Post-event report: show your client what their event was worth

A post-event report shows your client or management team what the event achieved against what it set out to achieve. It should provide evidence that someone who wasn’t there can follow and propose what to do with the results.

What the report should demonstrate

Attendance figures and photos document what happened. To decide whether to repeat the event, your client needs to know what attendees gained and which sales results they can link to it.

What you gather	What it demonstrates
Attendance and profiles	Who came
Attendees’ answers	What they valued and what interests them
Opportunities, meetings and sales	Sales results the client can link to the event

Satisfaction is not ROI. ROI is calculated by subtracting the event’s cost from the profit attributed to it and dividing the result by that same cost. Your client provides the costs and sales data; attendees’ answers help explain what worked.

Agree the questions before the event

At the kick-off meeting, ask your client: “When this is over, what will you need to tell your management team?” Choose a few questions and decide what to gather to answer them: session ratings, which activity added most value or what interests attendees expressed.

Write into the proposal which questions the report will answer and what it won’t measure. Also agree who will present it and who will use the results. Drop a question if the client doesn’t know what decision to make with the answer.

Gather answers during the event

Ask for opinions while the experience is fresh. Keep attendees’ own words: they explain the reason behind a rating and give the sales team a starting point for making contact.

EVA asks the questions when they fit the conversation, after dealing with what the attendee needed:

Jorge: Where is the demo of the invoicing module?

EVA: In the Itálica room, at 13:00 📍 As you’re interested, what would you like to solve in your company with that module?

Jorge: We close the month manually with several spreadsheets. I want to see whether reconciliation can be automated.

(example conversation)

The answer captures the product Jorge is interested in and what he wants to solve. Count how many people replied and distinguish their views from those of the whole audience. For help setting up the questions, see how to gather feedback during the event with EVA.

How to organise the report

Write for someone who will read it in a hurry:

1. Open with the agreed questions and a short answer to each.
2. Give each question its own section. Include the number of responses, the results and a few verbatim quotes that explain them.
3. Propose a decision at the end of each section.
4. Leave space for the sales results the client provides.
5. Put attendance and logistics at the end, if needed.

If you work in a company’s events team, the structure is the same. What changes is who presents the report and to whom.

Three uses after the report

• Sales team: prepare an audience of people who share an interest and agree who will contact them and when. An interest guides the conversation without guaranteeing a purchase.
• Sponsors: give each sponsor the ratings and comments about their activity. They will have specific information to help assess their participation in the next edition.
• Next edition: use what attendees valued and asked for to prepare the proposal. Include the report and its scope from the start.

How we do it with EVA

At Sinapser we set up objectives to gather the answers your client needs. EVA saves them and the results dashboard brings them together during the event, so you can share an update; the report groups the answers from the different objectives.

EVA Insights identifies interests from conversations, answers and the available event data. You can generate audiences and export them to the client’s marketing system or prepare a communication, depending on the data and permissions available; that knowledge is kept across events run by the same organiser. See feedback and surveys with EVA and EVA Insights.

Common mistakes

Leaving the report until afterwards

Agree its scope at the kick-off meeting. You can then gather answers during the event, while the experience is fresh.

Opening with the agency’s work

Check the first page: it should answer the client’s objectives. Production details can go at the end.

Calling a good rating ROI

Keep attendees’ opinions separate from sales results. The client provides the data to calculate the return.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a different report for each reader?

Adapt the content to whoever will use it. Management needs decisions; the sales team, interests and audiences; the sponsor, the results of their activity.

When can I share the first results?

The dashboard gathers answers while the event is still running. You can send an update at the end of the first day, without waiting for the final report.

What if only a few attendees reply?

State how many responses you have gathered and who they came from. Present the conclusions as those people’s views, without extending them to the whole audience.

Can I see it with one of my own events?

Write to us at projects@sinapser.com for a demo. We will work with you on the questions for your next event and show you how they would reach the report.