Turn the client's brief into must-haves and weighted criteria, send each venue the same structured RFP, have an AI assistant read every reply into one comparison grid, and draft your own proposal from that grid. The assistant structures and drafts; venues supply and confirm every figure, and you make the recommendation.
An RFP (request for proposal) is a written request asking suppliers to quote against the same brief, and two of them run through this job: the one you send to venues and, often, the one a client sends to you. The workflow below handles both with one set of documents. The example is an independent planner shortlisting day venues for a two-day leadership offsite of 60 people; a small agency runs the same steps with the work split between two people. Every venue, price and score in the example is invented for illustration.
One request in, venue requests out, one reply back
The whole job is a loop with seven steps. The assistant helps with most of them, and each step has an owner who stays responsible for it.
- Brief in. The client's RFP or email arrives. The assistant extracts a requirement sheet; you correct it and send the open questions back.
- Gates and weights. The client agrees which requirements are pass-or-fail and how the rest are weighted, before any prices exist.
- Longlist to shortlist. You supply the venue names. The assistant checks the fact sheets you paste against the gates.
- Venue RFP out. The same structured request, with the same response form, goes to five or six venues.
- Replies in. The assistant reads each reply into one grid, writing NOT STATED where a venue was silent. The spreadsheet does the sums.
- Figures confirmed. Each venue confirms in writing the numbers you intend to quote.
- Reply out. The assistant drafts your reply to the client from the grid. You add your fee, check every figure against a venue's written reply and send it.
Three jobs never move to the assistant: agreeing the weights with the client, confirming figures with venues and making the recommendation. Everything else is reading, structuring and drafting, where a fast first pass is useful and a human check is cheap.
Turn the client's brief into a requirement sheet
Clients rarely write briefs in the order venues need them. Here is the brief for the example, as it arrived (illustrative):
We need a venue for a two-day leadership offsite for 60 people, on two consecutive weekdays within a three-week window in spring. Day venue only, no overnight stay. One main room for the whole group, three smaller rooms for working groups of about 20, lunch on both days, tea and coffee twice a day and a dinner on the first evening. Budget for venue, catering and AV combined: $20,000. Everyone must be able to reach every room without stairs, and we would like daylight in the main room. Please send your recommendation and two alternatives, with a cost summary, by the end of the month.
The first job is to sort that paragraph into the headings a venue will expect, and to find what it leaves out. The headings below borrow from the Events Industry Council's Event Specifications Guide template (first published in 2004 and still a sound checklist), an industry document that organisers use to give venues complete requirements. It runs from event profile, key dates and attendee profile through function space, food and beverage and audio-visual requirements. A day venue needs only the front of it, but the headings are a ready-made list of what a venue will ask you next. The event planner intake form tutorial covers the client-facing version of the same exercise.
Read the client brief below and fill a requirement sheet with these headings: Event profile; Key dates; Attendees; Main room; Breakout rooms; Food and beverage; Audio-visual; Access; Budget; Decision timeline. For each, give what the client said, in their words where possible, and mark anything missing or ambiguous as UNKNOWN. Do not assume. Then list the questions I should send the client before any venue sees an RFP, most important first.| Heading | What the client said | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Event profile | Two-day leadership offsite, day venue only | Clear |
| Key dates | Two consecutive weekdays in a three-week window | UNKNOWN: the window's start and end dates |
| Attendees | 60 | UNKNOWN: whether 60 is firm or a maximum |
| Main room | One room for the whole group; daylight wanted | UNKNOWN: layout; daylight as a preference or a requirement |
| Breakout rooms | Three rooms, about 20 people each | UNKNOWN: layout |
| Food and beverage | Lunch both days; tea and coffee twice a day; dinner on day 1 | UNKNOWN: dinner format; dietary needs |
| Audio-visual | Nothing stated | UNKNOWN: screens, microphones, wifi, recording |
| Access | Step-free to every room | Clear |
| Budget | $20,000 for venue, catering and AV combined | UNKNOWN: whether service charge and taxes sit inside it |
| Decision timeline | Recommendation and two alternatives by month end | UNKNOWN: the contract date |
The UNKNOWN cells are the value of the step. Six questions go back to the client before any venue sees an RFP. In the example the client answered all six: two date options (Tuesday 4 to Wednesday 5 May 2027, or Tuesday 11 to Wednesday 12 May), 60 as a firm number, tables in the main room, a seated dinner, standard AV with reliable wifi, and a cap that includes service charge, with taxes handled separately.
Gates first, then weights
A venue either clears a gate or it does not; no score makes up for a main room that cannot seat 60 at tables. Gates remove venues and weights rank the ones that remain. Agree both with the client before replies arrive, because weights chosen after the quotes are in are a rationalisation.
| Gate | How it is tested | Why it is a gate |
|---|---|---|
| Main room seats 60 in cabaret layout | The venue's own capacity chart, quoted line by line | The offsite works at tables |
| Step-free route to every room used | The venue's accessibility statement, confirmed by a call or a viewing | A stated client requirement |
| Free on at least one date option | The venue's written reply | No date, no event |
| All-in estimate within $21,000 | The normalised grid | The cap is $20,000; the extra 5% is room to negotiate |
| Scored criterion | Weight | What a 5 and a 1 look like |
|---|---|---|
| Total cost against the cap | 30 | 5: well under the cap. 1: at the limit |
| Main room fit and daylight | 20 | 5: tables with space to move, plus daylight. 1: tight and windowless |
| Breakout rooms | 15 | 5: three real rooms for 20. 1: partitions or shared space |
| Cancellation terms | 15 | 5: a generous schedule. 1: most of the fee due early |
| Catering flexibility | 10 | 5: dietary needs and timings handled easily, no minimum. 1: rigid |
| Date flexibility | 10 | 5: both options open. 1: one option only |
Let the assistant propose the weights, then change them with the client:
From the brief and requirement sheet, propose weights out of 100 for these six criteria: total cost, main room fit and daylight, breakout rooms, cancellation terms, catering flexibility, date flexibility. Give one sentence of reasoning for each, based only on what the client wrote. Do not invent client priorities.In the example the budget and the main room carry 50 of the 100 points, because those are the two things the client wrote most about. The client had the last word on every number.
Venue names come from you; the assistant checks the facts
Build the longlist from places you already trust: your own notes on past venues, colleagues' recommendations, venue directories and the venue guides that destination marketing organisations publish. Seven names is plenty for this brief.
Asking a chat assistant to name venues for a 60-person offsite produces a confident list with capacities, prices and "availability" attached. Some of it will be out of date and some will be invented, which is the subject of the tutorial on where ChatGPT gets event-planning facts wrong. The assistant earns its place one step later, reading the fact sheets and capacity charts you paste in and testing them against the gates:
For the venue below, quote word for word the capacity for each layout (reception, banquet, theatre, cabaret, boardroom, classroom) and the accessibility statement. Then give PASS, FAIL or NOT STATED against each gate, with the exact line you relied on. If you cannot quote a line, write NOT STATED.The last sentence of that prompt exists because of a mistake that is easy to make. In the example, a first run without it reports a capacity of 120 for one venue, call it E, which passes the main-room gate. The 120 was the headline in the page's introduction, "up to 120 guests", and it was the reception figure. The chart further down said otherwise. The first answer quotes no source line, which is the clue, and the second run has to quote one.
| Run | Cabaret capacity given | Source line quoted | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| E, first prompt | 120 | None | Wrongly PASS |
| E, with the quote rule | 56 | "Great Hall: reception 120, banquet 80, theatre 100, cabaret 56" | FAIL |
| A, with the quote rule | 64 | "Garden Room: cabaret 64" | PASS |
Seven venues went in, and the gate checks on pasted information removed two before any RFP was written: E on capacity, and G because its accessibility page described steps to the breakout rooms. Five venues (A, B, C, D and F) got the RFP. A gate failure is worth confirming with a phone call before you rely on it, since a web page can lag behind a refurbishment.
An RFP that brings back replies you can compare
Venues reply in whatever shape suits them: a PDF package, an email with three prices, a spreadsheet. Your RFP cannot stop that, but it can ask for the same fields and say what the answer will be compared against. Keep the email short and put the detail in a response form the venue can fill in. A general template for RFPs outside events is in the small-business RFP template tutorial; this version is for a day venue.
Subject: Request for proposal: two-day leadership offsite, 60 delegates
Hello [first name],
We are sourcing a day venue for a client's two-day leadership offsite and would like your written proposal by [date, five working days out]. The client decides by [decision date].
Dates: Option 1, Tuesday 4 to Wednesday 5 May 2027. Option 2, Tuesday 11 to Wednesday 12 May 2027. Please say which are free and how long you can hold them without a deposit.
Programme, both days: 60 people seated at tables (cabaret layout) in a main room, ideally with daylight; three breakout rooms for about 20 each; step-free access to every room. Lunch both days, tea and coffee twice a day, and a seated dinner for 60 on day 1. Screens or projector, two microphones and reliable wifi in every room used.
Budget: our client's cap is $20,000 for venue, catering and AV combined. Please quote for exactly this programme using the response form below, and say for each price whether service charge and taxes are included.
[response form]
Thank you,
[your name]| Response form field | What the venue states |
|---|---|
| Dates free | Option 1, Option 2, both or neither, and when the hold expires |
| Main room | Capacity in cabaret layout, quoted from the venue's own chart, and whether it has daylight |
| Breakout rooms | Number, names and capacity in the layout needed; separate rooms or partitions |
| Pricing structure | Per-person package, itemised prices, or a catering minimum with room hire waived |
| Prices | Every price with quantity and unit: room hire per day, package per person per day, lunch, coffee break, dinner, AV |
| Service charge and taxes | The rate, what it applies to, and whether it sits inside each quoted price |
| Catering minimum and guarantees | The amount; before or after service charge and taxes; whole event or per function; the deadline for final numbers |
| Cancellation and attrition | The schedule by date, what counts as cancellation, and whether notice must be in writing |
| Access | The step-free route to each room, and who can confirm it |
| Contact | The person who will confirm these figures in writing |
Several terms in that form catch planners out, so settle what they mean before the replies arrive. The Events Industry Council's older APEX contracts report (from 2006, so check the detail against current practice) is the source for the plain meanings and the advice below. The tutorial on event venue contracts covers deposit, cancellation and damage terms, and legal effect is a question for a solicitor.
| Term | Plain meaning | What to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Food and beverage (F&B) minimum | The least you agree to spend on catering, whatever you order | Is it counted before or after service charge and taxes, and across the whole event or per function? |
| Attrition | How far actual numbers fall below the contracted numbers, and the penalty when they do | How big a drop is allowed, by what date, and how is the penalty worked out? |
| Hold or option | The venue keeps your dates free for a limited time while you decide | When does the hold expire, and what happens if another client asks for the date? |
| Cancellation clause | The damages payable to the other side if either party cancels | What is the schedule by date, and must notice be in writing? |
| Service charge | A percentage some venues add; it may apply to food only, to everything, or sit inside the prices | What does it apply to, and is it inside the quoted price? |
Four quotes in four shapes, read into one grid
Replies arrive over a week, and none of them looks like another. A sends a per-person package with service charge inside. B itemises everything. C offers to waive room hire against a catering minimum. D sends a package for an eight-hour day and leaves two items out. F declines, because both dates are taken. Put each reply, with its attachments, into the assistant and ask for the grid row:
Below are five venue replies. For each venue fill one row with: dates free; main room capacity in cabaret layout; breakout rooms; pricing structure; every price quoted, with quantity and unit; service charge rate and what it applies to; F&B minimum; AV; cancellation terms; hold expiry. Add a Source column quoting the venue's own words. If a field is not stated, write NOT STATED. Do not calculate totals and do not fill gaps using other venues.The prompt forbids totals on purpose. The assistant copies the prices into the grid, and the spreadsheet multiplies them by the programme: 60 people, two days, 120 lunches, 240 coffee servings, one dinner for 60. Totals computed by formula can be audited cell by cell, which an assistant's mental arithmetic cannot. Spot-check three figures per venue against the original reply, always including the capacity and the service charge.
| Venue | How it quoted | Missing at first reply | All-in for the programme | Gate result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Package of $95 per person per day, dinner $68 per person; service charge included | Nothing | $15,480 (11,400 + 4,080) | Pass |
| B | Itemised: rooms $3,250 a day, AV $550 a day, lunch $42, coffee $9 a break, dinner $72; 18% service charge on catering only | Nothing | $21,193.60 | Fails by $193.60 (near miss) |
| C | Catering minimum of $14,000 with room hire waived; AV $1,600; 20% service charge on catering | Whether the minimum includes service charge | $18,400, or $15,600 | Pass either way |
| D | Package of $88 per person per day for an eight-hour day, third breakout $400 a day; 15% service charge | Dinner and AV; only the first date free | $13,064 at first reply; $18,986.50 after follow-up | Pass after follow-up |
| F | Declined: both dates taken | Not applicable | Not applicable | Fail |
Four details in that table repay a slow read. A's package is the cheapest complete quote partly because its service charge is inside the price, so an identical-looking $95 elsewhere would cost more. B misses the $21,000 gate by $193.60 (rooms $6,500, AV $1,100, catering $11,520 and $2,073.60 of service charge), so the grid marks it a near miss; asking B to waive one day's AV would bring it to $20,643.60, and whether to ask is the planner's judgement, not an automatic rejection. D's first reply looked cheapest at $13,064 only because dinner and AV were missing. And C's total depends on a clause, which the next section prices.
The F&B minimum: paying for catering nobody eats
Venue C waives room hire if you spend at least $14,000 on food and drink. At C's own prices the programme's catering comes to $10,380: lunch at $38 for 120 covers is $4,560, coffee breaks at $8 for 240 servings are $1,920, and dinner at $65 for 60 is $3,900. That leaves a shortfall of $3,620, which is 26% of the minimum. What happens next depends on one clause, and C's reply does not say which applies.
| Minimum counted before service charge | Minimum counted after service charge | |
|---|---|---|
| Catering at C's prices | $10,380 | $10,380 |
| The same with 20% service charge | $12,456 | $12,456 |
| Catering minimum | $14,000 | $14,000 |
| You pay for catering | $14,000 plus $2,800 service charge, so $16,800 | $14,000, service charge included |
| AV for two days | $1,600 | $1,600 |
| All-in | $18,400 | $15,600 |
One clause is worth $2,800, more than the gap between several venues on the grid. The question for C is therefore whether the minimum counts before or after service charge and taxes, and whether any unspent part can be applied to room hire or a later function. The APEX report makes the same point from the contract side: it advises stating whether the calculation includes tax, gratuities and service charges. Do not let the assistant decide which reading applies. It will pick the one that reads more naturally, and it will sound sure. If the minimum stands, spend the shortfall on food the group will use, such as an afternoon snack, because you pay the same either way.
Scoring the three that pass, and when to override the ranking
With the near miss and the decline set aside, A, C and D go through the weights. The planner scores each criterion from 1 to 5 using the replies, and the sheet does the arithmetic.
| Criterion (weight) | A | C | D |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total cost (30) | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| Main room fit and daylight (20) | 4 | 5 | 3 |
| Breakout rooms (15) | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| Cancellation terms (15) | 3 | 2 | 4 |
| Catering flexibility (10) | 3 | 2 | 4 |
| Date flexibility (10) | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| Weighted total out of 100 | 78 | 66 | 63 |
Each total is the sum of weight times score divided by five, so a venue scoring 5 on everything would reach 100: for A, (30 × 5 + 20 × 4 + 15 × 3 + 15 × 3 + 10 × 3 + 10 × 4) ÷ 5 = 78. The ranking is advice to the client, not a verdict, and there are three reasons to override it. A criterion the grid cannot hold may matter, such as a strong client dislike of a particular building. A near miss may be worth rescuing, as with B for the price of one concession. And a close pair, here C and D at 66 and 63, is better settled by the client's view of the clause that separates them than by three points. State any override and its reason in the reply, and never move a weight after the fact to produce the ranking you wanted.
Follow-up questions written from the empty cells
Every NOT STATED cell is a question. Ask the assistant to write one email per venue from the grid, and to add any contradiction between a venue's own fact sheet and its reply:
From the grid, write one email per venue asking only for what is NOT STATED, plus any place where the reply contradicts the venue's own fact sheet. Number the questions, maximum eight, one request each. Do not mention other venues or their prices. Use [first name] and [your name].The email for venue D came back like this:
Hello [first name],
Thank you for your proposal for 4 to 5 May. To compare it fairly with the others, could you confirm in writing:
1. Dinner on day 1 for 60: format, price per person and whether service charge applies.
2. AV for the main room and three breakouts: what is included and the price of anything extra.
3. Your reply covers 4 to 5 May only. Are 11 to 12 May free, and how long can you hold 4 to 5 May without a deposit?
4. The package is quoted for an 8-hour day and our programme runs about six hours. Does the price change?
5. Does the 15% service charge apply to the dinner and AV as well as the package?
Thank you,
[your name]"Do not mention other venues or their prices" is in the prompt for a reason. Left alone, a drafting assistant will helpfully write that another venue has quoted lower, and sharing one venue's price with another is a courtesy you did not mean to extend. D answered the same day: dinner at $70 a head, AV at $950 for two days, 15% service charge on both, and 11 to 12 May not available. That is where $18,986.50 came from: $13,064 plus $4,200 plus $950 plus $772.50.
Figures the assistant must never supply
Every number that reaches the client has an owner, and the owner is the venue. The grid's source column holds the venue's own words, and the confirmation email is where the venue stands behind them. The rule is blunt: no figure goes into the client's reply unless a venue's written reply contains it.
| Figure | How it goes wrong | Who confirms | What you keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity by layout | A headline number is read instead of the layout row | Venue sales contact, from its own chart | The quoted chart line |
| Prices and what they include | A package price is read as covering AV or dinner when it does not | Venue, on the response form | The reply and the filled form |
| Service charge and taxes | Counted before or after, or applied to some items only | Venue, in writing | The sentence saying what it applies to |
| Catering minimum and attrition | Counted on the wrong basis; the numbers deadline missed | Venue, in writing | The clause text and your own sum |
| Cancellation schedule | Summarised more kindly than the contract reads | Venue; contract wording checked by a solicitor | The contract page |
| Availability and hold expiry | A date shown as free on a web page is gone by the time of the reply | Venue, with an expiry date | The hold email |
| Step-free access | A page describes a ramp that stops short of one room | A call or a viewing | Your viewing note |
Replying to the client: from the grid to the proposal
A reply that wins is built from the same grid. Seven parts, in this order: a one-paragraph recommendation; what you understood the brief to be; the recommended venue and two alternatives; a budget table with exclusions and a contingency; the decisions the client must take and by when, including hold expiry dates; your fee and terms from your own rate card; the next step. The tutorial on writing event proposals with AI covers the wider proposal; the venue part works like this.
Draft the client reply from the requirement sheet and the grid below. Recommend venue A, with C and D as alternatives. Use only figures in the grid's Quote column and name the venue reply each one comes from. Write the assumptions and exclusions as plain sentences. Leave my fee as [fee from rate card]. Put [CONFIRM WITH VENUE] beside any figure that is not yet confirmed in writing. Do not add facts about any venue that are not in the grid.The budget table in the draft, built from venue A's reply, looked like this:
| Line | Basis | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Venue A package, two days | 60 delegates × 2 days × $95 | $11,400 |
| Dinner, day 1 | 60 × $68 | $4,080 |
| Subtotal | Service charge included, per Venue A's reply | $15,480 |
| Contingency | 5% of the subtotal | $774 |
| Total | Subtotal plus contingency | $16,254 |
| Headroom under the cap | $20,000 minus the total | $3,746 |
And this was the assumptions paragraph under it:
Assumptions and exclusions. All figures come from Venue A's written reply dated [date] and include service charge. They cover the main room and three breakout rooms on both days, lunch both days, two tea and coffee breaks a day, a seated dinner for 60 on day 1 and standard AV with wifi. They exclude travel, accommodation, printing, any AV beyond the standard set and any change to the number of delegates after [numbers deadline]. The dates are held until [hold expiry] [CONFIRM WITH VENUE]. The cancellation schedule is in the venue's terms, which we will review with you before you sign.Two things needed fixing in the first version. It had added "fully refundable up to 14 days before the event" for venue A, a line the grid did not contain: the cancellation row still said NOT STATED. It had also rounded $15,480 to "$15,500" and folded the dinner into a line called catering. Exact figures and separate lines went back in, and the refund sentence stayed out until the venue confirmed its terms in writing. Your own fee goes in last, from your rate card, which is a number the assistant should never be asked to invent.
An answer bank that keeps your replies truthful
Client RFPs ask about you as well as the venue: your experience with similar events, how you check accessibility, who is on the team. Left alone, an assistant answers all of it fluently and invents the numbers. The remedy is an answer bank, approved wording kept in a project that the assistant may rearrange and tighten but never add to. The wider case of answering formal tenders is covered in the tutorial on whether AI can help a small business respond to tenders and RFPs.
| Client question | First draft, no bank | After, from the bank entry |
|---|---|---|
| Describe your experience with leadership offsites of 50 to 100 delegates | "We have delivered over 40 leadership offsites for clients across 12 sectors." | "[Number from your records] leadership offsites of [range] delegates since [year]; clients named only with permission." |
| How do you check accessibility? | "Our accessibility audit covers every venue before we book." | "We ask each venue for its step-free route in writing and confirm it by [call or viewing]." Keep this only if it is true. |
The left-hand drafts are typical: round, impressive and unfounded. A bank entry is short and carries its own evidence:
Topic: leadership offsite experience
Approved wording: "[Number] leadership offsites for [50 to 100] delegates since [year]. The largest had [number] delegates. Clients are named only with their permission."
Evidence: event log, rows [range]
Last checked: [date]The project instruction is one sentence: "Use only wording and numbers from the answer bank; if the bank has no answer, write [NO ANSWER ON FILE] and nothing else." Every bracketed placeholder is a number or credential you supply from your own records before the reply goes out.
What stays out of the chat
- Client names under confidentiality. Use "Client A" in prompts and file names, and read the client's contract or NDA for anything about AI tools before you upload their brief.
- Venue rates. A quote is a commercial offer made to you. Treat it like a client document, keep it in a business-tier account rather than a personal one, and never forward it to another venue.
- Delegates' personal data. Names, dietary or medical needs tied to a person and access needs tied to a person stay out. Counts are enough: six vegetarian, two gluten-free.
- Anything you would not put in an email to the client.
Plan choice follows from that. ChatGPT Business and Claude Team do not use business content for model training by default, which is the reason to prefer them over a personal plan for client work, and both need at least two seats. Claude Team Standard seats cost $20 each a month billed annually or $25 billed monthly, and ChatGPT Business Standard seats were listed at the same $20 and $25 in September 2026, so confirm OpenAI's current figure. A four-person agency therefore pays about $80 a month on annual billing. A solo planner either pays for two seats or uses an individual plan, in which case the model-training switch in privacy settings is the thing to check. Neither plan changes the rule about delegates' personal data.
A two-week cycle and its hours
The waiting belongs to the venues, and the hours below are an illustration; the first cycle will run longer while the sheet, the RFP and the answer bank are built.
| Day | Step | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brief to requirement sheet; questions to the client | 1.5 |
| 2 | Gates and weights agreed with the client | 1.0 |
| 2 to 3 | Longlist, gate checks on pasted fact sheets, RFPs out | 3.0 |
| 4 to 8 | Venues reply (five working days) | 0 |
| 9 | Replies into the grid; sums in the spreadsheet; three-figure spot checks | 2.5 |
| 10 | Follow-up questions out; confirmations chased | 1.0 |
| 12 | Written confirmations in; scoring finished | 1.0 |
| 13 to 14 | Client reply drafted, checked figure by figure against the grid, sent | 3.0 |
| Total | 13.0 |
The assistant's share is the reading and drafting in days 1, 9 and 13 to 14, and the planner's share is the judgement at every gate. After one cycle the requirement sheet, RFP email, response form, grid and answer bank are templates, so the next client brief starts from copies instead of blank pages.
Questions planners ask once the first replies arrive
How many venues should get the RFP?
Five or six is a workable rule: enough to see the spread of prices and terms, few enough that you can phone each venue. With fewer than four you cannot tell whether a quote is high, and with more than six the grid takes longer to fill than the choice is worth. If gates remove half of a longlist, send the RFP to the survivors rather than widening the search.
What if a venue ignores my response form?
Fill the form yourself from its reply, quoting the venue's wording in the source column, and send the filled form back for confirmation. A venue that corrects your reading has confirmed the figures, and one that stays silent has not. Either way the grid stays yours and every row remains comparable with the others.
Can the assistant write my counter-offer to a venue?
It can draft the message, but the concessions you ask for and the numbers you accept are your decisions, and it has no idea how much room the venue has. Read the draft against your grid, keep to figures the venue has already put in writing, and send it yourself.
Should I use one chat for all my clients?
Use a separate project or workspace for each client, so one client's rates and brief never sit in the context of another's. Label files with codes such as Client A, and remove uploaded venue proposals once a booking is signed if your own policy or the client's contract requires it.
Further reads
- How Event Planners Use AI to Build Budgets and Run Sheets — Carry the chosen venue's figures into a budget and run sheet.
- How Much to Charge as an Event Planner: Flat Fee vs Percentage — Set the fee that goes into your reply to the client.
- How to Catch Made-Up Figures in AI-Drafted Proposals — A fuller routine for catching invented numbers in drafted proposals.
- Can AI Write a Catering Tender Response? What to Keep Confidential — The same RFP problem seen from the caterer's side of the table.
- Event Planning Checklist: Build One Per Event Type With AI — Build the delivery checklist once the venue is confirmed.
- ChatGPT Meeting Minutes Generator: A Client-Call Recap for Event Planners — Turn client and venue calls into recap notes.
- Architecture RFP Response: Reuse Past Proposals With AI, Without Copying — Reusing past proposals without copying, in another profession.
- Event Venue Marketing: Corporate Away-Day Campaign Written With AI — A six-week corporate away-day campaign for a venue: price the package, write the outreach and follow-up with AI, then draft a case study from a real booking.
- 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: Events Industry Council APEX Event Specifications Guide template and APEX Contracts Panel Report; ChatGPT and Claude pricing pages.