Ultimately, though, the most important measurement of an event’s success is when your audience leaves feeling like they can’t wait to tell someone about it. You want your attendees to leave your event feeling amazed inspired and you want them to believe your event and organization is remarkable and worth their time.
How does this happen? How can we create this type of environment?
This is the secret sauce…there is no one way to make this happen. There are a variety of things you can do to make sure your guests leave with that amazing feeling:
- Incorporate an enthusiastic keynote speaker who can give your event credibility. Just make sure they stay on message and fit with the overall theme of the event and your organization.
- Use video to engage the audience, but make sure your audio visual is top notch.
- Music needs to be thought out and relevant. Your audience won’t know why the music is important but that ‘feeling’ will exist and you’ll know it was worth your time and energy to focus on music.
- How many people are there? Does the room/space feel full? It’s better to host your event in a space that feels a bit tight, rather than in a half-full room that feels, well, half-filled.
- Make sure your volunteers and staff treat your guests like rock stars.
- What kind of food and beverage are you serving? Your audience won’t know if the food was absolutely fantastic but they will notice if the food and beverage is inadequate.
These are just a few factors that go into the planning and organization of an event. Ultimately, it’s not one thing that exists or one aspect of the event that will leave your guests feeling like they can’t wait to tell someone about it. There is so much more than that…and really, that’s the purpose of events…so people walk away from the experience feeling better than when they arrived.