How to Create a Post-Event Report

Hosting a successful event takes meticulous planning, hard work, and strategic execution. However, the journey doesn’t end when the event wraps up. It’s equally important to kick back, take a breather, and evaluate the event’s performance by preparing a post-event report to gather insights for future improvements. 

In this blog, we’ll dive into the importance of a comprehensive post-event report and how it can level up your event planning game. We’ll also discuss actionable strategies to create an insightful report, along with a free template.

Whether you’re an event organizer, marketer, or business owner, understanding the power of post-event reports can make a significant difference in your event’s success.

What is a Post-Event Report?

A post-event report is a document that captures and analyzes key event data. It serves to evaluate the overall performance of the event, helping organizers understand what went well and what needs improvement. 

The report includes quantitative data, such as attendance and engagement metrics, and qualitative insights from attendee feedback. By documenting these insights, the report helps guide future event planning and ensures continuous improvement.

Why Are Post-Event Reports Critical for Event Planners?

Imagine hosting an event, investing considerable time and resources into its planning and execution, and then being left in the dark about its impact. 

A post-event report serves as your trusty compass, navigating you through the sea of event data and providing insights into key aspects of your event’s performance. 

The post-event analysis goes beyond mere numbers and statistics, offering a comprehensive evaluation of your event’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. The insights from this analysis serve as valuable lessons for improving your next event.

Curious about why analyzing numbers after the event is so important? We’ve listed all the benefits of this simple, yet impactful activity.

Measure Event’s Impact

A post-event report opens a window into understanding the true success of your event. It quantifies key metrics such as attendance, engagement, and revenue, shedding light on the event’s tangible impact.

Aligns with Business Goals and Objectives

A well-crafted post-event report connects the dots between your event goals and actual outcomes. This ensures the event is not just successful in execution, but also impactful for your broader business strategy. By reviewing KPIs, you can determine if the event delivered real business value.

Identify Opportunities for Growth

Analyzing your event after it ends also helps in finding untapped opportunities. By looking into attendee feedback and behavior, you can pinpoint areas for growth and improvement that can lead to even greater success in future events.

Refine Marketing Strategies 

In-depth analysis of ticket sales and real-time event analytics, like registration data, provides valuable insights into which marketing channels were most effective. This information in the post-event evaluation report allows you to fine-tune your marketing strategies, ensuring you reach the right audience with the right message.

Enhance Customer Relationships 

Events are more than just transactions; they’re the key to building relationships. Post-event reports help you understand attendee preferences and behaviors, enabling you to tailor your marketing efforts for better audience engagement.

Boost ROI 

By evaluating the success of past events and identifying areas for improvement, you can significantly increase your return on investment (ROI) for upcoming events.

Strengthens Relationships with Stakeholders

Sharing the results with sponsors, stakeholders, and partners is key for building trust and demonstrating value. The report provides concrete evidence of the event’s impact, whether it’s increased brand awareness, ROI, or engagement, helping you maintain strong relationships with key supporters.

Streamlines Follow-up Processes

A well-structured event wrap-up report helps you prioritize follow-up activities, whether it’s connecting with leads, sending thank-you notes, or gathering feedback for improvements. This ensures that your post-event follow-up is timely and targeted, maximizing the value of the event.

Types of Post-Event Reports

Post-event reports come in various types, each focusing on specific aspects of your event:

• Registration & Attendance Reports: Compare registration numbers to actual attendance, offering a key indicator of pre-event engagement and the effectiveness of marketing and ticket pricing strategies. Attendance Reports provide insights into attendance trends over time.
• Engagement Reports: Analyze attendee participation to uncover preferred subject matter and content types, allowing you to tailor your post-event marketing campaigns more effectively. These reports offer valuable insights into what resonates most with your audience.
• Exhibitor Reports: Gather valuable insights into exhibitor performance, including booth traffic, scans, and attendee engagement with booth content, to demonstrate the event’s ROI to partners.
• Lead Capture Reports: Essential for event hosts, sponsors, and exhibitors, providing insights for effective lead follow-ups.
• Social Media Reports: These reveal how your event was discussed and shared on social media platforms, offering insights into attendee sentiment and social media impact.
• Meeting & Chat Reports: Essential for B2B events, these event wrap-up reports detail the number of meetings held, accepted, and declined, providing insights into the value created for participants.
• Marketing Reports: These dive deep into your event marketing campaign, offering insights into target audiences, strategies, tactics, and metrics.
• Lessons Learned: Capturing key takeaways, both positive and negative, these reports help you make informed decisions for future events.

Pro-tip: You can use AI tools like ChatGPT to generate post-event report examples tailored for conferences, trade shows, or webinars. These reports can give you a head start in analyzing your event efficiently.

Must-Haves for Your Post-Event Report

Alright, let’s get to work. The curtains have closed, the last chat box has been signed off, and your event has successfully concluded. Now, what’s next? It’s time to unveil the magic of post-event reporting! Let’s answer the question of what information do event reports include:

The Metrics That Matter

First up, let’s talk numbers. What event-based metrics should you track and include in your post-event review? Well, the usual suspects include attendance, registrations, ticket sales, and sessions attended. But don’t stop there! Get specific to your event type.

• Trade Show Metrics: Keep an eye on the products ordered, booths visited, meetings scheduled, and leads captured to gauge the success of your trade show.
• Career/Job Fair Metrics: Evaluate the jobs viewed, jobs applied to, booths visited, and meetings scheduled to measure the impact of your career or job fair.
• Conference Metrics: Monitor the sessions attended, chats hosted, documents viewed or downloaded, and links clicked to assess the performance of your conference, which is an important step in how to write a conference summary report.

Pro-tip: Use a dedicated event reporting smartsheet to simplify the process of compiling these data points and track everything in one place. 

These tools allow you to organize key metrics like attendance, registrations, and engagement, and visualize relevant reports at the same time. You can find them on platforms like Smartsheet, Excel templates, or Google Sheets.

Setting Objectives and KPIs

What do you want to achieve with your event? Is it brand awareness, lead generation, or something else? If you have defined clear objectives and relevant KPIs before starting the event, these reports will provide a clear measure of your event’s success based on those objectives and KPIs.

Structuring the Report

Thinking about how to write an event report? Here’s the deal: when structuring your post-event report, think of it as telling a story. 

Start with an executive summary, giving a quick overview of the event’s highlights. Next, knowing how to write a report about a conference or a trade show also involves combining metrics and attendee feedback. 

Analyze the metrics, objectives, and KPIs you defined earlier. Share the details on what worked and what didn’t.

Here’s all the important information that you need to add to your post-event report:

• Event Overview: This section of the event summary report includes all the high-level information – date, venue, speakers, ticket price, etc.

  

  Note: We’ve included this table in the post-event evaluation report example attached later in this blog.

• Event Objective: Fill this section of the after-event report by suggesting the purpose of the event. Was it aimed at generating leads, fostering networking opportunities, increasing brand awareness, or showcasing a new product?Specify the expected outcomes and how they align with your broader organizational objectives.
• Metrics: Mention the projected outcomes you drew up before the event and compare them with what you have achieved. Analyze the areas where you met the goals, or overachieved them. These are the strategies that worked for you. On the other hand, analyze where you didn’t meet the requirements, and need improvement.
• Achievements and Recommendations: Mention the details of what worked well and what we can improve in future events in the event wrap-up report. This includes better scheduling, more diverse session topics, or enhanced technical support.
• Budget: Give a high-level view of budget performance. Include overall expenditure, revenue generated, and key cost categories like marketing, logistics, speaker fees, and technology.Provide insights into ROI and suggest budget optimization opportunities for the future.With vFairs Budgeting Module, you can keep track of your event expenses and extract insights in real-time saving tons of time that you’d spend doing the math.
• Attendee Information: Use this section of the post-event evaluation report to mention the number of details from attendees including the number of attendees, number of tickets sold, age groups, number of students & professionals, etc.
• Event Venue: Mention all the information, observations, and recommendations regarding the venue including operations, maintenance, provided facilities, and services.
• Registration & Check-Ins: Use this section to put insights and suggestions regarding the registration and check-in process. Highlight how you can improve the registration process using better pre-registration workflows or QR code check-ins.
• Logistics: In this section, cover the logistics part of your event; everything from setup to pack up. Share how well things were organized, like working with suppliers, staying on schedule, and handling any unexpected problems that came up.
• Feedback: Use this section to mention key insights received from the delegate feedback form, testimonials, and social media mentions. Highlight recurring themes in attendee satisfaction and areas needing improvement. Include direct quotes or testimonials for a more personal touch.
• Promotional Activities: Mention the summary of promotional activities through the website, social media, and other forums with visuals, cost, and reach. You can mention which platforms worked the best in terms of reach and registrations so that they should be prioritized in the future.
• Visual Highlights: Use this section to add some event visuals to showcase the exciting moments and highlights of the event.

Post Event Report Template

Looking for a resource to get you started with post-event analysis? An event recap template can be handy to help you nail your post-event write-up and keep things organized. We’ve prepared a post-event report template Word file that can be super helpful in setting the wheels in motion.

Leverage AI for Quick Insights

Efficiency is the name of the game. Nobody wants to spend endless hours crunching numbers. That’s where technology comes to the rescue. vFairs’ AI reporting chatbot can do the heavy lifting for you. It churns out event reports faster than you can say “post-event analysis.” 

This chatbot is your event analytics companion, simplifying the complex process of sifting through mountains of event data. Instead of spending a long time looking through reports, event organizers can now ask the chatbot questions in a conversational tone. 

In mere seconds, it delivers comprehensive insights, eliminating the need for manual research and hours spent scanning reports. 

This efficiency empowers event organizers to make informed decisions swiftly, ensuring timely and effective improvements to their events. Say goodbye to the grueling process, and welcome the ease and speed of our AI chatbot, your event analytics companion.

Comprehensive CSV Reports

Besides our event analytics chatbot, we also provide comprehensive event reports in CSV format. The event reporting smartsheet offers insights into attendee data and engagement metrics, giving event organizers structured and customizable data. 

Whether you choose our chatbot for ease or CSV reports for flexibility, we’re here to simplify data-driven decision-making for your events.

Plus, if you ever get stuck sorting a detailed CSV report, remember that vFairs offers dedicated PM (Project Manager) support. They’re like event-reporting superheroes, ready to assist you. They can help you at every step of the event planning process; from day one to curtain call. You can simply ask your PM for the report you want to generate, and they will get it right to you.

Create a Post Event Report

To make the process of generating a post-event report even easier, you can leverage advanced AI tools. Our Essential AI-Powered Tool for Event Planners can automate data analysis and generate comprehensive reports in just a few clicks, saving you time and ensuring accurate insights for future planning.

KPI Benchmarks for Post-Event Reports

When creating a post-event report, it’s important to not only gather data but also understand what those numbers mean in context.

1. Attendance and Registration

A key metric in any post-event recap is the ratio of actual attendees to registered participants. For most events, a 60–80% attendance rate is considered strong. Tracking this KPI helps you measure pre-event marketing effectiveness and audience interest.

2. Engagement Metrics

Engagement can be measured through session participation, booth visits, chat interactions, or content downloads. For trade shows, for example, aim for at least 50% of attendees interacting with exhibitor content. 

In conferences, track session attendance versus total registrations to gauge content appeal. This data is often included in a post-event summary or post-conference report.

3. Lead Generation and Conversion

For events focused on sales or networking, the number of qualified leads and the conversion rate from those leads is critical. A healthy benchmark is generating 3–5 qualified leads per 100 attendees. 

Use this KPI to measure the effectiveness of both your event strategy and exhibitor performance, which can be recorded in a post-trade show report template.

4. Feedback and Satisfaction

Collecting attendee feedback is essential for understanding the quality of the event experience. Aim for at least 70% positive responses in surveys or evaluations. Insights gathered from this KPI should be documented in your post-event review to guide improvements in content, logistics, and engagement strategies.

5. Revenue and ROI

If your event includes paid tickets, sponsorships, or product sales, tracking revenue against expenses is a core KPI. A typical benchmark is a 20–50% return on investment depending on event type and scale. Including this in your post-event report ensures stakeholders clearly understand the financial impact of your event.

Conclusion

Post-event reports make it easier for event organizers to navigate the seas of event planning and evaluation. They offer invaluable insights into your event’s success, helping you measure its impact, identify growth opportunities, and optimize your marketing strategies. 

On top of that, learning how to write a conference report ensures you effectively communicate the event’s outcomes and value to stakeholders.

With the correct data and tools, you can impress sponsors, build better customer relationships, and increase your ROI for future events. Don’t let your event’s data go to waste!

FAQs