How we decide

EventSays exists to answer event-planning questions directly — cost, quantities, choices, timelines, risk and operations — and then help you assemble those answers into a plan you can execute. Every answer follows the same rules.

Every conclusion is labeled

• Official fact — a law, regulation or official rule, cited to the government or regulator that publishes it, with the date we last checked.
• Survey data — a number from a large credible survey, always shown with publisher, year and sample size. Survey averages are anchors, never rules.
• Calculated — arithmetic over labeled inputs. The formula and inputs are visible.
• Estimate — our best derivation where no strong source exists; we say so and show how we got it.
• EventSays rule — our own planning guidance from professional practice, clearly ours, never dressed up as an official standard.
• Professional review needed — questions where legal, safety or medical judgment is required; we say what we know and tell you to get a professional.

Source hierarchy

Government and regulators outrank industry bodies; industry bodies outrank supplier documents; large surveys outrank professional opinion. User forums prove that people ask a question — never what the answer is. When sources conflict, we show the conflict.

What we refuse to do

• Invent prices, regulations, permit requirements or alcohol rules.
• Present one supplier's quote as a market average.
• Call our own judgment an "industry standard."
• Publish a page when we can't reliably answer its question — we mark it as needing better data instead.

Country answers differ because rules differ

US, Canadian and UK pages are researched separately: UK pages use UK law (Licensing Act TENs, 20% VAT-inclusive pricing, the 2024 tips statute), British terminology and metric units; Canadian pages respect provincial variation; US pages state when a rule is state-by-state rather than pretending one answer fits fifty states.

Your data

Your event inputs stay in your browser. No account is required to get any answer. Share links contain only the planning inputs you choose to share.