Think of the last event you attended — a festival, product launch, sporting event, or even a workshop. Chances are, it felt seamless. Every detail, from the check-in process to the agenda and engagement tactics, seemed thoughtfully orchestrated.
But great events don’t happen by accident. They’re the result of extensive planning — and often, input directly from the audience before the event even begins.
That’s where pre-event surveys come in.
These surveys are a strategic tool that forward-thinking organizations use to inform their planning process. Done right, they help ensure every session, speaker, and email campaign is crafted with audience preferences in mind — not guesswork.
Let’s explore why pre-event surveys are so valuable, the kinds of questions to include, and how we helped a membership-based organization use this method to streamline their programming and better serve their audience.
A pre-event survey is a short questionnaire shared with potential or registered attendees before an event. It’s designed to gather feedback that can improve event content, logistics, and overall strategy.
While post-event surveys are great for measuring satisfaction, pre-event surveys are better at shaping the experience in real-time — before the first RSVP.
Pre-event surveys are useful across industries:
Whether your event is for 30 people or 30,000, pre-event insights can help you make smarter choices — fast.
Pre-event surveys offer a unique opportunity to gather actionable insights that can guide your event strategy from start to finish. Here are some key benefits:
Instead of making assumptions about what your attendees want, pre-event surveys give you the data you need to plan an event that truly resonates with your audience. By directly asking your attendees about their interests, pain points, and preferences, you can build an agenda, choose speakers, and tailor the event experience to their needs. This ensures the event is relevant, engaging, and impactful.
For example, if a survey reveals that a large portion of your audience prefers interactive workshops over traditional lectures, you can adjust your event format accordingly, leading to a more dynamic and well-received event.
When attendees feel like their opinions matter, they’re more likely to engage with your event and show up. Pre-event surveys increase your audience’s sense of ownership in the event, making them feel invested from the start. This can lead to higher registration rates, greater participation in pre-event promotions, and stronger overall attendance.
Effective marketing begins with understanding your audience. Pre-event surveys provide valuable insights into what types of messaging will resonate with your target attendees. By asking questions about their challenges, interests, and preferred communication channels, you can craft emails, social media posts, and advertisements that are more likely to capture their attention.
For instance, if a survey reveals that your audience is most excited about networking opportunities or a specific speaker, you can focus your marketing efforts on those aspects to generate more excitement and drive engagement with your promotional content.
Planning a successful event involves significant investments in areas like speakers, venues, and event formats. A pre-event survey helps you validate your decisions before committing substantial resources. Whether you’re trying to decide on the best date, the right location, or the most appealing session topics, gathering feedback early on ensures that you’re aligning with your attendees’ preferences, which reduces the risk of any decisions falling flat.
Additionally, if there are any logistical or content-related concerns, they can be identified and addressed well in advance, leading to smoother execution on event day.
To keep things strategic (and short), pre-event surveys typically ask 10 to 20 questions. Here are some effective ones across different categories:
Drive Research recently worked with a membership-based organization to guide programming and improve member satisfaction. In this section, we’ll discuss the client’s objectives, our approach, and the results.
Our client wanted to determine logistics for their upcoming event calendar but they also wanted to gauge membership satisfaction.
The objectives included:
This made the survey design critical in addressing both the primary (event planning logistics) and secondary (membership attitudes) purposes.
Have you ever wanted to get two birds with one stone? Maximize your efforts with the simplest approach?
Sometimes there are constraints to a project, whether financial or time-related, that can negatively impact the insight quality of a project. To reduce this risk, we have to be strategic – Drive Research thrives in this challenge!
Our market research company established a thorough question design. We focused on the basics first, like:
Mandatory questions like membership profile:
But also grouping questions like the following:
By developing/incorporating questions like this helps build a richer profile of the members, which supports the underlying purpose of assessing their motives for participation.
We also included some planning-specific questions:
Some example questions to further demonstrate this concept of event logistics addressed:
This allows the client to prepare accordingly for their events but also gain a sense of who makes up their membership base.
Since there are multiple interests, it’s easy to get caught in the trap of a longer survey which increases the risk of survey fatigue. At Drive Research we are adept at balancing the survey demands with respondents’ capacity. We also utilized strategic routing logic to maintain the flow of the survey and reduce respondent exhaustion.
The survey took an average of 4 minutes to complete and included 24 questions.
The survey received 35 responses with a response rate of 5%.
Fieldwork for the survey began on December 2nd, 2024 and lasted until December 16th, 2024.
Although the results and insights remain confidential with the client, an overview of the deliverables is highlighted below:
We understand that in the event planning business, it’s all about the details. That’s where we thrive, in uncovering those details to make the big picture clearer and easier to materialize. Above is just a snippet of our efforts – reach out to Drive Research to help facilitate your vision, with our expertise.
Pre-event surveys aren’t just a best practice — they’re a smart investment. They allow you to plan better events, attract more attendees, and create more personalized experiences.
At Drive Research, we help organizations take the guesswork out of planning. Whether you’re working with a small nonprofit or a national association, our tailored survey design uncovers the insights you need to deliver standout events.
Let’s make your next event your best one yet. Contact us to learn more.
