What is an RFP?

A request for proposal is a written specification sent to several vendors, asking each to answer the same questions in the same order. Its value is not the document; it is the comparability.

In practice at an event

For an event app, an RFP typically covers the event’s shape and dates, the scope of what is being bought and what is explicitly excluded, a numbered requirement list answered Yes, Partial, No or Roadmap, security and accessibility questions, support commitments during the event, and pricing stated as a formula rather than as a number.

Responses are scored on a weighted sheet built before any of them arrive. Only then are demos taken, from the top two, driven by the buyer’s agenda rather than the vendor’s.

What to look for

Keep it short. Two to four pages of requirements gets thoughtful answers in a week; forty pages selects for vendors with a bid team rather than vendors with a good product.

Ask for pricing as a formula with every variable named, plus the figure at your expected head count and at double it, plus whether there is a maximum charge per event. Those three questions do more work than the whole feature list.

And ask who submits the app to the app stores and under whose developer account. It is the most commonly skipped question in this category and it determines your timeline and who owns the listing.

How event67 handles it

We publish a complete, copyable event app RFP template with 62 scored requirement lines and a weighted scoring sheet, including the lines event67 itself would be scored No on. Our pricing is a published formula rather than a quote, and the maximum charge per event is a stated number, so lines 59 to 62 can be answered from a public page.