Stress Free Event and Festival Research
Summary
Event research is a one chance affair to capture perceptions of an experience while it occurs. 'Overall Event Satisfaction' is a vital success measure for local communities, newsworthy for local media and it can be as important as the financial contribution for the prospects of further events. Specific results identify areas of concern and highlight where the Event can improve. This article reduces the key knowledge of event researching, allowing you to easily establish effective research.
As a simple sampling principle, ideally survey at a number of exit locations with a goal of 200+ responses from the event. This number will provide adequate validity for even the largest community events on most general measures. Event researching traditionally involves what is called 'interviewer assisted and monitored self-completion questionnaires' (hand-out, complete, return) completed in under 5 minutes.
What follows is a sample of the common questions asked in Event surveys;
1.What is your overall satisfaction of with this Festival?
2.What is your satisfaction with Festival amenities (toilets, parking, etc)?
3.What is the main attraction for you at this Festival?
4.How would you rate this Festival with others you have attended?
5.How did you find out about this Festival?
6.How long did it take you to travel to this Festival today?
7.Would you attend this Festival again?
8.How much time have you spent at this Festival/region?
9.How would you describe this Festival to others?
10.What other Festivals have you attended in the last 12 months?
11.If you could make recommendations for improvement, what would they be?
12.What is your Age/Gender/Suburb?
For ease of self-administration, complex questionnaire design is avoided, having an additional benefit of making analysis far more straightforward.
Challenges
Weather is the biggest contingency in this type of research, it impacts the total number of attendants, the spaces in which research can occur, and attendees will (on average) stay for a shorter duration. On the positive side, the research from people who attend on wet days can be most valuable and can create newsworthy comment in itself.
While intercepting people is a random process, you can set target quotas on males/age groups to get an even representation in the data. Multiple collection points may cater for different groups so provide the interviewers the flexibility to alter their approach as the conditions provide. Traffic flows will change throughout the day, it is common to have researchers working the stands before performances, and at exits points during and after the Festival.
Respondents at Events are generally willing to give opinion and jovial in nature. Interviewers monitor the completion of the surveys and may have multiple respondents completing a survey at any one time. It is best to reduce the number of long answer written questions, as the error rate is high and most respondents don't elaborate. Professional interviewers are able to operate independently, reporting at a scheduled basis on their performance and to replenish their survey supplies, so your personal involvement during the event is not mandatory.
Making it Easy
Plan at a minimum two weeks out, expect interviewers to obtain 10-15 responses per hour, so allocate interviewers according to the main exit locations and the amount of time the Event runs – keep a keen eye on the weather as it draws closer.
Importantly, ensure the questionnaire is user-friendly for respondents, if you are printing the questionnaire make them a one single page or if two pages, printed on separate sheets.
When briefing your interviewers, keep in mind they are likely to be constantly asked the following questions, so it is good to role-play how you would like them to respond:
- What's this about?
- Are you giving anything away?
- How long will this take?
- Who is this for?
- Who approved you to be here?
A well performed introduction includes answers to these questions, at whatever level is appropriate. It is important to stipulate a suitable dress code for the interviewers that will make the respondents comfortable, while photo ID is essential for instant creditability.
Professional event interviewers are a hardworking bunch, who spend their shifts constantly tracking quotas and the time spent at multiple locations -- while managing to be relaxed, friendly and interested.
On completion of the surveying, allow 2 days for data entry and data output. One of the primary goals of Event research is efficiency (simplicity), so the data you receive for Event research is very straightforward to assess and judge, making its distribution to other stakeholders quick and easy, even in a raw Excel table format.
If you apply a common sense approach to Event research, the outcomes are exceptionally valuable to all stakeholders.
Organising such research can then lead to broader community studies in areas such as facility satisfaction, such as sporting, aquatic, arts, shopping and parking.
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