How We Define Event Success: Part II – How it’s actually done

In Part I of this post, we looked at how event success should be determined. Now let’s look at how we actually determine event success.

Determining event goals and objectives

If you asked most event professionals what the goals and objectives of their event are, they wouldn’t be able to provide a definitive answer. For the most part, they don’t know because they don’t ask. Asking, “Why are you holding this event?” or “What do you hope to accomplish?” are not typical questions most event professionals ask of their stakeholders. More often, they ask questions like: “How many people?” “What dates do you have in mind?” or “Where would you like the meeting to be held?”

This is why most event professionals are perceived as, and treated like, little more than order takers. It’s a function of the type of questions they typically ask.

Translating event goals and objectives into meaningful metrics or KPIs

Now, no one’s arguing that logistical questions aren’t important – because they absolutely are. It’s just that if you don’t ask more strategic questions – like goals and objectives – you’ll never be able to determine whether your event is successful or not. No way. No how.

Questions about goals and objectives are critical to identifying the metrics and measures of business outcomes for your event. Logistical questions provide no insight into event metrics, measures or outcomes.

If you look at a typical post-event evaluation – the generally accepted tool for determine event success – it tells you everything you need to know about who events are actually designed for. (Hint: it’s not the event participants or even the event owners).

A typical post-ever evaluation asks about the registration process, the housing process, the transportation process, the food and beverage, etc. This makes the post-event evaluation little more than a performance review for the event professional. It lets the event professional (or event owner) know whether they are efficient in all these processes or not.

Post-event evaluation questions about speakers or the educational sessions are written in a way that, again, speaks to the event professional’s competency in selecting the right speaker or topic but reveals little about the effectiveness of those speakers or the impact educational sessions have on individual or organizational performance improvement – arguably the most critical goal for any event.

Data repositories, analysis, and interpretation

One of the biggest event challenges we’re facing these days is that there’s more data available than ever before. The tools available to event professionals – from registration and housing systems to tracking systems like RFID, GPS and beacons to communication platforms like websites, apps, or social media – mean we’re data rich but information poor.

Most event professionals are:

• Not focused on the data that’s being collected
• Not collecting the right data, or
• Don’t have the analytical and interpretive ability to find the meaningful trends and patterns and make more informed decisions about their events.

This means event professionals cannot say with any certainty how successful their event is.

Compounding this blind spot among event professionals is the fact that most event owners aren’t much better at articulating the goals and objectives for their events, either. Events have often been seen as the cost of doing business and their relationship to overarching business goals and objectives have often been tenuous.

Summary: If event professionals – the efficiency experts – want to run events more like the business opportunities they represent, they’ll need to overcome not only their traditional approach to planning and executing events, they’ll have to start thinking and acting more like business professionals, beginning with focusing on asking the right questions and clearly defining event goals and objectives in partnership with their event owners.