Programme and delivery tools
Event attendance scenario planner
Invitations are going out and the committee needs to plan for different attendance levels without pretending to know the real one.
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The short answer
The planner turns invitation counts and known registrations into scenario attendance counts. Each scenario is built from two rates that you choose: the share of people not yet registered who go on to register, and the share of registered people who attend.
The tool supplies no default response rate or no-show rate. A scenario with a blank rate is not calculated. Every number is shown with the inputs behind it, and the spread between the lowest and highest scenario shows how much the answer depends on your choices.
What to enter
- Segments: each audience segment with the number invited, the registrations you already know and where the counts come from. Leave known registrations blank if you do not know.
- Scenarios: a name and two percentages for each. The first is the share of people not yet registered who register. The second is the share of registered people who attend.
- Rates from your own records: your past events, your registration data or a committee judgement, written down as your choice.
How a scenario is calculated
Registrations = known registrations + (invited minus known registrations) x the registration share. Attendance = registrations x the attendance share. This is done for each segment, then added.
Counts are kept unrounded and rounded to whole people once, at the end, so segments do not add rounding errors to the total.
Blank means unknown
If a rate is blank, that scenario is not calculated, and it is listed as such. A blank is not zero and not a default. If known registrations are blank for a segment, the registration share is applied to everyone invited there, and the tool flags it.
If you enter no scenario at all, no attendance count is shown. That is deliberate: the tool will not supply an industry figure.
Reading the spread
The spread shows how far apart your scenarios are. It is not a margin of error or a prediction range, because the real attendance can fall outside all of them.
Use the spread to see which decisions depend on the unknown. If the venue, catering and staffing all work at both ends of the spread, the uncertainty matters less.
Limits
A scenario is a what-if you chose, not a prediction of what will happen. For the cost side use the ticket break-even calculator, for check-in capacity at the door use the check-in throughput estimator, and for the invitations themselves use the invitation sequence planner.
Worked example · Fictional example
A fictional association event
Fictional counts and rates, to show the output. The rates are chosen by the fictional committee, not recommended.
A fictional association invites 300 members (120 already registered), 100 guests (10 registered) and 40 partner organisations (registrations not known). It chooses three scenarios and leaves a fourth without rates.
The cautious scenario (20% of unregistered register, 70% of registered attend) gives 134 attending. The middle scenario (35%, 80%) gives 191 and the optimistic one (50%, 90%) gives 257, a spread of 123 people. The fourth scenario is not calculated because its rates are blank, and the tool flags the partner segment's blank known registrations.
| Scenario | Registrations | Attendance |
|---|---|---|
| Cautious (20%, 70%) | 192 | 134 |
| Middle (35%, 80%) | 239 | 191 |
| Optimistic (50%, 90%) | 285 | 257 |
| To decide (blank rates) | Not calculated | Not calculated |
Use this yourself
Attendance scenario worksheet
Fill in your own counts and rates. Write down where each number came from.
| Line | What to write | Your figure |
|---|---|---|
| A | Invited, by segment | |
| B | Known registrations, by segment (blank if unknown) | |
| C | Scenario name and the share of unregistered people who register | |
| D | Share of registered people who attend | |
| E | Registrations per segment: B + (A - B) x C | |
| F | Attendance per segment: E x D, then add the segments and round once | |
| G | Lowest and highest scenario, and the spread between them |
Handle it in-house, or bring in help?
Your team can usually handle this when
- A modest guest list, registration data you trust and a committee that can agree its own rates.
- The venue and catering can flex across the whole spread.
Outside planning help earns its fee when
- Several segments and tiers each respond differently and the numbers feed catering, staffing and venue contracts.
- Decisions with deadlines, such as final numbers to the venue, depend on which scenario the committee works to.
- Registrations, invitations and logistics are held by different people and need one agreed set of numbers.
Need attendance numbers tied to venue and catering decisions?
A project lead can keep one agreed set of attendance scenarios, tie each to the venue, catering and staffing decisions it affects and chase the registration data your committee needs. The rates you work to, and the commitments you make, stay with you.
Questions organisers ask
Does the tool suggest a response or no-show rate?
No. Every rate is typed by you. A scenario with a blank rate is not calculated.
Is the spread a range I can rely on?
No. It shows how far apart your own scenarios are. Real attendance can fall outside it.
What if I do not know the known registrations?
Leave it blank. The registration share is then applied to everyone invited in that segment, and the tool flags this.
Related resources
Content record: Draft. Written from the cited sources and checked by automated rules; not yet independently reviewed.