Exploring industry priorities regarding customer satisfaction and implications for event evaluation

This paper explores the priorities of event organisers and venue managers in terms of evaluation criteria and avenues for advancing the development and implementation of banks of questions regarding customer satisfaction evaluation. The results presented are based on a questionnaire distributed to a sample of event organisers and venue managers which sought to identify their priorities with regards to customer satisfaction feedback. Findings show that a significant proportion of respondents had never undertaken formal evaluation, citing time and resources as the key barriers. In addition, a wide range of satisfaction related criteria were rated as important, with the most valued criteria often related to generalised areas, but failing to consider the motivations of individuals for event attendance, which also appears as a gap within evaluation literature. The research findings indicate that developing banks of evaluation questions is a complex task, due to the number of potential variables in terms of events and audiences. In linking the priority areas identified by the respondents with evaluation literature and event attendee motivations this paper proposes alternative ways of structuring and utilising banks of evaluation questions linked to attendee profiles and motivations. Its central premise is that evaluation of consumer satisfaction should be led by consumer motivations and expectations if it is to be viable, meaningful and aid future event development and enhancement. This raises many questions and avenues for future research, to progress the area of logistically feasible evaluation, which generates rich and meaningful data.