Planning an event is no small feat, but when the lights go down and the guests depart, there’s still crucial work to be done: the event debrief.
An effective debrief helps you resolve the largest problem for event organisers identified in a survey of the exhibition industry: internal management challenges. It does this by helping your team evaluate the event’s success, uncover key insights, and improve future events.
At Eventbrite, we’ve drawn on our long-standing experience providing resources to event organisers to draw up a free event debrief template.
This template is designed as an easy-to-follow guide for event organisers, allowing you to quickly assess what went well, identify areas to improve, and document what you learned — all in one place.
How to use this post event debrief template
After your event, all you need to do is run through this debrief template one question at a time. If you work with a team, you should bring them together for an event debriefing meeting and take the time to get their feedback at every step.
Start by outlining the purpose of the event and considering your initial goals. Then, review the success metrics you set for yourself or your team at the beginning of planning — such as revenue, attendance, and social media engagement. Make sure to measure key results against these original objectives.
Then, evaluate how you achieved those goals and what speed bumps you hit in your efforts to hit them. Finally, you can examine the opportunities you’ve identified to do things even better next time.
Feel free to download Eventbrite’s event debrief template here!
Why should you do an event debrief?
An event debrief is a post-event evaluation process where the event organiser (or organisers) reviews the event’s successes, challenges, and areas for improvement. Conducting an event debrief can be highly beneficial for a few reasons.
First, it allows for a comprehensive assessment of your event strategy, helping you understand what worked and what didn’t. This understanding is key to replicating successful events and avoiding past mistakes.
It also promotes transparency and open communication within your team, fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement. Lastly, it contributes to the creation of a knowledge base, facilitating smoother and more effective event creation in the future.
In essence, an event debrief is a critical step in making every event better than the last. So, take the time to review your event with this free template to ensure that your next event is a huge success.
8 key questions to ask in your event debrief
In the debriefing process, it’s essential to ask targeted questions that delve into the key aspects of your event. This includes inquiries about logistics, audience engagement, overall objectives, and performance metrics, among other things.
These questions should reflect on the previous event and pave the way for enhanced understanding and improvement in future events. Let’s explore some of the pivotal questions to ask during your event debrief.
1. What were your goals for this event?
Your goals for the events you create can vary quite a bit. Just a few examples are:
- Raising awareness of a cause or social issue
- Launching a product or business
- Earning money by selling tickets or refreshments
- Showcasing artists or creators you find inspiring
- Helping members of a community connect with one another
But you should frame those goals as SMART goals. SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. A critical part to note here is “measurable.” You need to be able to measure those goals in order to figure out whether or not you accomplished them!
For example, if your goal is to educate others on a certain issue, you could measure this by asking attendees what they learned after your event.
2. How well did you accomplish those goals?
The point of making SMART goals is to measure them afterwards.
For some goals, that’s simple: if your goal is to sell tickets, you can count the number of tickets sold. But if you’re looking to raise awareness of an issue, you may want to send out a post-event survey to see how people reacted to the event.
Your return on investment, or ROI, can be a little tricky to measure, which is why Eventbrite made an ROI calculator to help you out. In general, events can have a 25% to 34% ROI, depending on your industry.
It’s essential to be thorough at this stage, documenting all your calculations as you make them. In the future, you’ll want to compare the success of other events you create against this one. That way, you can be sure to keep improving.
If you’re having trouble figuring out how to measure your goals efficiently and accurately, take a look at Eventbrite’s solutions. Whether you’re looking to measure attendance and revenue with our ticketing platform or drill down to where those sales came from with the analytics tool, Eventbrite can help.
3. What tactics did you use to accomplish those goals?
Here, you can list out each of the tactics you used to achieve the goals you listed above. You may have invited specific speakers to raise awareness about certain aspects of a social issue or used an icebreaker to help community members meet one another.
For example, Sustainable Communities UK’s Rainbow Pride LGBT+ Fundraiser event sought to raise money for local LGBTQ+ nonprofits. By bringing in a variety of musical acts and performances, they had several different ways to incentivise people to donate to the cause.
4. Which of those tactics succeeded the most? Why?
Assess each tactic’s effectiveness in achieving the event’s goals. Did one of your guest speakers attract a larger audience than the others? Did a certain social media campaign drive ticket sales? Was the interactive session successful in fostering networking among attendees?
Then, you can consider why those tactics succeeded. Were the speakers especially well-known in their respective fields, or did they connect with the audience on a personal level? Did the social media content you produced have high engagement rates? Was the interactive session fun and engaging for attendees?
This step becomes especially useful when you look back at your debrief later on. You’ll be able to quickly identify what worked and why, helping you replicate successful tactics for future events. You can also pinpoint which parts of your event plan may need tweaking or improvement in order to achieve better results. Overall, this will help you optimise your efforts and get the most out of future events.
5. Who was your target audience, and did you reach them?
You probably had a good idea of your target audience before you even started marketing your event. Depending on the type of event you created, it could be people from a particular geographic area, a certain age range, or members of a specific subculture.
For example, if you’re running an exclusive screening for tech professionals in London, your target audience is probably locals in the tech industry.
When the Soirèe held their launch party for their new nightclub, they targeted tech and house music fans and maybe local DJs in mind as different target audiences.
By examining your attendees’ demographics along with which tactics were most successful, you can determine the effectiveness not just of your event, but of your event marketing as well.
Reach your next event’s target audience with Eventbrite’s marketing suite
6. What did your target audience say about the event?
Get feedback directly from your target audience to get an honest, accurate read on how the event went.
You can gather this information through surveys or interviews with attendees. Ask questions about their experience at the event or what they liked and didn’t like. This information helps you identify areas of improvement for future events as well as where to double down on your investment.
You should be aware that feedback from your target audience members may differ from the feedback you get from your attendees more generally. As such, make sure to pay special attention to feedback from these people to ensure you meet their needs. This information can help you tweak and refine future events for maximum engagement.
7. What were your biggest challenges with this event?
Once you’ve evaluated everything above, you should also take a look at the obstacles you encountered at your event. Note down any areas that could have been more successful or where you faced difficulties. This will help paint a better picture of the event and provide guidance for the future.
Corporate event planners find budgeting to be the biggest challenge, budget was their primary concern in putting their event together. While your position may differ, this is a great time to reflect on your main concern and whether you overcame that challenge to your satisfaction.
This is also a good time to ensure others have their voices heard. Whether you worked with a team to create your event or relied on outside vendors, make sure to collect their feedback. They may have resolved unexpected challenges without letting you know that you can note for the future.
Just as you examined which tactics were successful earlier, you can determine which ones weren’t and why.
It’s also helpful to look at potential problems that could have arisen. Did you host your event outdoors without rain cover but have a lucky sunny day in October? Make a note of it so you can plan for the future.
8. What are the opportunities for improvement?
This might be the most important section of your debrief. Remember, the purpose of this exercise is to take away actionable insights for your next event. Consider your successes and challenges and what could have been done differently.
Then, you’ll be ready to make a list of opportunities for improvement, whether it’s better outreach strategies, more resources for volunteers, or changes to the event agenda. You can drive these insights with the information on which goals you accomplished and to what degree you were successful.
For example, if far more people registered than you expected, you might be able to invest fewer resources into advertising next time and invest in improving the event itself. Alternatively, you may have gotten plenty of attendees but not enough from your target audience.
This allows you to redirect your marketing resources to more targeted services, such as Eventbrite Ads. By letting you target people already looking for events within certain categories and locations, Eventbrite Ads will let you reach your target audience directly.
You may also want to consider the resources and support available for your next event. Do you need more partners or sponsors? Is there a way to bring in volunteers who specialise in specific areas? Brainstorm how you can get these resources so your next event runs smoothly.
Once you’ve collected your data, use it to create an event report. This is an excellent opportunity to showcase your hard work and share lessons learned with your team, vendors, and sponsors.
Make your next event a resounding success
An event debrief is a great way to assess how an event went, especially if it was your first time organising one. It provides valuable insight into your events’ successes and areas of improvement while serving as a key reference point when planning future events. Download your event debriefing template above!
With the right data and feedback, you can better target your ideal audience. That’s why so many event organisers are using the Eventbrite marketing suite: its actionable insights and reliable data let you make your events more effective and give you solid information about your marketing efforts’ performances.Take your events to the next level with Eventbrite’s marketing tools.
