Event Planner Intake Form: Capture Every Detail Before You Quote

Your intake form should capture eight things before you quote: the date and how firm it is, guest numbers, budget and what it covers, venue and access, dietary and accessibility needs, who decides, what success looks like, and who pays. AI can then turn the answers into a one-page brief of facts, gaps and conflicts to quote from.

The form's job is to make the client answer, in writing and in one sitting, the questions that change your price, so your discovery call confirms a draft instead of starting from a blank page. The AI's job is to read twenty answers faster than you can and spot what is missing or contradictory. It cannot tell whether the client is being straight about the budget, so the brief has to carry questions as well as facts.

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The examples are illustrative: a company awards evening for 140 guests and a private 30th birthday for 55. Every detail is invented, with brackets where a name would go.

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Who is asking, who decides and who pays

These three can be three different people, and quotes go wrong when the form assumes they are one. Ask for each role by name, not just a "main contact".

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Here is how it fails. On an illustrative awards evening, the executive assistant approves the menu in week three. In week six the finance lead cuts the budget by 15%, and nobody told you finance was involved because the form asked for one "main contact". Asking for the budget approver and the signatory separately costs the client thirty seconds and would have surfaced the finance lead on day one. The tutorial on qualifying wedding leads applies the same idea to enquiries that arrive before any form.

Date and time: ask how firm they are

• Preferred date and two alternatives. Venues price weekdays and weekends differently, so a flexible date gives you room to negotiate.
• Dates to avoid, with the reason. "Finance close" or "school holidays" lets you spot a conflict later, as in the brief below.
• Hard or soft. A date fixed by a guest of honour is different from one picked from a calendar.
• Start, end and key moments. Doors, dinner, speeches, awards, last orders, last departure.
• Set-up and pack-down windows. If the client already knows the venue allows access only from 14:00, you need that figure before you price labour.
• Deadlines you inherit. Invitations by a date, board approval by a date, a deposit that must be paid before a venue releases the hold.

Guests: ranges, access needs and food counts

A single guest number is the most expensive question on the form. Ask for three: the minimum who will certainly come, the number you plan for, and the maximum the client would stretch to, and ask how each was reached. "120" might mean the staff list, or it might mean the staff list plus partners. If the quote assumes 120 and 160 arrive, catering alone at $95 a head is another $3,800.

For food, a count such as "14 vegetarian, 6 vegan, 8 halal, 5 gluten-free, 2 severe nut allergy" is all the caterer needs to start. The names can come later through RSVPs. Keeping health information in counts rather than names also limits what you hold and what you ever paste into a tool.

Budget: what the number includes

"Our budget is $42,000" is not an answer until you know what sits inside it. Ask for the figure, then a yes, no or not-sure on each item: venue hire, catering and drinks, service charge, taxes, AV, decor, entertainment, photography, transport, your fee, and a contingency. Add what is already committed, such as a venue deposit paid, and how firm the number is: fixed, up to 10% over with approval, or open.

The answer changes the arithmetic. On a $42,000 budget for 140 guests, the per-head figure looks like $300. If your $6,000 fee and a 10% contingency of $4,200 sit inside it, the money left for suppliers is $31,800, or about $227 a head. A caterer, venue and AV package priced for $300 a head would blow the budget before you start. The tutorial on flat fee against percentage shows how to set your own fee, which is the line the client most often forgets to mention.

Venue, access and the rules that bite later

Many surprises come from rules the client never thought to mention because they have not met them yet. Ask:

• Venue status. Booked, held, shortlisted or not started. If booked, ask for the contract or the capacity and house rules.
• Capacity by layout. A room that holds 200 standing may seat 120 at rounds with a stage. Ask which layout the client has in mind.
• Load-in and access. Times, loading bay or lift, stairs, parking for suppliers, and any step-free route for guests.
• Power, rigging and noise. Limits on power, hanging items from ceilings, and music or curfew times.
• Insurance and supplier rules. Whether the venue demands certificates from suppliers, or restricts you to its own caterer or AV team.
• Weather plan for any outdoor element, and who decides to switch.

If the client is not sure about any of these, "not sure yet" is a perfectly good answer. A blank is not, because you cannot tell a gap from an oversight.

Success, no-go items and what happened last time

The last group is the one that shapes the design. Ask what the event is for in one sentence, who the audience is, the three moments that matter most, and anything that must not happen: a topic to avoid, a supplier who cannot be used, a guest who should not be photographed. Then ask what the client liked and disliked about a previous event, and whether they have an example they admire. Last year's complaint ("too loud during dinner") is worth more than any adjective in a style brief.

For corporate clients add brand guidelines, existing preferred suppliers and any sponsor or internal-communications constraints. For private clients add the guest of honour's dislikes and whether it is a surprise, because that last question decides who you can email.

Build the form so clients finish it, and keep it safe

Use any form tool that branches and exports to a sheet. As of October 2026, Tally's pricing page puts conditional logic and file uploads on its free plan (uploads capped at 10 MB a file) and sets no form or submission limit beyond its fair-use rules. Google Forms can send people to different sections based on their answers (multiple-choice and dropdown questions only) and link responses to a sheet, but its file-upload question makes respondents sign in to a Google account, which some clients will not have. Jotform's free Starter plan allows 5 forms and 100 submissions a month, which may be enough for a small planner's enquiries. The Tally walk-through shows how to build one step by step.

Structure matters more than the tool. Ask the type of event first, then branch: corporate clients see billing and approval questions, private clients see guest-of-honour and surprise questions. Group the rest into five short pages (who, when, guests, money and venue, success). Mark the quote-blocking questions as required, offer "not sure yet" on the hard ones, and allow uploads for floor plans, brand guidelines and the previous run sheet. Keep it under about ten minutes. Put a plain consent line at the top:

We use your answers to prepare your quote and plan your event. Allergy and health details
are used only to brief caterers, are kept as counts, and are never shared with suppliers
alongside your name. Please do not include other people's phone numbers or emails.

From twenty answers to a one-page brief

Take the form's CSV row, remove the contact details, and replace names with roles. Below is a condensed intake for the awards evening, as the sheet would hold it.

You are helping an event planner prepare a client brief from intake answers.
Use ONLY the answers below. Do not add outside facts, prices, venue capacities or rules.
Produce a one-page brief with these headings: Snapshot (3 lines); Confirmed facts;
Assumptions I am making; Gaps (questions the form did not answer); Conflicts (answers
that contradict each other or last year's feedback); Risks; Five questions to send the client.
Write plain sentences, no adjectives of praise, and mark anything you inferred as "inferred".
Answers:
[paste the table rows]

An illustrative reply, trimmed:

Snapshot. Annual awards evening for about 140 staff and partners (range 120 to 160). Preferred date Thursday 18 March. Budget stated as about $42,000 all in. Venue not booked.
Confirmed facts. Timings from 18:30 doors to 23:00 finish; load-in from 14:00; dietary and access counts as listed; budget approver is the head of people.
Assumptions. The $42,000 includes the planner's fee and a contingency (inferred, not stated). "All in" includes taxes and service charge (inferred).
Gaps. Who signs the contract and receives invoices; photography consent; whether the stage and screen come from the venue; parking and transport; payment terms.
Conflicts. (1) Thursday 18 March falls inside the dates to avoid, 15 to 19 March. (2) A live band during dinner contradicts last year's feedback that the music was too loud during dinner.
Risks. Speeches ran long last year and the finish time is fixed. Most hotel ballrooms seat about 160 at round tables.

Now audit it against the table, line by line. The two conflicts are real and trace to specific answers, which is what you want. The gaps are the right ones. The last sentence of the risks is not from the form: "most hotel ballrooms seat about 160" is an outside claim the prompt forbade, and it is the sort of line that ends up in a client email as fact. Delete it, and check any real capacity with the venue. Treat the inferred assumptions as questions, not facts, until the client confirms them. Read the brief against the answers every time; the five minutes this takes is what separates a brief from a plausible story.

If enquiries arrive several times a week, you can automate the hand-off. Tally lists Zapier and Make among its integrations, so a new submission can trigger an AI step and drop the brief into a document. Zapier's free plan runs only two-step Zaps, and its built-in AI step needs a paid plan, so pasting by hand is fine until the volume justifies the cost.

The private version: what the brief catches on a 30th birthday

The same form, branched for a private client, produces a different kind of brief. Here is the condensed intake for the second illustrative event.

The brief for this one is more about risk than about facts. It should flag four things. A DJ until 23:00 in a residential garden has no confirmed noise limit, and "should be fine" is not an answer. A guest with a walker meets steps at the back door. A fixed date in an outdoor space with no tent booked needs a weather plan before it needs a menu. And the money and the guest list sit with different people, so seating requests may arrive late and in conflict. Budget per head is $200 for 45 guests, and tent hire and drinks come out of it before any fee. Private clients rarely know to mention steps or neighbours, which is why the form asks.

The follow-up email the brief writes for you

The brief's last section writes your next email for you. Edit it into your own voice and send it the same day. An illustrative version:

Subject: A few questions before I send your quote

Hi [first name],

Thank you for the intake form. Before I price the evening I need four answers:
1. Your preferred date, Thursday 18 March, sits inside the week you asked us to avoid for
   finance close. Which matters more: the date or the week?
2. Does the $42,000 include my fee, service charge and taxes?
3. Who signs the contract, and who approves the final menu?
4. Last year's feedback said the music was too loud during dinner. Would you like the
   band during dinner, or after the awards?

Once I have these I can send the quote within two working days.
[your name]

A quote-readiness check before you price

If the call is where you capture the rest, the tutorial on turning client-call notes into minutes keeps the answers in one trail. Before you price anything, run a quote-readiness check: every one of the items below must be answered, or written into the brief as an explicit assumption the client has seen.

• Date or window agreed, and any dates to avoid.
• Guest range and how it was derived.
• Budget, what it includes and how firm it is.
• Budget approver, contract signatory and payer.
• Venue status, layout, load-in times and house rules.
• Dietary and accessibility counts.
• Timings for the key moments.
• The no-go list and last year's lessons.

If all eight are answered or written down as assumptions, you can quote. Every item still missing turns the price into a guess, so send a second email first. When you are ready, the proposal-writing tutorial picks up from the brief, and building a checklist for each event type turns the agreed brief into dated tasks.

Red flags in the answers, and fixing the form after each event

Some answers predict trouble before you have priced anything. These are the ones I would stop and talk about, and none of them is a reason to refuse the work on its own.

The form itself should improve with every event. In each debrief, list the surprises: things nobody told you that cost time or money. Then paste that list into an AI and ask which question on the intake form would have surfaced each one. Suppose a quarter's surprises were suppliers blocked from using the lift on three events, no parking for the van on one, and dietary counts that changed in the last week on two. The proposed additions would be "Which lifts and routes may suppliers use?", "Where can suppliers park?" and "By what date are dietary counts final?" Add the two or three that you agree with.

Prune as well. If a question was blank or "not sure" on more than half of the last ten forms, either it is the wrong question or it belongs on the call. Keep the form at about ten minutes of effort even as you add to it. If your form tool shows where people drop out, a page that loses people is too long. Date each version of the form and note the changes, so that you can later work out whether better briefs came from the AI step or from better questions.

Questions about event intake forms

How long should an event intake form be?

Aim for about ten minutes: roughly 25 to 30 questions, with the quote-blocking ones required and the rest optional. A shorter form leaves you chasing answers by email. A longer one gets abandoned. Use a 'not sure yet' choice on the hard questions so people can finish instead of quitting.

Should the intake form replace the discovery call?

No. It makes the call shorter and better. The client answers the factual questions in writing first, the AI turns them into a brief, and the call becomes a conversation about the gaps and conflicts in it. Keep the call for judgement, such as tone and what the client really cares about.

Is it safe to paste client answers into an AI tool?

Strip names, phone numbers and emails first, keep allergy and health details as counts, and use a business plan, or switch off model training in the privacy settings. Tell clients on the form how their answers are used. If a client's contract bans sharing information with AI tools, do the brief by hand.

What if the client does not know their budget yet?

Ask for a range, then ask what they would not want to go over. If they genuinely have no figure, offer two or three scoped options with prices so the number emerges from a choice, not a blank. Do not price a full proposal against a budget you had to guess.

Further reads

• A Wedding Planner's AI Workflow From Enquiry to Final Timeline — A full enquiry-to-timeline workflow for weddings.
• AI Receptionist for Event Planners: Is It Worth It When You Miss Calls? — If missed calls are what stop enquiries reaching the form.
• AI Software for Event Planning: What HoneyBook AI Covers — Where intake forms, proposals and payments can live together.
• How Event Planners Use AI to Build Budgets and Run Sheets — Turn the agreed brief into a budget and a run sheet.
• ChatGPT for Event Planning: Strengths, and Where It Gets Facts Wrong — Why every venue capacity or licence the AI mentions needs checking.
• AI for Meeting Planners: Venue Shortlists and RFP Replies — From client brief to venue shortlist to proposal reply: prompts, a scoring grid and a figure-check table for independent planners and small agencies.
• Catering Event Checklist: Build the Run Sheet From One Brief With AI — A brief template, a prompt and a manager's checklist for building a catering run sheet, equipment list, staffing plan and load-in plan from one client brief.
• Event Sponsorship Proposal: Tiers and Pitch Emails Drafted With AI — Price four sponsor tiers from your budget gap, then have AI draft the proposal and a four-email pitch sequence. One worked event, with the sums.
• Florist Wedding Quote Template: Price Stems, Labour and Hire With AI — A worked wedding quote in a sheet: stems, waste, labour hours, hire items and delivery, plus the ChatGPT prompts that build it.
• Food Truck Booking Software: Screen Private-Event Requests With AI — Seven answers to collect from every private-event enquiry, three AI prompts to screen and quote them, and when booking software earns its fee.
• How Much Should a Wedding Planner Charge? Model Fees With AI — For planners setting their own fees: hours per wedding, flat against percentage at three budget levels, break-even, and a model built with AI.
• Wedding DJ Questionnaire: Must-Plays and Timeline Built With AI — Thirty questions for a wedding DJ form, then an AI prompt that turns the answers into a run sheet, flags clashes and drafts MC notes for the couple to approve.
• Wedding Planner Client Questionnaire: Answers to a Brief With AI — Twenty discovery questions for wedding clients, how to send them to each partner, and an AI prompt that turns the answers into a one-page brief you can check.
• Personal Chef Client Intake Form: Allergies, Diets and Menus With AI — The fields a personal chef needs for allergies, diets and kitchen details, and how to turn the answers into a menu draft without exposing health data.
• AI for Event Venues: From Enquiry to Quote Without Missing Details — The enquiry-to-quote workflow for an event venue: 14 fields, one reply that asks for what is missing, a calendar check, a rate-card quote and a hand-off brief.
• AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.

Sources: Tally's and Jotform's pricing pages (free-plan limits, conditional logic, file-upload size), Google's Forms help (section branching, file-upload sign-in, linking responses to Sheets) and Zapier's pricing page (two-step Zaps on Free, AI by Zapier on paid plans), all read in October 2026. Example answers, counts and budgets are illustrative.