Attendee NPS

Attendee NPS matters because trade events grow substantially through word of mouth — colleagues recommending a show to colleagues — and NPS is the closest proxy for whether that engine is running. A rising score usually precedes organic registration growth by an edition or two; a falling one is an early warning that next year's marketing will have to buy attendance the event used to earn. In practice, the survey goes out within days of the show closing, while memory is fresh, and the open-text follow-up question ("what's the main reason for your score?") is worth more than the number itself — it tells you which fixes would convert passives into promoters. Segment before you celebrate: an overall +40 can hide a -10 among the senior buyers your exhibitors care about, and that hidden segment is the one that determines rebooking. The common mistake is comparing your NPS against scores from other industries or other survey methods; NPS is notoriously sensitive to timing, channel, and phrasing, so the only trustworthy comparison is your own event, measured the same way, edition over edition. One honest nuance: response bias runs hot in event surveys — people with strong feelings answer, the indifferent middle doesn't — so treat the trend as signal and the absolute number with mild suspicion.