Event agency enquiries: how to handle them in peak season, from dates to follow-up

BOTrento Team4 October 2026 · Updated 14 October 20269 min read

Why enquiries get stuck in peak season

An event or production company doesn't sell goods from a warehouse. It sells a combination of date, venue, equipment and people. So every enquiry raises three questions that a salesperson often can't answer alone:

• Is the date free? Equipment and technicians may already be booked for another event on the same day.
• How much will it cost? The price depends on the scope, and clients rarely describe the full scope in their first message.
• Who owns the enquiry? It lands in the shared info@ inbox. Someone reads it and forwards it to production, and then everyone waits.

The result is a reply that goes out late, or never goes out. Meanwhile, the client is often talking to several suppliers and picks the one who came back first with something concrete. For a general approach to giving every enquiry an owner and a next step, see our article on how to handle sales enquiries fast without losing any. This article covers what is specific to the events business.

Step 1: Triage the enquiry with a five-question checklist

Before you start working out prices, check whether the enquiry is worth pursuing at all. Run it through five questions. Anything the brief doesn't answer, ask about in your first reply.

1. Date and time: the event day, set-up and load-in, and load-out. People often forget the set-up day beforehand.
2. Venue: city, type of space (hall, outdoors, hotel), access for equipment and power supply.
3. Type and size of event: conference, company party, concert or wedding, and the number of guests.
4. Scope: sound, lighting, projection, staging, hosting, catering, or equipment hire only, without operators.
5. Decision-making: who decides and by when, and whether the client has a budget or is comparing quotes.

For every enquiry, record three things in your CRM or spreadsheet: its status (new, awaiting availability, quote sent, awaiting decision, confirmed or lost), its owner and the date of the next step. If any of these is missing, an enquiry can easily disappear in peak season.

Step 2: Check the date and the availability of equipment and people

The most common bottleneck is checking availability. The salesperson emails production, production checks the spreadsheet, and the technician is out on a job and doesn't answer. A few rules help:

One record of capacity

Keep bookings for equipment and people in one place: a calendar, a spreadsheet or a CRM. A salesperson should be able to see roughly whether a date is free without asking production. Production then checks the specific equipment in detail only before the booking is confirmed.

Provisional holds with an expiry date

When a client shows interest, offer to hold the date for a fixed period, for example until the end of the week. Record it as "provisional" with an expiry date. The client gets certainty, you get a reason to follow up, and the date doesn't stay blocked forever.

Settle clashes with a rule, not a gut feeling

Agree in advance what happens when two clients want the same date. Usually the date goes to whoever confirms the quote or pays the deposit first. That way the salesperson doesn't have to escalate it to management.

Step 3: A fast provisional quote and a reply template

In peak season, a provisional quote with a price range sent the same day beats an exact budget sent several days later. A provisional quote has three parts. It confirms that the date looks free, gives a price range or two to three options (basic, standard, extended), and lists the questions you need answered to set the final price.

Prepare the options in advance as packages for each event type. The salesperson then only adjusts a package instead of building every quote from scratch. For more on speeding up quotes while keeping prices under control, see how to speed up sales proposals without losing control of your prices.

Subject: Your event on [date]: date available, provisional quote

Dear [Mr/Ms surname],

Thank you for your enquiry about [event type] on [date] at [venue]. Our current bookings show that the date is free, and we can hold it for you until [date].

Based on your description, we can offer two options:

Option A (basic): [brief scope], approx. [range] excl. VAT.
Option B (standard): [brief scope], approx. [range] excl. VAT.

For an exact quote, we need to know: [1. venue access and set-up time], [2. number of guests], [3. whether you need an equipment operator].

I'll get back to you on [day], or you can simply reply to this email.

Kind regards
[name, phone]

The template is deliberately short. The client can see that the date is real, roughly what it will cost and what happens next.

Step 4: A follow-up that doesn't rely on memory

In peak season, many open quotes are never actually turned down. Nobody goes back to them. So schedule the follow-up as soon as you send the quote, and record it as the date of the next step.

• First reminder: a few days after sending. Include extra information or a question, not just "any thoughts?".
• Before the hold expires: remind the client that the hold on the date is ending, and offer to extend it.
• Closing: if the client doesn't respond, politely ask whether you can close the enquiry. This often gets a reply.

Dear [Mr/Ms surname],

We are holding [date] for your event until [date]. Shall I extend the hold, or prepare a final quote for option [A/B]? If your plans have changed, a short reply is enough and we'll release the date.

Kind regards
[name]

A few simple measures show whether your follow-up works, such as the time to first reply or the number of quotes without a next step. You'll find definitions and a weekly overview in the article 6 KPIs a small business needs to track every week.

How BOTrento handles this process

You can run the process above manually. In peak season, though, it's hard to follow it for every single enquiry. BOTrento Chief of Staff is a managed process that makes sure these steps happen for your team. It picks up the enquiry from your mailbox, records it in your CRM or spreadsheet and prepares a draft reply that asks for the missing details. It also drafts a provisional quote based on your packages and suggests a follow-up date.

What it doesn't do matters just as much: nothing is sent without human approval. A salesperson or production manager checks every draft email and quote, edits it if needed and only then sends it. To see one case from enquiry to draft, take a look at the process demo.

A 14-day free trial on one process

You don't roll everything out at once. You start with a 14-day free trial, with no payment card and no API key of your own. The 14 days begin with your first successful upload of data (an import or a mailbox connection), and you have 7 days to prepare. Start with one type of business case, for example enquiries for corporate events, and follow process indicators such as time to first reply or the share of enquiries with a scheduled next step. In our internal pilot, the process handled 35 enquiries, 18 emails, 24 quotes and 15 actions in 7 days.

Your own API keys and your data

You don't need an API key of your own for the trial. If you continue, the AI can run on your own API keys (for example Anthropic Claude, OpenAI or Google Gemini), and you pay the provider directly, with no markup. The API keys help page explains how to set this up. We store data on servers in Germany (EU). The text needed for each task is processed via API by the model provider you choose. This means it isn't a closed computation, and you should know that from the start. If you're looking at the data protection side, our GDPR and AI checklist for enquiries and quotes is a good place to start. All plans (Core, Team, Managed, AI) are included in the 14-day free trial, which you can start on the free trial page.