The Post-Event Report Nobody Trusts
You ran a 5,000-attendee food and music festival. Ticket sales were 4,200 scanned, but gate staff estimate 700 walk-ups paid cash into a manual tally. Vendor fees came in at $62,000 against a $70,000 budget. Sponsorship hit $48,000 against $45,000. Costs were $210,000 against $195,000, driven by $18,000 in overtime security and $9,000 in extra waste removal. The board wants a report in three weeks and is asking whether to repeat the event. Survey response was 180 people, mostly from the email list, with a 4.6/5 satisfaction score.
1. Assess the reliability of the attendance and satisfaction figures and say how to present them.
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The attendance figure is a range, not a number: 4,200 scanned plus an estimated 700 cash walk-ups gives roughly 4,900, but the cash figure is an uncontrolled estimate from gate staff and should be presented as 4,200 confirmed plus an estimated 600-800 unverified. The satisfaction score has a serious non-response bias: 180 responses out of roughly 4,900 attendees is under 4%, and respondents drawn from the email list skew toward engaged repeat attendees. Present 4.6/5 as indicative only, state the response rate and sampling method, and avoid claiming it represents all attendees.
The report should separate confirmed data from estimates in every table, and recommend fixing the cash-tally process before the next event so attendance is auditable.
2. Recommend whether to repeat the event, using the financial picture.
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Revenue was roughly $48,000 sponsorship plus $62,000 vendor fees plus ticket and cash income, against $210,000 in costs. The two overruns, $18,000 security overtime and $9,000 waste removal, are the story: costs beat budget by $15,000 while vendor fees missed by $8,000. Before recommending a repeat, you need to know whether the overtime was a one-off (a late permit condition, a larger-than-expected crowd) or a structural underestimate. If structural, re-budget security and waste at the higher level and re-price vendor fees; if one-off, document the cause and build a contingency line.
A defensible recommendation is conditional repeat: repeat only if the revised budget closes the $15,000 gap through re-priced vendor fees, a security plan that avoids overtime, and a cash-handling fix that captures walk-up revenue reliably. Present both a repeat and a no-repeat scenario with the assumptions stated.