A post-event follow-up checklist for the week after the doors close
The week after an event is when goodwill is highest and attention fades fastest. Use it for four things: turn the event page into a recap people want to share, ask for feedback while memories are fresh, thank everyone from your own email tool, and invite them to the next one. Most of it can be prepared before the event even starts.
Prepare before the event
- Ask speakers for permission to share their slides and where they'll host them (a public link to a PDF or a slide-sharing service).
- Brief a photographer, or a volunteer with a good phone, for wide shots of the room, speakers in action and the small details. Check your photo consent notice is visible at the venue.
- Draft the feedback questions and the thank-you email now, when you have time.
- Note the current version of the event page in version history, so the pre-event page can be restored for the next edition.
The checklist, in order
- Day 0, evening: change the page's tense. A change request such as "turn the event page into a recap: past tense, remove the registration form, add a thank-you line at the top" stops new people trying to register for something that's over.
- Day 1: send the thank-you from your email or registration tool to attendees, with the link to the recap page and the feedback form. Anticode doesn't email your attendees.
- Day 1-2: add photos. Upload a selection of ten to twenty of the best to the build; Anticode checks each file and stores it under your account, and the model sees photos when placing them. Ask for "a photo gallery section of the uploaded event photos" and check each has sensible alt text.
- Day 2: add slides and recordings as links. Published pages can't embed players or slide viewers, so list each talk with its speaker and a link to the slides or video.
- Day 2: open the feedback form (below) and connect it to a sheet.
- Day 3: thank speakers, sponsors and volunteers personally, by email.
- Day 5: send one reminder about the feedback form to people who haven't filled it in, if your email tool can tell.
- Day 7: add a sign-up for the next event to the recap page, and publish.
The feedback form
The simplest version is the built-in contact form with a clear prompt: "Tell us one thing that worked and one thing to change." That gives you a name, an email and free text. If you want scored questions (overall rating, likelihood to return, best session), a custom form tied to a site function can carry up to 30 plain-text fields, and a formula can work out an average from the numbers people enter to show them on the thank-you page. Send either into Google Sheets, Airtable or Notion with a connector, so the answers are in one table for the debrief.
Keep it to five questions at most. Ask about things you can actually change: timing, venue, catering, session length, topics.
The sign-up for next time
Add a newsletter form to the recap with a line like "Hear first when next year's dates are set." With the Kit or Mailchimp connector, each sign-up joins your list; Mailchimp sends its own confirmation email first. This is the part of the follow-up that keeps paying, because people who come across the recap later can still join.
What goes wrong
- The recap still shows the registration form
- Old event pages invite sign-ups for a past date. Change the tense the same evening.
- A photo shows someone who asked not to be photographed
- Remove it at once with a change request and publish again.
- Feedback is all from the happiest people
- Normal. Treat specific criticism as more useful than average scores.
- A speaker's slides link breaks a month later
- Ask speakers for a link they'll keep, or host the files somewhere you control.
How you know the follow-up worked
Within a week, the recap page is live, the feedback table has enough answers to discuss, everyone who helped has had a personal thank-you, and the sign-up list for the next event has started. The site's views by source in the dashboard show where people found the recap, which tells you where to announce the next one.
Limits
No embedded video or slide viewers, no file uploads on forms (so attendees can't send you their photos through the site), no emails to attendees and no survey tooling beyond forms. The recap is a page you publish; the follow-up emails are yours. See collecting event RSVPs, using your own photos and media uploads.
Questions people ask
Should the event page stay up after the event?
Yes, as a recap. It keeps links working, shows future attendees what the event is like, and can collect sign-ups for the next one.
Can I embed the talk recordings?
No. Published pages can't embed players. Link to each recording on YouTube or Vimeo instead.
What belongs on a post-event follow-up checklist?
The recap page, photos, slides and recordings, the feedback form, thanks to attendees, speakers, sponsors and volunteers, and a sign-up for next time.