How to Measure Event Success: Metrics and Insights from an Expert

Tickets sold out? That must mean your event is a smashing success, right?

Not so fast. Event success extends beyond the obvious.

In 2023, we found that 76% of US event organizers were planning to host even more events to outdo the competition. 

So… a sold-out event isn’t enough. You need to learn why your event succeeded (or didn’t) to continually improve your strategies and create events that raise the bar.

To help me understand how to measure event success in order to replicate and scale what works, I spoke to Matt Tuffuor, co-founder of Toasted Life, a community-driven experiential company that organizes events for the BIPOC community. He shared his take on the less well-covered KPIs that actually make a huge impact. 

Check out how his experience and insights add to the conversation, encouraging event planners to refine their strategies instead of just following the crowd's lead. 

How do you measure event success? Well, it depends...

The answer isn’t that cut and dry. Success looks different for each event.

One of the biggest mistakes you can fall into when measuring event success is solely relying on industry-standard KPIs. That’s one way to do it, but you also need to consider factors unique to your event.

Let me explain.

Event success depends on event type

Matt and his team often host smaller lead-up events to build anticipation for their larger, more profitable experiences.  

For events designed for profitability, success can revolve around filling seats. There’s a need for strong ticket sales, sponsor ROI, and media buzz. 

However, some events, like the smaller ones Toasted Life organizes, are more like a prelude to future engagement. “These smaller events are less about revenue and more about collecting data, staying top of mind, and building awareness around one of our signature experiences,” Matt shares. 

In these cases, success hinges on engagement quality and conversion to larger events. It offers a trust-building process that can drive future attendance.

So, ask yourself: What do you want to achieve? 

Work backward from that goal and compare the actual results to your expectations.

Event success metrics depend on event size

Fact: A 100-person event isn’t the same as a 10,000-person festival.

Logistics and overall event experience shift as attendance scales — and so do your metrics and how you define them. 

Matt shares some great examples of what this looks like:

 “For wellness experiences like yoga and tennis classes, attendee arrival time is crucial; late arrivals can disrupt the flow of the class and disturb other participants. We also aim to minimize mid-event departures for the same reason.

In contrast, for our large day parties with 700+ attendees, we prefer a more staggered arrival to prevent long lines, reduce congestion at the bar, and create better movement throughout the venue.” 

Even when tracking the same metric (check-in time), event success looks different based on event type. 

As someone who loves going to microevents like art workshops and activity classes, I wholeheartedly agree: Punctuality and continuity mean a more positive experience in intimate gatherings. And it's easy to understand how a steady turnover facilitates crowd flow at large events.

How often should I measure event success?

It depends on the metric and the insight it provides. 

Some require on-demand tracking, like social media engagement and check-in flow. Real-time data helps optimize the event during its course.

Then, follow up with a post-event analysis involving metrics, like attendance and retention, to complete the picture. The information you get here can be useful for improving future events.

Others require interval-based monitoring over multiple events. Going over them can reveal what's working, enabling you to duplicate or tweak your strategies.  

For example, ticket price vs. attendance across multiple events helps organizers optimize ticketing strategies. 

If you want to learn how to measure event success this way, watch this webinar:

Events success KPIs

Now that you know how to define event success, let’s go over some of the top metrics for measuring it.

Key metrics

Some data points never change, no matter what kind of event you’re hosting. 

If your goal is to boost revenue, attract sponsors, and secure bigger opportunities, these should be at the top of your list:

1. Sell-through rate

In event planning, the sell-through rate refers to the percentage of tickets sold relative to your event's total capacity. A high sell-through rate often suggests you’re likely on track to hit revenue goals.

Matt also points out that this metric isn’t just about revenue — it also helps track attendance trends and informs ticketing strategies.

Let's say you’re experiencing slow sales at first. You can test a limited-time promotion, offer early-bird discounts, or increase marketing efforts to generate more interest and urgency. 

The formula for this metric is fairly simple:

Sell-through Rate (%) = (Tickets Sold / Total Tickets Available) × 100

Example: If you sell 750 tickets for a venue with 1,000 seats, your sell-through rate is 75%. Strong demand, but there's room to optimize marketing to fill those last seats.

Tips for collecting:  First, determine the capacity of your venue or the number of tickets on sale. If you’re using an event ticketing platform like Eventbrite, it’s the number you set when you create your event. 

As for ticket sales, your event ticketing platform should offer real-time access. 

For example, Eventbrite users can view total sales over the past 30 days. Just go to your dashboard, click Events Report, and filter tickets sold.  

Our dashboard displays live data and a variety of reports. Predictive analytics can use this, along with historical data, to make predictions about future outcomes.

2. Cost per attendee

The cost per attendee helps measure your event's profitability and sustainability. Matt sees this as a crucial budgeting and pricing metric, and I can see why — it gives you a clear picture of how much you’re spending per guest.

Turns out the math is pretty straightforward:

Cost per Attendee = Total Event Cost / Total Attendees

Example: If an event costs $15,000 and 750 people attend, the cost per attendee is $20.

Tips for collecting:  Having a budget template like this one is a lifesaver for determining the total event cost. Refer to the actual cost section to get the right figure.

For small events, a manual headcount works fine. But for mid-size to large-scale events,  automated tracking is more reliable.

If you’re an Eventbrite user, you can check attendee numbers instantly via the Attendee Summary in your Eventbrite Dashboard.

3. Gross revenue

Gross revenue, also known as total revenue, represents the total income from ticket sales. You’ll need this metric to monitor revenue progress and to compare earnings across events.

Here’s the formula:

Gross Revenue = Total Ticket Sales x Ticket Price

Example: If you’ve sold 750 tickets, and each ticket is priced at $60, your revenue is $45,000.

Tips for collecting: When ticket prices vary due to tiered pricing and discounts, calculating gross revenue manually becomes much more challenging.

You can simplify it by pulling raw data from your payment processors. But this step requires reconciling the numbers. 

Meanwhile, Eventbrite hands this information to you on a silver platter. Go to Reporting, select Analytics, and then click Sales Summary to see gross ticket sales.

4. ROI

ROI (return on investment) measures the financial return of your event. It’s a critical metric when planning a budget and pitching sponsors.

To get ROI, follow any of these formulas:

ROI = Total Revenue - Total Costs

ROI (%) = [(Total Revenue - Total Costs) / Total Costs] x 100

Example: Let’s say your event generates $45,000 and costs $15,000 to organize, then your ROI would be $30,000 (profit in dollars) or 200% ROI (a return of twice the investment) — well done, you!

Want to dive deeper? Check out this useful 5-step guide to ROI measurement. 

Event page and website metrics

I find event landing pages communicate a lot about the host's preparation, attention to detail, and commitment to delivering a great experience. They are a key touchpoint in the attendee journey and are integral to event success. 

Here’s what to track:

5. Drop-off rate

Drop-off rates show how many page or web visitors click away before completing an action like “Buy a Ticket.” It helps spot friction points in your registration flow. 

💡Pro tip: We discovered that every additional step could cause a 10% drop in conversions.  Removing hurdles, like redirecting users to a third-party page, can do you a world of good.

If you’re an Eventbrite user, you can embed the checkout on your website with ease. Read this guide to learn more. 

Now, back to calculating this metric:

Drop-off Rate (%) = (Users Who Didn’t Complete / Users Who Started) x 100. 

Example: If 2,150 people visited your event page, and only 750 completed it, then 1400 people slipped through the cracks. That’s a 65% drop-off rate — time to investigate!

If you think your sign-ups could use a boost, this blog post can help.

Tips for collecting: Check out free tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track visitor behavior and page views. Eventbrite also lets you do the same for your event landing page. 

To determine how many users failed to complete an action, you’ll have to subtract your total sales from your total views.  

6. Event page impressions

Page impressions measure how many times potential attendees have seen your event page. They’re a good way to measure brand awareness and the reach of an ad campaign. 

You can hide your calculator for this one because tools like Google Analytics, social media platforms, and event marketing software like Eventbrite track and monitor this metric.

For Eventbrite users, hop over to your ad dashboard to see how many clicks and impressions your landing page receives. 

Tracking and monitoring aren’t the only things Eventbrite Ads does best. Our research shows that the tool has helped event organizers boost their impression rates by 14x. 

For example, after promoting its New Year's Eve events, Nasstive Entertainment reported a return on advertising spend (ROAS) of 558% or $5.58 for every dollar spent. 

Event marketing metrics

How effective are your event marketing campaigns at grabbing attention and driving action? 

Content engagement refers to how well your campaign earns interactions — whether through clicks, shares, or sign-ups. 

If you show strong engagement across different channels, you’ll likely get higher conversions and better reach.

7. Conversion rate

Your conversion rate tells you how many visitors have bought tickets after landing on an event page or website. It reveals how effective your event landing page is, how well it aligns with your advertising, and how compelling your call-to-action is.

You need this formula to do the math:

Conversion Rate (%) = (Total Registrations or Ticket Sales / Total Page Visitors) x 100

Example: If 750 out of 2,150 people bought tickets for your event, your conversion rate is 35%. 

If you’re an Eventbrite user, you can go a step further by embedding a conversion tracking pixel on your order confirmation page. This helps track what led to conversions, offering insights to fine-tune future campaigns. Learn more here. 

Social stats

Social stats refer to how people react to your paid and organic posts on social media. According to our 2025 TRNDS report, social media is the primary event discovery tool, with 64% of Gen Z and 61% of Millennials relying on it to find something new to do.

Key engagement metrics include:

• Shares to gauge audience interest and willingness to spread the word
• Clicks to measure the amount of traffic your event page receives
• Comments and mentions to listen to community discussion and engagement

Why are these important when measuring event success? More buzz, more eyeballs.

Personally, I always check hashtags and posts before purchasing tickets for an event. Seeing real people excited about an event can push curious attendees to sign up.

Just look at how convincing this tagged Instagram carousel featuring a Set Underground event:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kayla Pratt (@klaapratt)

Eventbrite users can sell tickets directly on TikTok and Facebook, making it easier to monitor how social engagement converts into ticket sales.

Plus, organizers can access the Traffic and Conversion Report, where they can see traffic and sales coming from different platforms

8. Email metrics 

Email marketing is an effective word-of-mouth (WOM) strategy. In our 2023 TRNDS report, 40% of US event creators reported relying on it to promote their events. 

Track email metrics like:

• Open rate to see how many people opened your email
• Click-through rate (CTR) to measure how many recipients clicked on the links in an email
• Bounce rate to discover deliverability issues

Most email marketing tools track these stats under their analytics dashboard. If you use Eventbrite, you can do the same in your dashboard.

Eventbrite also improves your email campaigns with features like mobile optimization, A/B testing, segmented lists, and more. Plus, our open rates are 59% greater than the industry average.

Onsite metrics

Matt explains that the biggest challenge in measuring event success is the lack of real-time feedback and flexibility to adjust on the fly. 

Tracking onsite metrics as your event unfolds can fix this and identify opportunities to enhance the guest experience for future events.

H4: 9. Wait times 

Wait times refer to the period your guests have to stand in line before they can access something — whether it’s entering the venue, grabbing a drink, or using the restroom. 

Long wait times can kill the vibe quickly, leading to frustration and even early exits. 

Getting exact wait-time data is tough. Being proactive is key.  

Matt suggests having staff and volunteers roam the venue.  “These folks can be on the lookout for any issues and provide immediate solutions, whether it's helping with a food complaint or directing guests to less congested restroom areas.”

Additionally, he recommends using real-time communication tools like WhatsApp or walkie-talkies so staff can help report and solve issues faster. 

A quick message to bar staff or security can speed things up where needed.

For more tips on how to supervise and manage volunteers, check out this guide.

10. Arrival times or check-ins

Remember Matt's point about how the arrival time impacts the guest experience? Check-in times make the difference between a smooth event flow and long, frustrating lines. It also helps measure attendance rates since not all ticket-buyers show up to the event.

For small events, a simple registration form might do the trick.

For larger events, however, getting the lowdown on arrival times and total check-ins is easier with technology, such as:

• RFID wristbands
• Facial recognition
• QR scanning/mobile apps
• Event management software like Eventbrite

Eventbrite offers the Event Organizer app to scan QR codes, track attendance, and monitor check-ins from any device. 

It also brings all the information together, making it easier to analyze trends and build attendee profiles for future events. 

11. Guest turnover

Guest turnover tracks how often attendees check in and out of your event. 

As Matt has emphasized, turnover plays a huge role in high-capacity events. A steady flow prevents overcrowding and allows new guests to cycle in without losing energy and disrupting the atmosphere.

For smaller gatherings, low turnover is usually a sign that people are engaged and enjoying their experience.

How can you track guest turnover? You need a way to monitor exit movement without interfering with the guest experience. Some ways you can do this are:

• Manual headcounts and exit surveys (for small to mid-sized events)
• RFID or NFC wristbands
• QR code re-scans 
• Event apps and venue sensors 

Qualitative metrics

Numbers don’t tell the full story. For example, I appreciate events that have friendly faces and engaging activities, but these are hard for event organizers to measure. 

Qualitative insights provide a deeper understanding of attendee sentiment and event impact.

12. Audience satisfaction

Audience satisfaction gauges how much attendees enjoyed your event. There’s no clear-cut formula for this one — you’ll have to conduct surveys to find the answer. 

Unfortunately, only 23% of organizers take advantage of strategies like post-event surveys. This is a huge missed opportunity because any feedback, good or bad, can be used to improve future events. 

Want to make feedback collection easier? Matt has a few solid suggestions: 

“Place quick response surveys or feedback stations at various event touchpoints. For example, near the bar, restrooms, and food stations. These can be QR codes that guests can scan to provide real-time feedback.”

In-event polls like this can allow you to make quick changes to improve guests' experience. 

Alternatively, you can use survey tools like SurveyMonkey to send follow-up surveys after events. SurveyMonkey integrates with Eventbrite, so organizers can design forms easily and distribute them via email. 

Not sure what to ask? These ideas might help. 

We also have Eventbrite Ratings, which lets attendees rate your event on factors such as venue, atmosphere, vibe, and flow.

💡Pro tip: You don’t have to wait until after the event to carry out a survey. A pre-event survey can provide valuable insight into guest expectations.

13. Future event awareness

One of the key findings in our 2025 TRNDS report is that 80% of event creators believe that cultivating communities around their events is important — especially if they host recurring ones.  

As Dinner With Strangers founder Erman Baradi puts it, “We love seeing a community built with people who keep coming back.” 

This makes measuring future event awareness critical to success.

To find out if attendees are clamoring for more, monitor social media engagement. Look at hashtags, shares, or other mentions of your previous event to determine whether attendees are eager to attend the next one.

A post-event survey can also clue you in on their interest. Consider adding questions like:

• Would you attend this event again? (Yes/No)
• What would make you more likely to return? (Open-ended)
• Which part of the event did you enjoy the most? (Multiple choice)

Worried that you’re not getting enough repeat attendees? 

With Eventbrite Collections, you can maximize the visibility of your recurring events by grouping them on a single, shareable page. 

For reference on what it looks like, take a look at how Erman arranges all Dinner with Strangers events using this feature:

Themes, dates, and locations can be grouped together so attendees can find and sign up for multiple events in one go.

14. Sponsorship satisfaction

Sponsorship satisfaction shows how well your event delivered value to sponsors — and whether they’ll want to sign up for the next one.

ROI is just one aspect of sponsorship. Sponsors also seek benefits like increased brand awareness and audience engagement, more leads, and meaningful networking opportunities.

You can demonstrate success through engagement with sponsorship pages on your event website or app, as well as through social media reactions. 

Or use your post-event survey to gauge sponsor impact directly from the attendee’s perspective. Include questions like:

• Which sponsor activations or booths caught your attention? (Open-ended)
• Would you like to see the same sponsors at future events? (Yes/No)

Last but not least, communicate with your sponsors. Invite them over for a post-event debrief to ask them to share what worked well, areas for improvement, and any additional value they’d like to see in future sponsorships.

Measure your event success with ease

So many metrics and so little time. I get it: There are too many to track, so having all important reports in one place surely helps. 

Go beyond ticket sales to uncover your event's true impact with Eventbrite’s dashboard, where insightful reports and visual data help you keep track of what matters most.