The problem with the wrap deck
Most post-event reports don’t survive contact with the people who signed the invoice. The photos are good. The testimonials are warm. The behaviour change (or the pipeline, the retention, the renewal) is nowhere to be found — because nobody designed a way to measure it before the event started.
We fix that at the brief. Every event we take on ladders to a specific downstream decision — a deal, a hire, a campaign, a renewal, a retention — and the measurement frame is built backwards from that decision. If we can’t name the decision, we won’t take the brief. It’s the fastest honesty test we know.
What we measure — the four categories
Across the events, community programs, and brand activations we’ve run, the answers cluster into four durable categories. We test all four, every time.
- Moment. Was there something specific — a reveal, a moment on stage, a shared surprise — that people remember without prompting?
- Framing. Did a phrase or reframe land? Are people using it, unprompted, three days later?
- Artefact. Is there a physical or digital thing they left with that’s still on their desk in three weeks?
- Introduction. Are people continuing conversations they started at the event — messaging, meeting, referring?
How the model runs
Pre-event
We sit with the brief before design begins and write down two things. First, the feeling target — what attendees should walk out with, emotionally. Second, the Monday sentence — the exact wording, unprompted, we want people saying to each other three days later. Those two artefacts anchor every design decision downstream.
During the event
We don’t rely on surveys sent at the door. Instead we run short in-experience prompts — targeted moments where we check whether the design is landing while there’s still time to adjust. Structured observation of who’s talking to whom, which sessions cluster attention, and which formats surface the introductions we planned for.
Post-event · 72 hours out
The primary instrument. A two-question follow-up sent to a targeted subset of attendees, seventy-two hours after the experience ends. We ask whether they’ve talked to someone about it, and if so, what they specifically talked about. The second answer is the useful one. It clusters cleanly into the four categories above, and when it doesn’t cluster, that’s the signal the design didn’t land.
Post-event · six weeks out
The behaviour test. Did the decision the event was designed to set up actually happen? A pipeline moved, a renewal closed, a hire signed, a public statement made. This is where the measurement frame either pays for itself or exposes what didn’t work — either outcome is useful.
What the report looks like
A short, opinionated document — usually eight to twelve pages — organised around the decision the event was designed to enable, not around the run of show. It leads with what happened against the four categories, then translates that into the language of the stakeholder holding the budget: sponsor, board, CFO, or category head. Photos and social embeds live in an appendix. The report is designed to be forwarded.
When to bring us in
The earlier the better. If we sit with the measurement question at brief stage — before venue, before agenda, before creative — we design the experience around the proof model rather than retrofitting a report into whatever happened. If we come in later than that, we can still measure — but the frame gets tighter, and some of the four categories become harder to engineer for.
As a rule of thumb: eight weeks out is comfortable. Six weeks is workable. Anything inside four weeks and we’re triaging — we’ll still take it on if the fit is right, but the measurement plan narrows to what’s still achievable.
Reading on how we think about this
- 6 Questions Every Event Brief Must Answer — the filter we put at the top of every brief before measurement can be designed against it.
- How We Read Event Briefs During Discovery — the four passes that tell us whether measurement can hold.
- 5 Event Brief Red Flags (and How to Fix Them) — the signals that a brief will fight measurement.
- What we mean when we say “make it worth talking about” — the positioning wedge that makes measurement operational.
Common questions
How do you measure the ROI of an event?
We agree one metric before the moodboard — a primary number, a target and a window, in writing — then instrument the experience before, during and after, with a control built in wherever the format allows: a held-back invite list, a comparison period, an unprogrammed night. The control is what lets us say something changed because of the event rather than merely that it changed. We're straight about the limits: at forty guests there is no statistical significance, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling. What you get is decision-grade evidence — enough to know whether to run it again, change it, or stop.
Can you measure an event another agency is producing?
Yes — we design the proof model around a program someone else is running and deliver the stakeholder-facing report. Impact measurement isn't a practice we sell alongside the other five; it's the operating system underneath all of them. But it travels: the metric gets agreed before the room is designed, whoever is designing the room.
What's in the impact report?
Pre/during/post movement on the metric agreed at brief stage, plus the four signals we test every time — a moment people recall unprompted, a phrase that gets reused, an artefact still on their desk three weeks later, an introduction that continued. Eight to twelve pages, organised around the decision the event was designed to set up rather than the run of show, in language a CFO, sponsor or board can read without a glossary. It includes the parts that didn't move.