Attendee interest survey questions that produce matchable data

The average event registration form asks for name, job title, company, phone number and sometimes a dietary requirement. Occasionally there is a checkbox list of topic areas. The data it produces is fine for a name badge and a mailing list. It is useless for making introductions.

This is not a data volume problem. Most organisers are sitting on hundreds of completed registration records. It is a question design problem. The fields tell you who is in the room. They do not tell you why people came, what they need or what they can offer. Registration data is an intelligence brief - but only if the right questions are in the form.

The problem with how most forms are designed

Most registration forms are designed by someone who needs to get the logistics right. That is a reasonable starting point, but it produces forms optimised for operational data - who to invoice, where to send confirmation emails, how many dietary restrictions to cater for.

The networking side of events requires different data entirely. To make a useful introduction, you need to know three things about each person: what they want to talk about, what they can offer, and what a successful outcome looks like for them. None of those are on the standard form.

The gap shows up in the outcomes. Freeman's 2025 event research found that 58% of attendees consider networking their primary reason for attending professional events. Only 15% of organisers rate their networking as very effective. That is a 43-point gap - and it starts at the registration form.

What 'matchable data' actually means

Matchable data is any field where two responses can be meaningfully compared. Job title is not very matchable - two 'Senior Project Managers' may have nothing useful to say to each other. A response to 'what do you want to discuss?' that says 'how to manage subcontractor risk on large infrastructure builds' is extremely matchable - you can immediately identify who else in the room has that problem, has solved it or is researching it.

The principle is specificity. Matching on broad categories (construction, finance, technology) produces weak introductions. Matching on specific topics, problems and goals produces conversations attendees remember.

AI matchmaking systems like All Along's matching engine work from exactly this kind of signal - the richer the input, the better the match output. But even without any software, an organiser who reads 80 responses looking for topic overlap can make ten highly targeted introductions in 20 minutes. The data is the leverage.

The three questions that produce matches

These three questions, added to any registration form, produce the signals you need to make intentional introductions. They are open-text fields. They take most attendees under two minutes to answer. And they will change what you know about your audience more than any demographic field you currently have.

1. What topic are you most hoping to discuss at this event?

This is the single most valuable question on any event form. It captures demand - what attendees actually want to talk about, in their own words. When you read 100 responses in bulk, you will immediately see which topics come up repeatedly, which are niche but clearly important to a few people, and which topics you expected to dominate that barely appear.

One practical note: ask for the single most important topic, not a list. A list produces scattered, unfocused answers. One forced prioritisation produces signal.

2. What is something you could help other attendees with?

This is the supply question. It captures what attendees can offer, not just what they need. Most networking is designed as if every attendee is purely in acquisition mode. In reality, most senior professionals are happy to share knowledge, make introductions and offer perspective - they just are not asked.

The combination of question 1 (demand) and question 2 (supply) gives you a matching matrix. You can identify who has the problem and who has solved it, who is looking for a particular kind of connection and who can provide it.

3. What would make this event a success for you?

This question reveals intent. Two attendees in identical roles at identical companies may attend for completely different reasons - one is looking for a new supplier, another wants to benchmark their approach against peers, a third is mainly there to maintain relationships with existing contacts. Knowing which mode each attendee is in helps you make introductions that are relevant to where they are right now.

It is also the question that most surprises organisers when they read the answers. The priorities attendees write down are often not the priorities the event programme is serving. That is useful to know.

Format matters as much as content

Open text fields for the three questions above. Not checkboxes, not dropdown lists, not a grid of topics to rate on a five-point scale.

The reason is specificity. A checkbox next to 'technology adoption' tells you almost nothing. An open-text response that says 'how to get a 500-person construction firm off spreadsheets without losing the institutional knowledge that is currently in people's heads' tells you exactly what that person needs and exactly who else in the room might be useful to them.

The objection is usually that open text is harder to analyse. That is true. It is also far more useful. For events under 200 attendees, reading the responses yourself takes less than half an hour and produces better introductions than any automated tagging system applied to checkbox data. For larger events, the open-text fields are exactly what an AI matching system needs to produce matches that feel genuinely relevant rather than algorithmically plausible.

How many questions is too many

The benchmark I use is three minutes. Read your form aloud at a reasonable pace. If it takes longer than three minutes to complete, it is too long. Data quality on the fields beyond the three-minute mark drops sharply as respondents rush or abandon.

For most professional events, a registration form with five to seven fields sits comfortably within that limit. The standard logistics fields (name, company, role, email) take one minute. That leaves two minutes for interest questions - enough for all three of the questions above if they are clearly worded.

The exercise that usually frees up space: go through your current form and identify every field you collect but do not act on. Most forms have at least two or three of them. Remove those fields. Replace one with an interest question. The form gets shorter and more useful at the same time.

One question to add to your next form

If adding three questions feels like too much change before your next event, add one: 'What topic are you most hoping to discuss?'

Before the event, spend 20 minutes reading every response. You will see patterns you did not expect. You will know which topics have unmet demand. You will be able to brief your speakers and facilitators with something more useful than a demographic breakdown.

And you will have a list of the topics your attendees actually care about - which is more useful than almost anything else you will collect at registration.

The question of how to turn those responses into intentional pre-event introductions is worth a separate read. But the data comes first. Start with the question.