The importance of efficient debrief of your event

An event planner’s work is never done,  not even when the event itself is finished. Just as important as getting all the details right before your event, is the work that is left to do right after the event itself!

An event debrief is a meeting with your team where you carefully deconstruct and analyze a previous event.  A thorough event debrief will help you identify what went right, what went wrong, and what could be better next time. If you don’t take the time to review your events, you may miss out on important opportunities to correct mistakes and make important improvements.

Why is event “Debriefing” important?

Even when an event seems to have gone off without a hitch, there are always elements that could be improved—that’s where a post-event debrief with your team becomes important. Taking time to debrief an event offers many benefits including gaining valuable feedback, streamlining your process, enhancing the attendee experience and further developing of relationships with sponsors, vendors, and staff.

By taking time after the event to capture your notes and thoughts, your events will improve every edition or year! In addition, if it becomes necessary to hand over your event to someone else, you’ll be setting them up for success by having everything documented.

Debriefing starts DURING your event

Before your event is over, take time to write down the logistics of what you want to remember, as you might forget some details when the event is busy.

Take into account the following:

• How many people showed up at the event? What is the percentage of female/male guests?
• Did this influence the catering and/or leftovers?
• Were timings respected?
• Did you realize any bottlenecks or problems to set up and prevent them in the future?
• Did you foresee sufficient staffing to assist your guests during registration/cloakroom service, for give aways, or any other questions during the event?
• Did your sponsors and partners get sufficient visibility?
• Write down the things that you liked about the venue and the ones you want to improve.

Debriefing AFTER your event

After your event, you’ll want to get evaluations of all the persons involved in the event. Gather as much information as you can get to evaluate the whole picture.

1. Send out an Event Survey to your participants

Use a questionnaire covering as many aspects of the event as possible such as the invitation process, event program event logistics so that you can use the information during the event debrief. 

You can get this kind of feedback in three different ways: 

• Make your event survey available during the event by setting up a booth where they can leave their comments. This way you get their feedback when it’s fresh in their mind.
• Mail the event survey a few days after the event. This is a great addition to your ‘thank you email’. Host the survey as a form on your website so they can fill it out quickly.
• Ask for feedback through an event app  (if you are using one). This is maybe the most interactive way of receiving feedback. Make sure that the results of this survey are available for your event debriefing session.
  
  

2. Invite the most important parties to your debrief

Key players can provide important information since they often have different opinions on things. If your organization team is small team, it’s fine to invite everyone. If many persons have been involved make sure you have a representative of each key function (on-site event crew, the hosting venue, any logistic partners,  a speaker, or sponsor, and eventually even a colleague who attended the event.

This will allow you to collect valuable input from different points of view and will facilitate future collaboration.

3. Set a detailed agenda and make use of a moderator

It’s important to hit the key items of your event: Registration, catering, setup, speakers/entertainment, signage/decor, etc. Furthermore, it’s important to designate someone to lead the discussion so the conversation doesn’t become chaotic.

4. Start with your objectives, listen carefully to don’t forget to make a summary

Before you start discussing each event aspect, quickly go through your goals and objectives. This will help you and the team to generate the best feedback. The easiest way to conduct an event debriefing is to use an event debrief template.

5. Use the data and make it available to others

Perhaps the most important step: once you’ve collected data from your event debrief meeting and/or survey, it’s important to use it for all future events. To ensure document your notes and actions somewhere your team can access them at any time.

Are you inspired to organize your next event?

Contact us via marketing@bluepoint.be or call +32 2 706 88 00 to visit our sites in Antwerp, Brussels, or Liege. Together we ensure a smooth organization of your next event so your debrief session will contain as many positive points as possible!  

Make sure you use BluePoint’s innovative event technologies that will attract even more attention and make the event truly unforgettable. Positive feedback is guaranteed!