Get inside the minds of your attendees and other stakeholders with these 37 must-ask event survey questions.

What do your attendees think about your event? How about sponsors? Are they likely to support your event next year?

It’s hard to say exactly how well an event went when you only have your own personal experience to guide you. That’s why tools like event surveys and event evaluations are critical for measuring attendee satisfaction. 

Pre-event and post-event survey questions help you gather important stakeholder feedback that would otherwise get lost in the shuffle or never shared at all. And all feedback is good feedback; negative feedback stings, but it’s essential for optimizing your event strategy. 

You can pair the insights you gain from event surveys with event KPIs to create a fully developed picture of how successful your event was, and how you can improve it in the future.

What is an event survey?

Event surveys are questionnaires designed to collect feedback from your attendees and can include a combination of multiple-choice and open-ended questions. You can send surveys to participants before, during, or after the event, and they are often shared digitally. Any person who interacted with your event should receive a survey because sponsors, attendees, and your event staff will all have unique perspectives on different aspects of your event. 

Successful event strategies depend on stakeholder satisfaction and event surveys are one of the best ways to measure this. Whether your goal is to build a case for pitching event sponsors, to create a great virtual event experience, or to improve attendee experience on the fly, event surveys lift the curtain and give organizers insight into how attendees really feel.

Types of Event Survey Questions

There are several different ways that you can pose questions to stakeholders.

• NPS Questions: A multiple-choice question that asks participants to rate an item on a numeric scale. The resulting values determine the net promoter score (NPS)
• Yes-no Questions: A binary question that is often followed by an open-ended question based on conditional logic
• Open-ended Questions: While harder to analyze en-masse, open-ended questions can provide valuable qualitative feedback

In this post, we’ll indicate whether each question functions best as an NPS question, Yes-no question, or open-ended qualitative question. These Question Type suggestions are just that – suggestions, it’s up to you to determine the best use for your event survey.

Read on to see 37 great event survey questions and how they can help you better evaluate your event.

General Survey Questions

1. What is your level of satisfaction for this event?

Question Type: NPS

Survey questions like this one are pretty straightforward. It’s a good starting point for the questions that follow and allows you to get the big picture idea of how the event went in general and if it met expectations. A best practice in event surveys is to start off more general and get more granular towards the end.

2. Which elements of the event did you like the most?

Question Type: Open-ended

Questions like this help you get an idea of what is worth repeating for future iterations of the event. Keep track of each point and tally the number of times it was mentioned. Rank them in order from most votes to least and prioritize the winners next year.

3. What, if anything, did you dislike about this event?

Question Type: Open-ended

While you may be hesitant to ask this question, knowing your shortcomings allows you to learn from them. Don’t write a survey that forces respondents to leave a glowing review. Instead, show them how much you value their opinion and display those changes at your next event.

4. Are you likely to participate in one of our events in the future?

Question Type: NPS

This one is very important because it reveals how enthusiastic the survey participant really is about your event. Compare these numbers to the actual number of attendees who come back next year. While plans do change, you should ideally see the majority of them return. If not, consider what adjustments need to be made.

5. How likely are you to tell a friend about this event?

Question Type: NPS

Using an NPS to inquire about referrals is another great way to measure event success. While some people may have enjoyed the event themselves, the true test of their experience is to see whether or not they’d subject a friend to it. Follow up on positive responses to this question with referral links and special offers.

6. Is there anything else you would like us to know? 

Question Type: Open-ended

Open-ended questions allow participants to give you feedback on anything your event survey may not have covered. You won’t be able to cover every aspect of the event in the survey. This question serves as a catchall for any additional feedback.

Survey Questions for Event Attendees

7. Why did you choose to attend our event and what are you hoping to take away from the experience?

Question Type: Open-ended

Use this question before the event to make schedule adjustments or other tweaks that magnify the most coveted aspects of the experience. Give the people what they want and show them that your focus is truly on their experience

8. What did you most enjoy about today?

Question Type: Open-ended

This is a great question for multi-day events. Remember to address any concerns or negative feedback personally and do your best to apply the feedback for the following days. Multi-day events present a unique opportunity to improve your event before it’s even over.

9. Please indicate your satisfaction with the following aspects of the event:

• Amount of Sessions Offered

Question Type: NPS

All of these big-picture event characteristics shape the experience for attendees. You may find some surprising insights for the next time you plan an event. And because all of these factors are within your control, the changes will be easy to make and measure in the future.

10. How satisfied were you with the networking opportunities provided?

Question Type: NPS

Networking is a key element of events, but with the rise of virtual events, networking has become more complicated. According to the Evolution of Events Report, over half (68.8%) of event marketers believe it is more difficult to provide networking opportunities when hosting a virtual event. Ask this event survey question to make sure you have found the right solution for your attendees. Be sure to have a text box along with the NPS rating so participants can elaborate on their experiences.

11. Did you have any issues registering for or attending this event?

Question Type: Yes-no

This event survey question can illuminate areas where your event platform or registration software may not be a user-friendly experience and causes frustration with attendees. If you realize there is a pattern in the responses, talk to your event platform provider or user-experience team to improve on the experience. The last thing you want is for attendees to have trouble even accessing the event because it sets the tone for the rest of the event. 

12. How satisfied were you with the speakers and sessions at our event? 

Question Type: NPS 

Attendee satisfaction is one of the key indicators that people will come back to your events. Making sure your speakers and sessions were interesting and valuable is a top priority to ensure attendees were satisfied with the experience. Questions like this one help you get an idea of what is worth repeating for future events.

13. What topics would you like to see more of at our next event? 

Question Type: Open-ended 

Your post-event survey can be a launching point for ideas for your next event. Attendees may have suggestions and interesting perspectives you otherwise wouldn’t have known. Ask attendees what they want to see and design your next event with their feedback in mind. 

14. Were you happy with the time for discussion during sessions?

Question Type: NPS 

We’ve all been to an event where the session ran out of time leaving nothing for discussion, and quite frankly, it’s a letdown. If attendees felt like there was not enough time, consider carving out more time for attendees to participate in the discussion. 

15. How did you feel about the duration of the content? 

Question Type: NPS

Content length is especially important for virtual events. Attention spans are getting shorter and tuning in from home provides a plethora of distractions. In our Virtual Benchmarks Report, we found the average virtual attendee only watches 68% of a virtual session that is 20 minutes or longer. That comes out to just over 13 minutes. By asking this event survey question you can gauge if your sessions were the appropriate length for your audience or use the insights to take action to improve durations for the next event. 

16. How did you hear about this event? 

Question Type: Open-ended 

The main objective of this question is to find out where attendees first heard about your event. Use the information you gather from this event survey question to see what marketing channels are working the best for your event, and where you need to improve. 

Survey Questions for Event Volunteers

17. Would you recommend this event as a positive volunteer opportunity to your network?

Question Type: Yes-no

Similar to attendees, your volunteers often represent the backbone of your event. Knowing that they enjoyed the experience enough to recommend future volunteers should be gratifying. Plus, there usually aren’t enough volunteers to go around, so having some people to follow up with could help build out your team.

18. Are you interested in volunteering with us in the future?

Question Type: Yes-no

If volunteers are willing to come back again then you know you’ve thrown a great event. Keep a list of these names and calculate how many volunteers you’ll need for next year.

Survey Questions for Sponsors and Partners

19. Please share your thoughts on the event as a whole.

Question Type: Open-ended

This open-ended question shows sponsors and partners that you value their opinion as collaborators. You’ll also want to start with a broad question like this one because it will help them think critically about the details in the following points.

20. Did this year’s event meet your expectations? Why or why not?

Question Type: Yes-no, Open-ended

While you may already know their goals, you might not know what they were expecting from this event. Generally speaking, it’s often hard for anyone to gauge their own assumptions about an experience until it is over, which is why including this question along with a prompt to further explain their answer is often more insightful than simply checking yes or no.

21. How relevant was the audience for your business/industry? 

Question: NPS 

To create a great sponsor partnership, you need to ensure the event audience is relevant to sponsors. Often brands sign up to sponsor events to achieve sales and marketing goals, or brand visibility. If the audience is not relevant, sponsors will have less success engaging with attendees and fall flat on their goals. 

22. What was the ROI of sponsoring this event? 

Question Type: Open-ended 

This question will give you a good idea of if your sponsorship packages were valuable or not. By keeping the question opened ended it will help educate you on exactly what the sponsors found valuable. If the responses are good and event ROI was high, you could also use these answers as proof demonstrating to future sponsors your sponsorship opportunities are a great investment. 

Bonus Tip: According to our Event Marketing Report, 54% of event marketers have trouble showing event ROI to key decision-makers. Make sure to give your sponsors plenty of data to help them track ROI and make sure their event sponsorship made an impact. 

23. Will we see you again next year?

Question Type: Yes-no

Ideally, all of your sponsors and partners would love to do the event every year. Be sure to do a pulse check and determine if their experience of the event really was all they’d hoped it would be. Follow up with no responses for more information as to why they won’t be returning.

Survey Questions for Speakers and VIPs

24. Did you receive all the information you needed to successfully present before the event? 

Question Type: Yes-no

Preparation is a key element to any presentation’s success. By asking your speakers if they felt they had the information needed to successfully present you can identify strengths and weaknesses in your speaker preparation. If a speaker answers no, be sure to personally follow up with them to get more information, not only will they feel heard but you will gain invaluable insight into how to create a better experience next time. 

25. How would you rate our event venue and equipment in regards to how it served your keynote?

Question Type: NPS

For in-person events, speakers are the most concerned with the elements of the venue that either enhance or detract from their presentation. No one else can give you a better idea of venue effectiveness the way a speaker can. You can modify this question for virtual and hybrid events as well. For example “How would you rate working with our production team and virtual platform?”

26. Is there anything we could have done to make your event experience easier or more convenient?

Question Type: Open-ended

This is especially important for the VIPs you hope to impress. Cater to their needs and ensure their continued involvement for years to come.

27. Do you have a friend or colleague who would enjoy speaking at our future events?

Question Type: Yes-no

Speakers are often very involved in their own communities and networks and surround themselves with pros in their field. You can easily source new and fresh presenters for next year from this group. And with the recommendation of someone who has already done it, the decision will be a no-brainer for them.

Survey Questions for Employees

28. How would you rate the organization of this event?

Question Type: NPS

Your team will be intimately familiar with the cogs of your event. If they were confused or unclear what was happening during the event, your entire system might need a total revamp. If they felt comfortable and empowered for the duration of the event then you have a strong model to replicate in the future.

29. Do you feel roles were clearly communicated? 

Question Type: Open-ended 

To have a successful event team experience you must have clear roles and responsibilities. If roles aren’t clear it can lead to problems and miscommunications that impact the execution of your event. Asking your team for feedback will let you know if there are areas to improve in team communication next event. 

30. Do you think the event met its goals?

Question Type: Yes-no

This question is a warm-up for the following. Reflecting as a team on event goals will give you a greater sense of whether you accomplished your event goals or not.

31. What impact do you see this event having on your immediate business goals?

Question Type: Yes-no

Make sure to tie your event back into your main mission statement by asking employees to directly reflect on the impact it has had on what they’re trying to accomplish at this moment in time. If you don’t connect the event evaluation to the greater objective or plan, the event itself can feel isolated and unnecessary. By asking fellow employees to put the benefits into their own words it reinforces their positive experience at the event and secures its slot in the marketing budget for next year.

32. Are you satisfied with the results of this event in regards to the impact it has made on your department?

Question Type: Yes-no

Zooming back out again, employees should consider how the actions of the marketing department directly affect their greater purpose in the company. Asking this question will even help you learn and make connections between how your event can (and should) support the company as a whole.

Survey Questions for Virtual Events

33. How satisfied were you with the platform experience? 

Question Type: NPS

Your virtual platform can make or break your event. Asking this question allows you to find out how attendees felt about the overall virtual experience. Make sure to include a prompt with room to add more in case participants wish to elaborate. 

34. What features did you like best about the event experience?

Question Type: Open-ended

Questions like this allow you to narrow in on those experiences while planning your next event. Knowing what worked and what is worth repeating saves you time when producing your next event. Keep a list of each point and find themes and popular responses to prioritize popular experiences next year.

35. Did you find the event easy to navigate?

Question Type: Yes-no

Success at a virtual event goes hand-in-hand with how easily attendees can navigate the experience. If attendees can’t find parts of the event due to a poor navigation design, they won’t be able to experience the event in full. This question will gauge if any improvements need to be made in the next iterations. 

36. If you used tech support, how would you rate your experience? 

Question Type: NPS

When an attendee runs into an issue attending your virtual event, they contact your support team. Can’t log-in? Contact event support. No audio? Contact event support. How the issue is resolved will leave a lasting impression. No matter if you have live chat, email, or a knowledge base this question will help give you insight into if your current tech support system is working or not.

37. How would you rate the quality of audio and video at the event?

Question Type: NPS

There are many variables when it comes to audio and video at virtual events. Many speakers are presenting from their homes which leaves room for poor internet connections, bad audio quality, or less than stellar backgrounds. Ask attendees to rate the quality of audio and video. If attendees weren’t satisfied, do an AV audit and identify areas of improvement, then relay that information to speakers and presenters the following event. Improvements might include minimum internet speeds, types of approved microphones, or sending presenter kits directly to speaker’s homes to ensure quality audio and visual. 

Main Takeaways: Your Event Survey Questions

Event engagement is so much more than selling tickets. With the help of event survey tools you can get to the core of the question “how do I know if my event was successful?” and see if your event was a success. When crafting your own surveys, keep these general ideas in mind:

1. Feedback is always good. Every participant in your event, whether they are involved behind-the-scenes or on the front-end, has something valuable to teach you. 
2. People love to share their opinion, an event survey gives them a platform to do so and feel valued.
3. Find your people. By knowing who you’ve won over this year you’ll already have a jump start on making next year even more successful.
4. Keep it short. While it would be great to ask all the questions mentioned above, be respectful of participants’ time and keep your survey short. 
5. If you don’t know, just ask. People love helping others (and talking about themselves), so chances are they’ll be more than willing to share their experience with you.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on November 5, 2018 and has since been updated for relevancy.