Section 12

Evaluation

It’s important at the end of the event to do a proper wrap-up in order to ensure that all stakeholders are satisfied with the outcomes from the event and that no ‘loose-ends’ are left hanging leading in to the next event. Things you should consider include:

Event Debrief

You should have your debrief as soon as possible following your event as this will be when relevant issues are fresh in everyone’s mind.

It should involve all of key stakeholders and it’s a good idea to distribute an evaluation form to all involved prior to the event debrief to encourage them to think about what is to be discussed.

To keep it simple ask each of your team to report on their respective areas of responsibility:

What worked well: keep and improve for next year
What didn’t work: either improve it, or stop doing it
Recommendations for future

By using this simple process, the debrief to a certain extent, should provide the basis for your next event’s planning with those key discussion points that were identified in the debrief, implemented into an updated Event Plan. You can download an Event Debrief template from the Free Templates page.

Research

This can be as simple as taking patrons post codes as they come through the gates, to undertaking in-depth interviews with a variety of event stakeholders. This can either be undertaken in-house or contracted out to a professional research organisation.

Event research can be a critical tool in determining economic impacts of an event, how successful the marketing of your event has been, and what aspects of your event worked and what didn’t. As well as patrons its worthwhile looking to undertake research with sponsors, entertainers, traders, and vendors to get a more holistic perspective of the success of the Event.

If research is conducted in a timely manner, the findings can also be shared at the debrief. There are some sample Event Survey questions included on the Free Templates page.

Post Event Communications

It’s important that you conduct a follow-up with any relevant event stakeholders, particularly your financial backers. Written correspondence is good however it’s often a good idea to meet in-person with any major stakeholders to ensure that they were satisfied with their involvement.

You should also consider communication with non-financial stakeholders such as emergency services and residents where necessary. Conduct your post-event communications as soon as possible following the event to try and capitalise on any positive media and exposure that may have come out following the Event.

Funding Aquittals

You’ll need to ensure you acquit any funding where necessary, firstly because a final payment may be dependent upon receipt of your acquittal, and secondly because any future grant applications you submit will generally be dependent upon whether you have properly acquitted any grants in the past.

You should look at what’s required in any grant acquittals prior to your event taking place to ensure that you will be able to provide any information required in the acquittal (Photographs etc.).

Media Monitoring

At the conclusion of your event you should prepare a Media Report outlining what type of media your event received, paid and in-kind, including where it featured (newspaper, radio, television, online), times and dates it featured, and any examples.

For Events where the media interest will be more localised, monitoring can be quite easily done in-house through the monitoring of local media channels. Online tools such as GOOGLE alerts can also be a simple way of tracking online interest in your event.

For larger Events where there will be national or international interest media monitoring companies can provide a comprehensive assessment of media coverage for a fee. Also keep in mind your sponsors as often large companies will have permanent media monitoring services in place so you may be able to utilise a sponsor who has these services in place.