Attendee Feedback Runbook¶

Owned by Community Committee, with Marketing promoting the survey and Speaker Committee distributing per-speaker feedback.

See post-event.md for the wider post-conference sequence and community-committee-runbook.md for aftercare.

Post-Event Survey¶

Build the survey before the conference; it launches on the last day, so it cannot be a post-event task
Cover: attendance mode, ratings (overall, organization, pre-event info, keynotes, talks, food, venue, networking event), value-for-ticket, recommend and return scores, free-text favorites and least-favorites
Add forward-looking questions the committees actually need answered (format experiments, topic demand, swag interest)
Keep it 5-10 minutes; mostly optional questions
Draft the distribution email and a Discord post

Launch on the last conference day; mention it in closing remarks
Send the survey email and post in Discord the same day
Reminder at one week; final reminder 2 days before close
Response window: about 2 weeks
Expect roughly 50 responses; write questions worth 50 careful answers rather than chasing volume

Compile ratings and free-text themes into a summary: strengths, recurring criticisms, action items
Share with all committees and the Conference Chair
Feed the retro doc; the retro meeting lands within ~2 weeks of the conference

Export Slido Q&A and reactions per talk
Merge with feedback-form responses about each talk
Compile into a per-speaker feedback doc (a "Speaker Feedback Links" doc in the year's Drive folder works well)
Distribute to each speaker in the weeks after the conference

Speakers rarely get usable feedback from conferences; this is cheap and appreciated.

Examples of what survey responses change:

Complaints about topic monoculture (e.g. too many AI-adjacent talks) feed talk-selection balance for the next cycle.
Sponsor tutorials reading as rushed or sales-y feed sponsored-content review standards.
Single-track crowding, scarce seating, and hallway-space complaints feed venue and layout planning.
Demand for more networking formats (roundtables, breakouts, a women-of-Python gathering, mentoring) feeds Community's format planning.

Carry themes like these into the retro with their year attached so future organizers can judge staleness.

Marketing: survey promotion, feedback-form creation timing (flag it by Week -2; it tends to slip late)
Speaker: per-speaker feedback distribution
Conference Chair: survey summary feeds the retro