Event Success

Under One Moon Event, Milwaukee - Aug. 2019

Following one of my events, I’m inevitably approached by someone asking if the event was a success. That question always gives me pause. What makes an event a “success?” Did you meet your financial goal? Are your sponsors happy? Did you reach the anticipated crowd size and the attendee’s expectations? What were your social media analytics? Were there any technical or operational issues like power outages? Did you run out of anything important like water or food? Were there any safety incidents…?

SAFETY = SUCCESS

For me, the most important measure of success occurs when I check in with our police department and they say “there were no incidents.” For some of my larger events like the Brady Street Festival which draws 50,000 attendees, safety is more top of mind because of the crowd size. I spend much of the day thinking about safety, monitoring the security staff, and how the Festival seems to be going. Do people seem like they are having a really good time and getting along with each other? For smaller events, it’s not quite as worrisome, but security is definitely my top priority when discussing an event’s success.

Security coverage and police departments have increased training for crowd safety, especially given the horrible incidents that happened in the past few years like the shooting at the Garlic Festival in California just last month, and the mass shooting in Las Vegas at a country music festival in 2017. It is essential that you establish a good rapport and communication with your local police department. Gone are the Woodstock days of Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm helping people with their “bad trip” tents. If only it could be that innocent again!

FINANCIAL MEASURES

Another measure of event success is obviously revenue versus overhead. Most events are designed to make money. However, businesses or organizations host events for other reasons such as branding, raising money for a nonprofit that is important to them, or just a celebration of community. If you saw the movie, Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, you witnessed firsthand the example of way too many overhead costs and mismanagement causing the event to collapse in financial ruin with attendees scrambling for cheese sandwiches and rain-soaked mattresses in Fema tents. (If you haven’t seen it I highly suggest checking it out.)

Do your due diligence. Create budget estimates and work your tail off to meet them. Be sure to build in contingency dollars for unexpected costs. You will always have some even when you think you have figured out the cost to the penny!

SPONSOR SATISFACTION

Sponsorships are also directly related to financial success. If your sponsors aren’t happy with your performance, they obviously will not be coming back. Make sure that when you are negotiating these sponsorships that all expectations are clearly outlined. A simple miscommunication and mistake on one end can wreak havoc on your relationship with a sponsor and puts everyone in an extremely uncomfortable situation. More to come on this in a future blog!

SIZE ISN’T EVERYTHING

While crowd size is important to many, there actually is such a thing as a crowd that is too big. I referenced Woodstock above. Can you tell I also recently watched this documentary on Netflix? The organizers of Woodstock anticipated about 150,000 attendees so they did as much planning as they could for that size crowd. When over 400,000 people showed up, the organizers were grossly unprepared. There were only 600 toilets and not nearly enough food and water. A majority of the attendees were so far away they probably couldn’t even hear the show because the sound system that was set up for a much smaller footprint. In spite of this, when you think of Woodstock, you definitely think “success.” Although there won’t be a 50-year anniversary concert this year, it is undoubtedly the most iconic music festival in history.

When you are planning your own event, it is vital to survey and plan for the space that you have available. This is especially true with outdoor events since there are no seating charts or room sizes. Consider the footprint, the type of ground, the slope, any barriers, and the staging. Remember that bigger isn’t necessarily always better! Success comes in many different sizes.

OTHER SUCCESS MEASURES

As technology changes, it becomes more likely that event production teams will increase their use of event KPIs, or key performance indicators for measuring success. There are several kinds of KPIs including social media performance, captured emails or new leads. Actually, all of the subjects I discussed above are also considered KPIs, but in this instance, I’m specifically referring to marketing related metrics. Set your KPIs before your event, such as estimating the number of engagements on or an increase in percentage of one of your social media platforms. Some event producers are moving towards the use of event marketing software in order to do target audience research, analysis and more direct marketing.

Remember, an event doesn’t really end once the event day is finished. Take the opportunity, while things are fresh, to review all that happened so the next event will be even better. There are a variety of factors to consider after all is said and done so that you can measure whether or not your event was successful.

I am happy to report that from my perspective all of my events this year have definitely been a success!