The evening
Each of these adds the questions it earns and no others. A list that asks a venue about rigging for an evening with nothing to hang is a list nobody reads to the end.
The room
You have no saved rooms yet, which is the normal state before a first visit. Measure one in Will my guests fit? and save it, and this page will stop asking you the things it already knows.
11 questions for this visit.
The walkthrough
11 questions nobody has answered yet. Nothing has been said to you, so nothing here is at risk of being remembered as settled.
11 still unasked. Take the route; most of them are answered by standing somewhere for a minute.
Heard 0 · Promised 0 · Unasked 11
Everything you record here stays on this device. None of it is uploaded, published, or added to any public record — an answer somebody gave you in a corridor is your working note, not a fact about the building.
The approach
Arrive the way a guest will, not the way the venue told you to park. Everything that goes wrong at the start of an evening goes wrong out here, before anyone has been welcomed.
How many cars fit, and if the answer is few, where does a shuttle or a taxi actually stop?
Changes a detail · The venue · At the site visit
Arrival
Stand in the doorway and stop. This is the only moment of the evening every single guest experiences identically, and it lasts about four seconds.
Is there a step-free route from arrival to every part of the event — the room, the bar, the restrooms — and is it the same route everyone else uses?
Changes a detail · The venue · Before you book
The room
Walk the perimeter before you look at the middle. The middle is what the photographs show you; the perimeter is where the plan actually fails.
Has a layout ever been drawn for this room at this number, with the dance floor, bar and service aisles all present?
Changes a detail · The venue · Before you book
Above the room
Look up. Nobody looks up. Everything hung, rigged, lit from above or draped is decided in the next two minutes, and it is the most expensive thing on the list to be wrong about.
What power is available on the event floor, on which circuits, and is catering sharing them?
Changes a detail · Production / AV · At the site visit
Back of house
Follow the route a plate takes from the kitchen to the furthest table, and time it. Then find where the bins go, and where the crew eat.
When does vendor access actually begin, what is the route in, and who else is using it at the same time?
Changes a detail · The venue · Before contracts are signed
Is there a working kitchen, or a back-of-house area a caterer can build one in — and has a caterer seen it?
Changes a detail · The caterer · Before you book
The end of the night
The last hour is the one nobody walks. Stand at the door at the time the music stops and ask what happens next — to the guests, to the crew, and to the neighbours.
What time does amplified sound have to stop, and what time does everyone have to be out?
Changes a detail · The venue · Before you book
Paperwork
None of this is answerable by standing anywhere. Collect it at the end, at a table, or take it away as a list. A licence read off somebody's memory in a corridor is not a licence.
Ask the venue for ceiling height, at its lowest point rather than its highest, in writing.
Changes a detail · The venue · Before you book
Ask the venue for columns, fixed bars and anything else built into the floor, in writing.
Changes a detail · The venue · Before you book
What does the venue actually provide, and what is the planner expected to bring?
Changes a detail · The venue · Before contracts are signed
Who holds the licence, what hours does it cover, and does it cover the whole site or one room?
Changes a detail · The venue · Before contracts are signed
Your answers stay in this browser. They are never uploaded, never merged into anything public, and they leave only when you copy them out yourself. Notes about what somebody said in a corridor are your working papers, not a contribution to a public record.