The vendor questions no one preps you for
If you've ever found yourself Googling "do you tip the DJ" at 11pm the night before your event, this one's for you.
There are questions in event planning that tend to catch hosts off guard. These aren't the big strategic ones, not "how do I choose a venue" or "how do I price my tickets." They're the smaller, more specific ones that surface when you're deep in the details and suddenly realize you have no idea what the right answer is.
Do you tip the DJ? What about the photographer? Does the venue coordinator expect a tip, or is that handled in the contract? Do you feed your vendors? If you're providing lunch for attendees, does the catering count include your AV team and your photographer, or are they on their own?
They're the kind of thing that nags at you when you don't know the answer, and they tend to surface at the worst possible moment, like when the catering coordinator asks how many meals to plate, and you realize you never counted the vendor team.
Event vendor etiquette, contracts, and the budget surprises hosts don't see coming
Tipping your vendors is simpler than you think once you have a plan
There's no single rule, but there are patterns worth knowing.
DJ, photographer, videographer: a tip is customary if they did good work, usually a percentage of the fee or a flat amount you decide in advance. Your event coordinator or day-of staff: depends on the arrangement. If they're employed by the venue, check whether gratuity is included in the contract. If they're independent, a tip is a generous gesture that's usually appreciated.
AV techs, lighting crew, rental company delivery teams: not typically tipped, but offering water, coffee, and food goes further than you'd think.
The practical move: decide your tipping plan before event day and put the cash in labeled envelopes. Assign someone on your team to handle the handoff. You should not be the person sorting through a purse for a tip envelope while guests are arriving.
If it's a corporate or internal event, recognition matters just as much as a tip
Tipping doesn't always apply. If you're running an internal event or a corporate conference, the AV team, the setup crew, and the on-site support staff are often borrowed from other departments. You're not tipping them, but that doesn't mean the work goes unacknowledged.
One thing we always did after an event was collect the names of everyone who worked behind the scenes, especially teams like AV who were loaned to us from another department. We'd send an email to the head of that team letting them know what an incredible job their people did. That kind of recognition goes a long way, both for the team members and for the next time you need to borrow those same people.
On-site, we'd also gather everyone who worked the event for a quick celebratory moment. Sometimes that was a glass of bubbly, sometimes it was just a genuine thank-you before everyone packed up. Either way, it mattered. The people who built your event from behind the scenes deserve to feel like they were part of something, not just assigned to it.
Your vendors should be fed, and it costs less than you'd expect
The short answer is yes. If your vendors are on-site for the duration of your event, they should be fed.
Most venues and caterers can build vendor meals into the count, often at a lower per-head cost than the guest meals. Ask about this early, during the contract phase, so it's built into the budget and not an awkward day-of discovery.
Vendors who aren't fed tend to leave to find food, which means your photographer isn't shooting during lunch and your AV tech is off-site when you need a mic check. Feeding them keeps them on-site, and it's the considerate thing to do. From a hospitality standpoint, both of those matter.
The insurance document your venue will ask for, and when to have it ready
If you've never been asked for a certificate of insurance, you likely will be. A COI is a document that proves you have liability insurance for your event. Venues ask for it, some vendors require it, and it protects everyone involved if something goes wrong. The requirements vary depending on the venue type. Hotels may handle insurance at a contract level you never see, while museums, historic properties, and non-traditional spaces are more likely to ask for a COI directly from you.
If you have event insurance (which is worth looking into if you're hosting anything with paying attendees), your insurance provider can issue a COI naming the venue as an additional insured. This sounds more complicated than it is. It's usually a phone call or an online form, and it takes a day or two.
The thing that catches hosts off guard is the timing. The venue asks for the COI two weeks before the event. The host didn't know she needed event insurance. She scrambles to find a policy, then scrambles to get the COI issued, then scrambles to send it before the venue's deadline. All of it avoidable with one early question: "What documentation does the venue require, and when?"
The costs worth asking about before you commit to the space
If your event includes a room block at a hotel, there's usually room to negotiate. When we'd book sleeping rooms alongside meeting space, the venue would sometimes try to charge a room rental fee for the meeting rooms on top of everything else. We'd push back, because we knew our food and beverage spend was going to be significant. We almost always hit the F&B minimum and went well beyond it, so that put us in a good position to negotiate. The venue was going to make their money on catering, so we could often get the room rental fee reduced or removed, or negotiate lower rates on the sleeping rooms instead.
This isn't just a big-event thing, either. When I was booking private dining rooms at restaurants, I'd always ask three questions: What is the room fee, if there is one? What is the per-person minimum? Then I'd add one more: "Are there any other additional costs or fees I should be aware of?" That last question is the one that catches the things you wouldn't think to ask about, like an automatic gratuity that gets added once your party hits a certain size. If you don't ask, you find out on the bill.
The contract clauses most hosts skim past and later wish they hadn't
The sections worth reading carefully include cancellation terms, payment schedules, what's included versus what costs extra (setup, teardown, AV equipment, additional hours), liability, and the vendor's obligations if they can't fulfill the contract.
One clause worth paying special attention to since COVID is force majeure. This is the section that covers what happens if an event beyond anyone's control, like a pandemic, a natural disaster, or a government-mandated shutdown, prevents the event from happening. Before 2020, most hosts skimmed right past it. Now it's one of the first things worth reading. Make sure it specifically names the scenarios that would apply to your event, and make sure you understand what happens to your deposit and your obligations if that clause gets triggered.
Read all of them before you sign. The hosts who get caught by surprise on event day are usually the ones who skimmed the contract and assumed everything was covered. The surprises almost always trace back to a clause someone didn't read carefully enough.
These questions only need to be answered once
Most of these questions need answering one time. And once you know the answers, they become part of how you plan every event going forward. The first time is the hard one because nobody tells you to ask.
Now you know to ask.
If you're in the middle of planning right now and you want to know where the rest of your setup stands, the Event Pulse Check is free and takes a few minutes. You'll get one of five result profiles so you know exactly where to focus.
