Resources and tips for improving your audience surveys, based on our presentation at Ticketing Professionals Conference 2025 1/2 on 15 October 2025.
On 15 October, Katy and Kerry presented Get Survey Savvy alongside Katherine Kempley, Senior Insights Manager from the National Theatre, at the Ticketing Professionals one-day conference. They shared their experiences of gathering audience insight with a focus on practical tips to improve your surveying - and when to know if another method would be a better choice.
You can find all the resources from the session here.
Designing a Survey: Top Ten Tips
Here are our Top Ten Tips for great survey design.
1. Make it specific
Using terms like “usually” or “generally” can give you poorer quality data because we all act differently at different times, so your respondent first needs to work out what “usual” means for them. Much better to be really specific: for example, if you’re trying to find out if they tend to spend at the bar, don't ask "What do you usually spend on drinks when you visit?" and just ask "Did you buy interval drinks on your last visit?"
2. Make it concrete
People are not great at telling you what they are going to do in the future, so try to focus on concrete past behaviours rather than asking them to speculate. You can still use this to predict future behaviours.
3. Make it short
Focus on what the most important pieces of insight are that you need and prioritise those.
4. Avoid bias
Check you haven’t unintentionally biased your questions by asking loaded questions. Check that you are offering a "None of the above" or "I don’t know" answer option to prevent someone being forced to give a false answer just to proceed to the next question.
5. Make it easy
Use plain English. Keep reading age low. Ensure accessibility in question design (e.g., avoid complex matrix questions).
6. Make it clear
Avoid jargon. Avoid asking two things in one question (e.g., "How friendly and knowledgeable were our staff?").
7. Make it flow
Think about making it an easy and logical journey for respondents. Don't jump around with your question topics. And get the really important things in early on before they get tired.
8. Minimise load
Don’t just minimise the number of questions, minimise the total number of words.
9. Make it fun
Keep the tone friendly and human. Be creative in your design. Think about what people want to tell you, not just what you want or need to know. Make it feel like a fun game.
10. Test it
Get friends and colleagues to give it a try. Implement their feedback.