Event Continuous Improvement

Continuous improvement is particularly important where you are planning to run future iterations of your event. This is generally true for most events. There are also some other advantages of paying attention to continuous improvement
 * If you are seeking funding or sponsorship for future iterations, it becomes easier to secure funding if you have evidence of previous successful events
 * If you're running more iterations of an event, you're likely to forget the things that went right and wrong between the event - so the report serves as a reminder
 * Having a continuous improvement plan can help not just your event, but other similar events which may wish to learn from your experience.

Often the best way to present continuous improvement is in the form of a post event report. A picture tells a thousand words - and graphs and graphical representation of data can help you present a very professional report.

Survey tools can also help you greatly.

Recommended sections for your Post Event Report

 * Executive Summary: Your executive summary should contain items such as
 * The date and time of the event
 * Estimated number of attendees
 * Financial summary - such as whether the event ran at a profit or not
 * A summary of the key strengths and key weaknesses of the event
 * Marketing and promotion: This section of the report should contain a summary of things such as
 * any survey results which indicate how people found out about the event
 * traditional media coverage such as newspaper or radio coverage
 * new media coverage such as blog posts, flickr photos etc
 * how many Twitter / Identi.ca followers the event has / had
 * any other survey results or feedback
 * Web presence: This section of the report should contain a summary of things such as
 * extracts from Google Analytics showing key traffic patterns for the event
 * keyword patterns for the event
 * content summary - ie which pages were popular
 * referring sites - which sites linked to your event page
 * Presentations: this section of the report should summarise the quality, general nature and highlights of Speaker presentations / talks/ tutorials
 * Include a talk schedule in the Post Event Report
 * Any survey results or other feedback relating to presentations
 * If the slide deck / streaming / recordings were made of the presentations, include links to them
 * Venue: this section of the report should summarise the suitability of the venue for the event, including;
 * Whether the venue was large enough for the event
 * The accessibility of the event via both private and public transport
 * The comfort of the event, such as whether it was warm enough
 * Audio visual and power facilities in the event
 * The helpfulness of venue staff, and generally how easy the venue was to deal with - even the best venue isn't worth having if the venue staff are horrible to deal with!
 * Attendees: this section of the report should summarise the attendees, hopefully with some sort of demographic data such as;
 * age
 * gender
 * where the attendee was resident
 * which professional level / sector the attendee identifies with (ie student, manager, sysadmin, graphic designer etc - helps to position marketing for future events)
 * whether the attendee had previously attended a similar event in the past
 * Catering: this section of the report should summarise the quality, suitability and quantity of any food and beverages supplied for the event, including
 * whether people with special dietary requirements were adequately catered for
 * whether the quantity of food and beverages was sufficient
 * whether the quality of food and beverages was suitable for the cost
 * whether the caterers were pleasant and easy to deal with - similar to dealing with the people managing the venue
 * Risk management: this section of the report should summarise any risks that were planned for, their mitigation strategies and whether any risks eventuated, including
 * financial risks
 * any major incidents that occurred at the event, and any follow up actions required to prevent or better manage a recurrence
 * any failures in terms of risk planning - such as risks which were not identified or risks which were not handled properly or well
 * Sponsorship: this section of the report should summarise:
 * Any sponsor agreements
 * Any in kind support arrangements
 * Any recommendations for future improvements in this area
 * Any sponsorship requirements that were onerous or that presented a large overhead for organisers
 * Event registration: this section of the report should summarise:
 * Whether Event Registration was easy to manage and easy to co-ordinate, and whether any fees were reasonable
 * Whether the pricing of the event was reasonable or whether charges should be reduced or increased in the future
 * Finances: this section of the report should summarise
 * Revenue
 * Expenses
 * Performance against budget
 * Recommendations for any financial changes in future iterations of the event

Examples of Post Event Reports

 * BarCampGeelong 2011 Post event report
 * Software Freedom Day Melbourne 2010 Post event report
 * Software Freedom Day 2009 Post event report
 * StixCampNewstead 2009 Post Event report
 * BarCampMelbourne 2009 Post Event report

Other resources
Leslie Hawthorn has also written about post-event reports on her blog; http://hawthornlandings.org/2013/02/15/how-to-writing-an-excellent-post-event-wrap-up-report/