Accessibility questions that should be on every RFP
Asking the right accessibility questions in your RFP protects guests from barriers and saves you from costly last-minute fixes.
I once watched a bride’s father spend forty minutes of a venue walkthrough parked behind a banquet table, because the ramp route from the parking lot dead-ended at a service door with no handle on the outside. The venue was lovely. The contract was signed. Nobody had asked the question. That walkthrough cost the couple $2,800 in rebooked shuttle service alone.
That’s the whole problem with accessibility on an RFP. Most planners have a checklist for load-in times, insurance minimums, and the F&B floor. Fewer than half have a section for the questions that decide whether a guest with a mobility aid can actually get to their seat, use a restroom, and hear the toast. If you’re sourcing a room for 200 in a historic building, or a rooftop with a freight elevator and a flight and a half of stairs, those answers need to be in writing before you sign, not discovered on-site the week of.
Here’s what I put in every RFP now, and why each question earns its place.
Entrance, parking, and the path from the car to the door
Ask the venue to describe, in writing, the route a guest using a wheelchair or walker takes from the drop-off point to the registration table. Not “we’re accessible.” The actual path. Which door. How many feet. Whether it’s the same door everyone else uses or a side entrance.
For a historic property, this matters more than almost anything else on the list. A lot of the mansions we source were built well before anyone thought about a 36-inch clear width, and the accessible entrance is often a service corridor with a coat rack in it. Asking the venue to walk and describe that path surfaces the problem while you still have room to negotiate. If you’re working a historic mansion in Chicago, put this question first and ask for a floor plan with door widths marked.
Also ask about parking. Accessible spaces, count, and distance to the entrance. Then ask what happens when the lot fills and guests get redirected to a garage two blocks away, because a shuttle that can’t take a wheelchair is a problem you want to know about now.
Restrooms, and the count that matters
“How many accessible stalls do you have?” is a better question than “Is the restroom accessible?” Ask for the count, the stall dimensions, and the location on the floor plan. Then ask whether the accessible restroom is on the same level as the event space, or whether it requires a key from the venue’s office.
I’ve had a venue tell me, cheerfully, that the accessible restroom was on the third floor. The event was on the ground floor. The elevator was out of service for a scheduled repair that weekend. That’s not a code problem, that’s a logistics problem, and the fix was moving the event to a different room. I only caught it because I asked for the restroom locations on a marked floor plan.
Ask whether the venue provides an attendant or a key. Ask if there’s a family or all-gender restroom for guests with attendants or caregivers. Each of those is a real need, and each one gets a line in the RFP.
Sound, sight lines, and where the accessible seating actually sits
This is the section most planners skip, and it’s the one I’ve been wrong about the longest. For years I’d ask about a hearing loop and call the accessibility box checked. I stopped doing that after a guest with low vision told me she couldn’t read the centerpiece cards, the printed program, or the menu. None of those were on my radar.
Now the RFP asks for the AV situation in plain terms. Is there a house sound system? Is there a hearing loop, an FM assistive listening system, or nothing? If there’s a system, how many receivers, and does it cover the whole room or just the front third?
Then sight lines. Ask the venue to mark reserved accessible seating on the floor plan. Not “we’ll find a spot,” a marked location. Ask whether that seating is at a table with a clear path to the dance floor and the restrooms, or pushed to the back edge where the guest can’t see the head table. If you’re pricing AV separately, run the numbers through an AV cost calculator before you commit, and ask the venue whether they’ll let you bring in your own receiver equipment if their system is thin.
The other piece: captions. If there’s a slideshow, a tribute video, or a speaker with a microphone, ask whether captions are possible and who’s running them. It’s a small ask in the RFP and a large relief for anyone who needs it.
Elevators, stairs, and what happens when the elevator breaks
Ask how many elevators serve the event floor, how many are freight, and whether there’s a backup. Then ask what the venue’s plan is if the elevator goes down during an event. I want a written answer, and I want the name of the person who makes the call.
The lofts and industrial spaces in Salem tend to have one elevator and a freight entrance, and the freight entrance is sometimes the accessible route. Ask about that specifically. A loft with one elevator is fine until it isn’t, and the venue’s plan for a broken elevator is the difference between an inconvenience and an evacuation.
For rooftops, ask about the stair count and the turning radius on the landings. I’ve walked a rooftop in Sarasota where the accessible route went through the kitchen, past a service elevator, and out onto the deck through a door with a six-inch lip. Six inches is nothing on a drawing. It’s an absolute wall for a wheelchair.
Service animals, medical needs, and staff training
Ask whether the venue has a written policy on service animals, and ask for it. Ask whether the venue’s staff have received any accessibility training, and if so, from whom. If the answer is “we don’t track that,” that’s your answer, and you decide whether it’s a dealbreaker.
Ask about refrigeration for medication. A surprising number of venues will store a guest’s insulin or a medication that needs cooling, but only if you ask, and only if they know which refrigerator is available. Ask about a private space for a guest who needs to pump, rest, or manage a medical situation. These are small rooms, and small rooms are easy to promise and easy to forget.
Ask who the on-site contact is for accessibility needs the day of the event. Name and phone number, in the contract. Not a general line.
Contract language: the part that decides whether any of this holds
The questions are worthless if the answers don’t make it into the contract. Ask for the venue’s accessibility commitments in writing as an addendum. If they promised a marked seating area, a hearing loop with eight receivers, and staff training, all of that goes in.
Then confirm the money. Two venues quoting the same rental rate can land $4,000 apart once you price in a shuttle for guests who can’t use the stairs, a rented portable ramp, an outside AV provider for assistive listening, and an attendant. Run the F&B side through a minimum calculator so you’re comparing total cost, not headline cost, and note which accessibility items the venue covers and which you’re paying for.
Our own planner resource library has the RFP template I use, with the accessibility section already built in, if you’d rather copy than build from scratch.
Questions to send this week
Pull six venues you’re currently considering and send them the entrance, restroom, and seating questions above. Give them a deadline of five business days and ask for a written response, not a phone call. The answers will tell you more about how a venue operates than the walkthrough will, because the venue that can’t produce a marked floor plan in five days usually can’t produce a backup plan the day the elevator quits either.
I’d rather learn that in the RFP stage than at 6 p.m. on the event date, standing in a service corridor with no handle on the outside of the door.
Send me your brief. Tell me the guest count, the city, the date window, and any accessibility needs you already know about. I’ll send back the short list of venues that can actually deliver, with the questions already answered.
Questions planners ask about this
What accessibility questions should be in every venue RFP?
Ask for the written route from drop-off to registration table. Which door, whether it is the same entrance everyone uses, and whether any step, curb, or threshold interrupts it. Ask about restroom clear width and door hardware. Ask where a guest using a mobility aid sits and how they reach the dance floor. Ask what hearing assistance the room provides. Get all of it in writing before you sign.
How do I ask a venue about accessibility without sounding like I am accusing them?
Frame it as documentation, not doubt. Say you need the answers in writing for your own planning file and for guests who will ask you directly. Venues that have done the work will hand you the details quickly. Venues that have not will give you a sentence like we are fully accessible. That sentence is your signal to walk the route yourself before you commit.
What does an accessible route actually need to include on an RFP answer?
The path from the vehicle drop-off to the door, the door itself, and the path from that door to the seating area. Ask whether the accessible entrance is the main entrance or a side or service door, and whether someone has to unlock it. Ask who opens it and how a guest reaches that person. Ask the venue to state the clear width of the narrowest point on the route.
Should I ask about restrooms in the RFP or just check them at the walkthrough?
Ask in the RFP. By the walkthrough you have already narrowed your list and spent site visit time. Ask how many accessible restrooms serve the event space, where they are relative to the room, and whether the door is automatic or requires a handle turn. Ask if any are locked during events and who holds the key. A restroom answer that changes at the walkthrough is a cost you did not budget.
How do I handle accessibility for a historic building where the venue may not know the answers?
Ask them to measure rather than describe. Request the clear width at the narrowest point of the route, the height of any step or threshold, and whether a temporary ramp is available. Ask if they have hosted guests using mobility aids before and what they did. If they cannot answer, ask to bring your own access consultant or a guest who uses a wheelchair to the walkthrough.
What accessibility questions do planners forget until the week of the event?
Hearing and sight lines. Ask where the speakers and the head table sit relative to guests who are deaf or hard of hearing, and whether the room has a loop or assistive listening devices. Ask about lighting levels during toasts and whether the program can be captioned. Ask where a service animal can relieve itself. These rarely appear on a checklist and they are the ones guests remember.
Send me three things: your headcount, your date, and your brief. That's it. I'll pass them to venues that actually match, and quotes come back to you. I once skipped the brief and wasted two weeks on the wrong rooms, so trust me on this one.
