Best questions for conference participants survey about pre event information

Here are some of the best questions for a conference participants survey about pre event information, plus our go-to tips for creating them. If you want tailored questions, you can generate your own survey with Specific in seconds—no survey builder headaches.

Best open-ended questions for better insights

Open-ended questions let participants express concerns and expectations in their own words, surfacing new perspectives and details you’d never capture by just listing choices. These are perfect when you’re looking for authentic, nuanced input—but be mindful: open-enders often see a bit more item nonresponse. For example, studies show open questions can have up to an 18% nonresponse rate in online surveys, yet deliver insights you’d otherwise miss. In fact, 81% of respondents in a recent study mentioned issues not covered by rating grids at all. [1][2]

Here are 10 of our favorite open-ended questions for conference participants about pre event information:

1. What specific information about the event would help you feel more prepared?

2. How did you hear about the conference, and what details influenced your decision to attend?

3. Is there any information you struggled to find before registering?

4. What questions did you have before the event that weren’t answered on the website or communications?

5. What details would you have liked in the pre-event emails or materials?

6. Can you describe any concerns you had leading up to the conference?

7. What kind of logistical details matter most to you (e.g., transportation, location, accommodation)?

8. Which pre-event resources (FAQs, schedule, speaker bios, etc.) did you find helpful—or not helpful?

9. If you could improve one thing about the pre-event information process, what would it be?

10. Is there anything else about pre event information we should know to make your experience smoother?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions

Single-select multiple-choice questions shine when you need clearly quantifiable results—quick for participants, easy to analyze, and perfect for benchmarking. They’re less prone to item nonresponse (just 1–2% on average), and sometimes it’s simply less intimidating to pick from a list than to type a full explanation. These questions are great starters to “get the conversation going” before digging deeper with follow-ups. [3][4]

Question: How clear was the information you received before the event?

• Very clear

• Somewhat clear

• Unclear

• Did not receive any information

Question: Which pre-event details did you find most useful?

• Schedule

• Speaker list

• Logistics (venue, transportation, etc.)

• Networking opportunities

• Other

Question: How would you prefer to receive pre-event information?

• Email

• Dedicated event app

• Company intranet/website

• Social media/online communities

When to followup with "why?" Follow up with “why?” when you see an answer that needs context. For example, if a participant selects "Unclear" for the first question, asking “Why was the information unclear to you?” pulls out the exact pain point. This helps you act on specifics, not just numbers.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? “Other” is critical whenever your predefined options might not cover every possible experience. The “Other” plus a followup (“Please specify:”) routinely reveals fresh needs, wording, or situations your team hasn’t considered—and sometimes these surprises are gold for improving future communications.

Should you use an NPS question?

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a powerful tool for measuring overall satisfaction—in this case, with pre event communications. We like including it because you discover not only if attendees feel informed but if they'd recommend your event based on their pre-event interactions. In practice, an NPS question might look like: “How likely are you to recommend our event to a colleague, based on your pre-event experience?” Responses (0-10) fall into promoters, passives, and detractors, letting you easily identify at-a-glance loyalty and satisfaction drivers. Try a ready-made NPS survey for conference participants in two clicks.

The power of follow-up questions

Specific’s secret sauce is our automated follow-up questions. You start with a simple question, and the AI asks the right “why” or “how” in real time—pulling richer details from participants as if you were running a personal interview. We built automated follow-ups to save you the time and manual effort it usually takes to chase down unclear or shallow responses (like endless back-and-forth emails).

• Conference participant: "The pre-event schedule was confusing."

• AI follow-up: "Can you share which part of the schedule was confusing or suggest a different way we could have presented it?"

• Conference participant: "I didn’t get important details in advance."

• AI follow-up: "Which details were missing, and how did this impact your preparation?"

How many followups to ask? In our experience, 2–3 targeted follow-ups are optimal—enough to clarify and probe without overwhelming participants. It’s smart to offer a “skip to next” option once you get what you need. Specific makes this super easy right in your survey settings.

This makes it a conversational survey—like chatting with a helpful assistant, not filling out a boring static form.

AI-powered analysis—Worried about analyzing all these rich, free-text answers? With AI survey response analysis and our step-by-step articles, it’s easier than ever to summarize and extract actionable insights—even from lots of unstructured feedback.

These kinds of conversational surveys are still new. We urge you to try generating a survey and see how the experience feels firsthand.

How to prompt GPT for survey questions

If you want to create questions with ChatGPT or any large language model, great prompts are your best friend. Start simple, and then add detail for best results:

Basic prompt to try:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for conference participants survey about pre event information.

A model always performs better if you add context about your needs, audience, or your event. Like this:

I am organizing a technology conference for 300 participants. My goal is to understand which pre-event information influenced their decision to attend, what they found helpful or lacking, and what improvements they’d like to see next time. Please provide 10 open-ended survey questions targeted at conference participants about pre event information, focusing on preparation, logistics, and areas for improvement.

Next, once you have your list, ask the AI to group them:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Then, pick the category you want to go deeper on. For example:

Generate 10 questions about pre-event logistics and attendee preparation.

What is a conversational survey?

Conversational surveys turn rigid forms into real dialogue, creating a feedback process that feels more like a chat than a chore. This means questions can adapt based on the participant’s answer—often resulting in more thoughtful, complete responses and a higher completion rate. Studies confirm this approach helps keep respondents interested and motivated, ultimately leading to higher response rates and richer feedback. [5]

Let’s look at how manual vs. AI survey creation stacks up:

Why use AI for conference participant surveys? The main reason: you get a seamless, conversational survey experience that’s quick to build and results in far better data. Need examples? Specific’s AI survey generator creates both the survey structure and all-the-right follow-ups automatically, and our how-to articles walk you through every step.

No more going back and forth tweaking questions: use the AI survey editor to update your survey just by chatting with the AI. On the other side, participants feel heard—so you get higher quality insights for your event prep. That’s why we consider Specific the best-in-class experience for AI-powered, conversational survey feedback, for both creators and respondents alike.

See this pre event information survey example now

Ready to take your next event survey to a new level? Experience smarter feedback collection, expert-crafted prompts, and conversational surveys that do the heavy lifting—see how it works for pre event information now.