The report the client asked for
The event went well. The client's head of events now needs a report for their leadership team: how many registered, how many came, how many from each region, which sessions were busiest, what delegates said in the survey, what sponsors received, and how the final cost compared with the budget. They would like it within two weeks.
Your account manager exports registrations from the platform, check-in data from the desk laptop, session scans from the app, survey results from a form tool and the budget from a spreadsheet. The numbers do not quite agree, because each tool counts differently. Charts are built by hand in slides. It takes days, and the numbers are questioned in the client's meeting.
Why the report takes so long
Each piece of data lives in a different tool and each tool uses its own definitions.
- Registration, check-in, session attendance and survey sit in separate systems.
- A "registered" or "attended" figure is counted differently by each tool.
- Delegate details differ between systems, so they cannot be joined easily.
- Free-text survey comments are read one by one and summarised by hand.
- The report is built in slides, so each client's report starts from a copy of the last one.
What a slow or shaky report costs
The post-event report is the last thing the client sees from you, and often what their leadership sees of the whole event. A late report, or one with numbers that do not add up, undermines a good event and makes the rebook conversation harder. Meanwhile, the account manager spends days on it instead of on the next proposal.
Numbers that do not agree cause a specific kind of damage. If the registration platform says one figure, the check-in export another and your slide a third, the client's finance or procurement team starts asking which one is right, and the discussion moves from the event's success to your reliability. Survey comments summarised by hand also tend to lean towards what the person summarising expected to find.
And because each report is built from scratch, there is no easy way to compare one year's event with the next, which is exactly the comparison your client's leadership wants to see when they decide whether to run it again.
The report built from the event's records
- Registration, check-in, session scans, survey answers, sponsor delivery and budget all sit on the same event record, or are imported into it with one delegate identity.
- Definitions are fixed and shown on the report: registered, attended, no-show, cancelled, walk-in.
- A report template per client sets which sections and measures they want, in their language.
- Charts and tables are produced from the data, with drill-down to the underlying lists if the client wants them.
- Survey free text is grouped into themes with a language model, with example comments quoted exactly, and your team reviews the themes before they appear.
- Your team writes the commentary: what went well, what you would change, recommendations.
- The report is exported as a PDF or a web page, with the client's branding if they want it.
| Section | Source | Your team adds |
|---|---|---|
| Registrations and attendance | Attendee record and check-in | Comment on drop-off |
| Session popularity | Session scans | Programme recommendations |
| Delegate feedback | Survey, themed | What you would change |
| Sponsor delivery | Sponsor tracker | Renewal notes |
| Budget and final cost | Event budget | Explanation of variances |
Two weeks later, a report you can stand behind
A few days after the event, the account manager opens the first draft: attendance, sessions, survey themes and budget are in place, and the numbers agree because they come from one record. They spend their time on commentary. The client's head of events presents it to their leadership, and the questions are about next year's event rather than about the numbers.
Is this your post-event report?
- Post-event reports take days of exporting and copying.
- Attendance numbers differ between your tools.
- Survey comments are summarised by hand.
- Each client's report is built from a copy of the last one.
- Clients have questioned the numbers in your report.