Event RFP template with an accessibility section venues must answer

Lead with the event profile, because it sets the rates

Venues price against pattern, not against a description. Give them the history: what this event has done before, actual attendance rather than hoped-for attendance, the room nights actually picked up in the last two or three years, the food and beverage actually spent, and the decision-making body. A planner who supplies real pickup history gets a materially different proposal from one who supplies an aspiration.

• Organization, event name, and whether it is annual or one-off
• Actual attendance and room-night pickup for recent editions
• Historical food and beverage spend
• Preferred dates plus genuinely flexible alternative patterns
• Decision date, decision maker, and site-visit expectations

Ask for space by function, on a grid

List each function with its day, start and end time, the seating style, the head count, and whether the room is dedicated or turned. A grid gets you a room-by-room response you can compare across venues. A paragraph gets you a proposal built around whatever the venue most wants to sell that quarter. Ask explicitly for the room dimensions, ceiling height, column positions and any capacity figure the venue quotes, and ask which capacity standard it is quoted under.

Ask the accessibility questions in the RFP, not after signing

These are facts the venue already knows and can answer in a paragraph, and they are extremely expensive to discover after a contract is signed. Ask about step-free routes between the meeting space, the guest rooms, the food and beverage outlets and the loading area; accessible guest room inventory and configurations; accessible restroom locations relative to the meeting space; whether an assistive listening system exists in the rooms you would use and what type it is; stage and riser access; and where an interpreter or captioner would be positioned with adequate lighting and power. Ask for facts and dates, not for a statement of compliance.

• Step-free routes between meeting space, sleeping rooms and outlets
• Accessible guest room count, types, and bathroom configurations
• Assistive listening system: present or not, type, and coverage
• Stage, riser and podium access, including ramp availability
• Interpreter and captioner positions, lighting and power
• Service animal relief location and distance from the meeting space

Ask what the invoice will actually look like

Rates alone do not let you compare venues. Ask for the current service charge and whether it is taxable in that jurisdiction, any separate administrative or facility fee, the resort or destination fee if there is one, meeting room rental and the conditions under which it is reduced or waived, internet and audio visual pricing including whether an in-house exclusive applies, and parking and shipping or drayage charges. Two proposals with identical guest room rates can be thousands apart once those lines land.

State how you will evaluate, and by when

Give a response deadline with a time zone, the format you want, a named contact, and how you will decide. Say whether you are evaluating on total cost, on space fit, on access, or on a weighted combination, and say when the decision will be made and when the venue can expect to hear either way. Venues respond faster and more completely to an RFP that tells them what winning looks like.

Note the contract terms you will want to negotiate

The RFP is not the contract, but flagging your positions early avoids a late impasse. The terms usually worth naming are the attrition allowance and how the block is measured, the cancellation and termination schedule, force majeure, the guarantee notice period, rebooking and resell credit, and any concession you regard as a requirement rather than a nicety. These are all negotiated per property, so ask for the venue's standard position rather than asserting your own as settled.