I would add 3) at the start of an event, everyone is asked to state their hopes and expectations about the event. While it’s certainly useful to reflect on these things, I (embarassingly?) often in such situations don’t even have any concrete hopes or expectations and am rather in “let’s see what happens” mode. I still think it’s fair to ask this question, as it can provide very benefitial feedback for the organizer, but they should at least be aware that a) this can be quite stressful for some participants, and b) many of the responses may be “made up” on the fly, rather than statements backed by a sufficient level of reflection. Of course just being honest there and saying “I don’t have any expectations yet and just thought the title of the event sounded interesting” is probably the best option, but I think 10-years-ago-me would probably not have been confident enough to say that, and instead made up some vague plausible sounding claims that had a higher chance of signaling “I’ve got my shit together and definitely thought deeply about why I’m attending this event beforehand”.
I would add 3) at the start of an event, everyone is asked to state their hopes and expectations about the event. While it’s certainly useful to reflect on these things, I (embarassingly?) often in such situations don’t even have any concrete hopes or expectations and am rather in “let’s see what happens” mode. I still think it’s fair to ask this question, as it can provide very benefitial feedback for the organizer, but they should at least be aware that a) this can be quite stressful for some participants, and b) many of the responses may be “made up” on the fly, rather than statements backed by a sufficient level of reflection. Of course just being honest there and saying “I don’t have any expectations yet and just thought the title of the event sounded interesting” is probably the best option, but I think 10-years-ago-me would probably not have been confident enough to say that, and instead made up some vague plausible sounding claims that had a higher chance of signaling “I’ve got my shit together and definitely thought deeply about why I’m attending this event beforehand”.