Attendees’ experience and perceptions of an event can determine their behaviour and attitudes around it, as well as influence the wider image of the event, its partners and host. Understanding attendees’ satisfaction with that experience can add further layers of insight to impact assessment in other areas.
What to measure
There is no standard overall satisfaction metric for sporting, cultural or business events, but we recommend using the Net Promoter Score (NPS) in tandem with attendee survey data. NPS is widely used in the leisure and cultural services sectors as a measure of customer loyalty. It is equally applicable to annual and one-off events, and enables comparison of experience and perception across events.
- Net Promoter Score
- Percentage of attendees satisfied
These measures are also recommended by the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) (references IM-EE2.2 and IM-EE2.1 respectively).
Additional indicators of overall audience satisfaction include:
- Net satisfaction score (percentage satisfied minus percentage dissatisfied)
- Percentage of attendees who felt the event had lived up to their expectation
Audience surveys can also help you explore attendees’ opinions on specific aspects of their event experience. These will vary according to the type of event (eg, sport, culture or business) and the type of attendee (e.g. participant or spectator), but can cover the following:
- Ease of accessing event information prior to attendance
- Ease of booking tickets
- Queuing times at the event
- Event atmosphere
- How entertaining attendees found the experience
- Quality of performance/display
- Helpfulness of event staff
- Value for money
Audience satisfaction: How to measure it
An event’s NPS can be calculated by analysing responses to the following survey question:
On a scale of 0 (not at all) to 10 (extremely), how likely are you to recommend this event to friends and family?
Respondents who score 9 or 10 are categorised as ‘promoters’ who are most likely to refer their positive experience to others. Those scoring 7 or 8 are considered ‘passives’, while members of the group scoring 0-6 are seen as seen as ‘detractors’ who are most likely to provide negative word of mouth.
NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters and can range from -100 (100% detractors) to +100 (100% promoters). A score between zero and -100 is classed as ‘in need of improvement’; 1-30 is ‘good’; 31-70 is ‘great’; and 71+ is ‘excellent’.
Beyond the NPS, you can measure other satisfaction indicators using three- or five-point Likert Scale questions, which ask respondents to score their perception of an issue or aspect of event experience between the extremes of very satisfied and very dissatisfied, for example
- “Thinking about your experience of attending this event, how SATISFIED or DISSATISFIED were you with the following aspects?”
E.g. Standard of the venue (answer options: Very satisfied - Satisfied - Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied - Dissatisfied, Very dissatisfied, Don't know/Not applicable)