What should a post-event report include?

The short answer

A useful post-event report for a small event fits on one screen: how many booked, how many came, how many were new, which tickets sold, and what you kept. Write it the morning after, while the night is fresh, and keep it with the event so next time you can compare.

On One Ticket you don’t have to write it. The morning-after summary arrives by email at 7 am the day after each event, on every plan, including Free.

Why bother with a report

Most small organisers know roughly how a night went. The report turns “roughly” into something you can act on:

• Turn-up tells you whether to send a later reminder or overbook a little.
• New faces tell you whether your promotion reached anyone beyond your regulars.
• Ticket types show whether the early bird pulled people forward or just discounted people who’d have come anyway.
• Money tells you whether to change the price, and gives your treasurer, venue or sponsor a number they can trust.

Done after every event, a series of short reports beats one long review at the end of the year.

What to include

1. Booked. Tickets booked, and how many of those were bought on the day or at the door.
2. Came. How many were checked in, against how many booked. The gap is your no-show rate.
3. New faces. First-timers, and how many came back from last time.
4. Ticket types. How many of each, and their share.
5. Money. Ticket sales after discounts and refunds, discounts given, refunds, any fees you covered, and what’s yours.
6. For a regular event: who missed this one after coming last time, and who was new. Names, not just numbers, so you can say “missed you”.
7. One line of notes. What you’d change: the room was too warm, the queue was slow at 7, the speaker ran over.

Leave out anything you won’t act on. A report nobody reads is worse than no report.

Who should see it

Keep the version with names and money for the people who run the event. If you share numbers with a venue or sponsor, send the totals they need and nothing personal.

On One Ticket: the morning-after summary

At 7 am the day after each event, every owner of your organiser gets an email saying how it went. It has:

• Booked, New faces, On the day and At the door, with how many were checked in
• Ticket types, each with its count and share
• the money: Ticket sales, Discounts given, Refunded, Booking fees you covered and Yours from this event, with tickets on subscriptions shown as paid already
• notes such as the busiest booking hour and how far ahead people booked

For a session of a repeating event, it adds Who is missing, who is new: people at the session before who didn’t book this one, and people here for the first time in the series. Names only, never email addresses, and anyone still covered by a subscription isn’t counted as missing.

It’s on for every plan. To change it, go to Settings, then Preferences: switch The morning after each event on or off, or switch off Show money in the morning-after email for attendance only.

Missed it, or want it again? Open the event from Events, open the ⋯ menu and choose Send me the report. For any period, not just one event, Reports has Email this to me in its ⋯ menu. See The morning-after summary and Reports.

Related reading

For a series, the roll call on Reports goes further than the email: who’s new, your regulars and who has quietly stopped coming. See how to know which regulars have stopped coming. To total up a month rather than one night, see event date vs purchase date.