Encyclopedia

Planning terms · Event planning encyclopedia

Planning: guides, ideas and tools from EventPlans.ca for planning events in Toronto and the GTA.

Banquet servers seen from behind plating salads on a long stainless pass in a Toronto hotel kitchen

Encyclopedia

BEO (Banquet Event Order)

Planning

The venue's internal order listing every detail of a function: timings, room set, menu, bar, AV, charges.

Designer's hands arranging swatches and colour chips on a mood board

Encyclopedia

Creative brief

Planning

A one-page document describing what the event should feel like, who it is for and what cannot be compromised, shared with every…

Hand placing a domino at the end of a winding line on a table

Encyclopedia

Critical path

Planning

The sequence of dependent tasks that determines the earliest an event can happen; any delay on it delays everything.

A quiet Toronto hotel corridor with a housekeeping cart and a row of guest room doors

Encyclopedia

Cut-off date

Planning

The date after which held rooms, RSVPs or menu choices are released or locked.

Encyclopedia

Master timeline

Planning

The month-by-month plan of milestones from kickoff to the event.

Planner presenting a bound document and fabric swatches to a client across a café table

Encyclopedia

Proposal

Planning

A planner's decision document for a client: understanding, concept, options, budget, timeline, fee and terms.

A small team of planners seen from behind touring an empty Toronto event hall, one pointing toward the stage

Encyclopedia

RFP (Request for Proposal)

Planning

A document sent to venues or vendors describing the event and asking for a priced proposal.

Long hotel corridor with rows of identical doors and a housekeeping cart at the far end

Encyclopedia

Room block

Planning

A set of hotel rooms held at a negotiated rate for event guests until a cut-off date.

Show caller in a headset at a backstage desk with a cue light, stopwatch and cue sheet

Encyclopedia

Run of show

Planning

A minute-by-minute schedule of every cue at an event, with one named owner per cue.

The language of the planning process

The Planning category gathers the documents and terms that carry an event from idea to day. Most of them describe a single document: the brief that sets the vision, the request for proposal that invites quotes, the proposal that wins approval, the timeline that schedules the work, the banquet event order that records what the venue will deliver, and the run of show that governs the day. Knowing what each document is for, and who owns it, prevents the common problem of the same detail living in five places with five different versions.

How the documents connect

The documents follow a rough order. A creative brief comes first and states the goal, the audience and the feel. An RFP goes out to venues and suppliers with the brief's essentials, guest count, date and budget range. Their responses feed a proposal, which a planner presents to the client for a decision. Once approved, the master timeline sets the milestones, and the critical path identifies which ones cannot slip. Closer to the day, the venue issues a BEO for each function, and the planner builds a run of show that includes every cue, from doors opening to the last shuttle.

One owner per document, so there is never doubt about the current version.
One date on every revision, so old copies are easy to spot.
One place where all signed versions are stored.

Hotel and group terms

Several terms here come from hotel contracts. A room block is a set of rooms held for your guests at an agreed rate. The cut-off date is when unbooked rooms return to the hotel's inventory. Many contracts also include attrition, meaning you owe the hotel if your group books fewer rooms than promised. Read these clauses before signing, especially for conferences and destination weddings, where pickup can be hard to predict.

Putting the terms to work

Each term links to a tool or template you can use straight away. Start with the creative brief template, schedule the work with the timeline generator and build the day with the run of show template. If you need to win approval from a client or committee, the event proposal template follows the structure described in the proposal entry.