower score here might indicate reconsidering how you provide instructions in the future.

Did you encounter any technical difficulties using the platform during the event?

A simple question but if lots of people were struggling with the platform you were using then it’s best you know!

Inclusivity questions

And finally a couple of important questions around inclusivity you’ll want to consider, especially for larger event surveys.

How would you rate the accessibility options provided at the event?

This is a question you should be asking (and should have thought about before the event!). Beyond obvious accessibility requirements like wheelchair access, understanding how well you’ve catered to other needs (e.g. visual/auditory impairments) can provide vital feedback. It might also highlight how easy it was to find the assistance.

Did you find the event to be inclusive and welcoming to all attendees?

This question is a little bit broader than the accessibility question and can cover how well you’ve catered to different minority groups, or if there is something that got overlooked. Especially for physical events where you’re going to be seeing much more 1 on 1 interaction, gathering feedback is invaluable here.

Summary

In conclusion there are so many great questions that you could be asking in your event survey! Try not to ask too many questions at once and try to keep them multiple choice where possible, to ensure the most people fill in your surveys. 

And if you do regular events you can always send out a survey to your mailing list every so often. Possibly asking bonus questions about how much they know about your events!

For more about events, you can watch one of our previous webinars on the topic. Or if you’re a nonprofit organisation looking for a robust event management system which can send out these surveys automatically after an event, then look no further than CiviPlus! 

If you’d like a chat with one of our representatives about how CiviPlus can help with running events and sending out surveys then please reach out to us here.