01
What Is the Difference Between a Post-Event Survey and Proof of Impact?
A post-event survey asks people afterward how they felt about the event. Proof of Impact by GRW reads video of the room during the event and reports how the group responded in each part of the program. One is a memory, collected from whoever answers. The other is a record of what the room did, collected while it happened.
Both can sit in a sponsor report. They answer different questions, so they belong in different parts of it.
02
What Does a Post-Event Survey Tell a Sponsor?
A survey tells a sponsor how satisfied attendees say they were, which sessions they liked, and what they want next time. In training terms it is reaction data, level one of the Kirkpatrick model, which captures how people felt right after the event.
That is useful for planning. It is weak as proof. Research on trainee reactions found that how people feel about a session is only modestly related to what they learned. And the people who answer are a slice of the room, not the room.
03
What Does Proof of Impact Tell a Sponsor?
Proof of Impact shows the sponsor how the room responded during their moment: the keynote they sponsored, the session with their name on it, the stage time they paid for. It reports part by part a likely range for how much of the room faced the front and how many people were in view.
It reads the group as one. It never scores or identifies a person. A part of the session gets a range only with at least four people in view and about a minute of steady footage, and anything it cannot read is marked not measured. The footage is deleted once the analysis finishes.
The survey tells you how the people who answered felt. The room tells you what everyone did.
04
Which One Should Go in the Sponsor Report?
Use both, and label each one for what it is. A good sponsor report already lists each promised deliverable, the proof that it happened, and what each metric does and does not show. Survey results go under feedback. The room read goes under proof that the audience was there and with you when the sponsor was on stage.
If you can only add one thing to your current report, add the room read. Sponsors already get a survey from every event they fund. Very few get a part-by-part picture of the room.
05
Side by Side
What it measures. Survey: how respondents say they felt. Proof of Impact: how the room responded during each part.
Who it covers. Survey: the people who chose to answer. Proof of Impact: everyone the camera can see, read as one group.
When it is collected. Survey: after the event, from memory. Proof of Impact: during the event, from footage.
Best use in a sponsor report. Survey: feedback and next-year planning. Proof of Impact: proof of attention during sponsored moments.