Satisfaction

Satisfaction

Major events are often intrinsically linked to the locations and places in which they are staged. People's perceptions of an event may therefore elicit a strong impact on their perceptions of the place in which it is hosted. Importantly this does not just apply to visitors to the event but also to local residents, whose perception of the place as somewhere to live or work may be altered by an event. With local and regional authorities becoming increasingly active bodies in terms of supporting the staging of major events, the ability of an event to change people’s perceptions of place are more important than ever.

As with other impact areas, the measurement of identity, image and place should be linked into the specific aims and objectives of the event and its stakeholders.

Basic measures

While there is no standard metric to quantify overall satisfaction, we recommend using the Net Promoter Score (NPS).  The NPS is gaining increasing acceptance in the leisure and cultural services sector as a measure of customer loyalty.  It is particularly relevant to annual events held in the same location but can also be applied to one-off events.  It provides a standardised measure of overall satisfaction that can be compared across events.  

The example below uses real data gathered using a face-to-face survey from a sample of spectators who attended a major sport event in the UK in 2015 to illustrate how this metric is calculated.  Attendees were asked to indicate their likelihood of recommending an event to others on a scale of 0 (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely).  The NPS was then calculated as the difference between the percentage scoring 9-10 (promoters) and the percentage scoring 0-6 (detractors).

Derivation of NPS

Other indicators that tend to be used typically to measure overall satisfaction include: 

• The percentage of people who enjoyed the overall event experience (e.g. the percentage who are 'very satisfied' or 'quite satisfied').

• The percentage of people who would recommend the experience to others (e.g. the percentage who 'strongly agreed' or 'agreed' to do so).

• The net satisfaction score, calculated in terms of the percentage of people who were very satisfied/satisfied with the overall event experience minus the percentage dissatisfied/very dissatisfied.

• The mean satisfaction score, where responses are scored on a scale ranging from -2 (very dissatisfied) to +2 (very satisfied) with zero representing the neutral score (neither satisfied nor dissatisfied) - see worked example below.  It would be equally valid to use a different scoring system of (say) 1 to 5, in which case the neutral score is three.

Derivation of mean satisfaction score    

^* Respondents who did not express an opinion about a particular aspect are excluded.

• The extent to which an event had lived up to expectations - see example below from the audience survey employed at the London 2012 Festival.

London 2012 Festival audience survey, whether events live up to expectations¹

Intermediate Satisfaction Measures

In addition to measuring overall satisfaction, organisers may be interested in finding out attendees' opinions about certain aspects of their event experience.  The attributes of interest to organisers may vary from one event to another depending on their aims and objectives but can include, for example:

A simple question asking people to rate on a scale of (say) 'very satisfied' - 'very dissatisfied' or 'very good' - 'very poor' can be used to assess satisfaction with specific attributes.  It is also worth including a 'don't know' / 'not applicable' option for event attributes that respondents did not use or were unaware of.    Some useful examples from the events industry are presented below, which utilise different rating scales.

The London 2012 Festival audience survey, respondents’ experience of events¹

Notting Hill Carnival and the Mayor's Thames Festival audience survey, event ratings²

1. ^{http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/pdf/london_2012_academic_report/London_2012_Cultural_Olympiad_Evaluation_ICC.pdf}

2. Events for London Project Evaluation (2009)