Tender Your Trusted Suppliers — or Find Better Ones.
GoodEvent Planner lets you send tenders to your own supplier list, or tap into GoodEvent Network to find verified event businesses you haven’t worked with before. Either way, all quotes land in one place and you compare them side by side. Free. No limits.
Before & After Using GoodEvent Planner for Supplier Sourcing
Before
- ❌ Emailing the same two suppliers out of habit, never knowing if you’re getting the best price
- ❌ No easy way to find specialist suppliers outside your existing contacts
- ❌ Copying and pasting requirements into separate emails for every supplier
- ❌ Quotes arrive in different formats across email threads, PDFs, and phone calls
- ❌ No visibility on which suppliers have responded and which are ignoring you
After
- ✅ Invite your own supplier list or search GoodEvent Network — all from the same tender
- ✅ Browse verified event businesses by trade, location, and rating before inviting them
- ✅ Write your requirements once, send to every supplier in one click
- ✅ All quotes arrive in one dashboard for instant side-by-side comparison
- ✅ Live status tags show exactly who has viewed, quoted, declined, or not opened yet
Your Existing Suppliers or Someone New — Your Call
Event supplier sourcing in GoodEvent Planner works two ways. You can tender to your own contact list — the suppliers you already know and trust. Or you can search GoodEvent Network to find verified event businesses beyond your usual circle. Most planners do both: trusted suppliers get first refusal, and the network fills the gaps.
Either way, all quotes come back to the same dashboard. You compare them side by side, message suppliers directly, and award the contract with one click. No email overload. No spreadsheet juggling. No chasing.
Why Most Planners Stick to the Same Three Suppliers
It’s not laziness. It’s efficiency. When you’ve worked with someone before, you know what you’re getting. You skip the vetting, the back-and-forth, and the risk of an unknown quantity turning up on the day.
But sticking to the same short list has a cost.
You might be overpaying. If your usual AV company knows you’ll always call them, there’s no pressure to sharpen their pricing. A bit of healthy competition changes that.
Your usual supplier might not be available. Peak season hits everyone at once. When your go-to marquee company is fully booked, you need a reliable alternative — not a frantic Google search at 9pm.
You miss specialist skills. The events industry is full of businesses with niche expertise — stretch tent specialists, inflatable hire companies, bespoke prop makers — that you’d never find through your existing contacts alone.
Your supplier list doesn’t grow itself. Unless you’re actively meeting new businesses, your network stays the same size it was three years ago.
GoodEvent Planner fixes this without adding admin. You get the speed and familiarity of your own list, plus the reach of a verified industry network, in the same tender workflow.
How Supplier Sourcing Works in GoodEvent Planner
Step 1: Build your tender. Create your event, add packages, and write your requirements. Attach site maps, floor plans, or any other documents suppliers need. Import a Bill of Quantities from Excel if you have one.
Step 2: Choose your suppliers. For each package, you decide who to invite. You have two options:
- Your own list: Upload your existing contacts or select from suppliers you’ve worked with before. These go straight into the tender.
- GoodEvent Network: Search verified event businesses by trade, location, and rating. View their profile, past work, and reviews before adding them to the invite list.
You can mix both in the same tender. Invite your usual furniture hire company and two new ones from the network. See who comes back with the best quote.
Step 3: Send. One click. Every supplier gets a notification with the full brief and a direct link to respond. They don’t need to create an account or install anything.
Step 4: Watch the dashboard. As suppliers open, view, and submit quotes, your dashboard updates in real time. Colour-coded status tags show you exactly where each supplier is in the process.
Step 5: Compare and award. All quotes sit in one view. Compare pricing, terms, and scope side by side. Message suppliers with questions directly in the platform. Award the contract to your chosen supplier with one click.
Time from opening the tool to sending your first tender: under 10 minutes.
Tendering to Your Own Supplier List
If you already have strong supplier relationships, GoodEvent Planner makes working with them faster and more organised — not more complicated.
Import your contacts. Upload your existing supplier list and it’s ready to use in any tender. No re-entering details for every event.
Send to multiple suppliers at once. Write the brief once. Every supplier on your list gets the same clear, complete information. No copying and pasting. No inconsistent emails.
All communication stays in one thread. Questions, revisions, and amendments are handled inside the platform per supplier. No digging through email threads months later to find out what was agreed.
Quote revisions are tracked automatically. When a supplier updates their quote, the revision history is stored. You always know what changed and when.
Amendments notify everyone. If the brief changes — as it always does — update the package once. Every invited supplier is notified immediately. No risk of someone quoting on the old version.
Becki, South Coast Marquees:
“Good Event has revolutionised the way we work here at South Coast Marquees. It’s saved us time, enabled us to respond quickly to prospective clients with a far more professional looking quotation system and therefore won us more business. Not only that but as an employer, we’ve been able to be more organised and professional giving staff the accurate information they need to deliver a job.”
Finding New Suppliers Through GoodEvent Network
When your usual contacts can’t help — or when you want to see if someone can do it better — GoodEvent Network gives you a searchable directory of verified event businesses.
Search by trade and location. Looking for a generator hire company within 50 miles of your festival site? A furniture hire business that covers corporate events in Manchester? Search and filter to find the right fit.
View profiles before you invite. Every business on the network has a profile showing their services, past work, and ratings from other event professionals. You can make an informed decision before adding them to your tender — no cold calls, no blind invitations.
Ratings built on real transactions. Reviews on GoodEvent Network come from other event planners and suppliers who’ve actually worked with these businesses. Not Google reviews from end consumers — industry-specific feedback from people who understand what matters on an event site.
Reach specialist suppliers you wouldn’t find otherwise. The events industry has hundreds of niche businesses — bespoke prop makers, stretch tent specialists, portable toilet companies with festival-specific fleet, staging companies with niche rigging capability — that don’t come up in a standard Google search. GoodEvent Network brings them to you.
Expand beyond your region. Some events need suppliers from further afield. GoodEvent Network has businesses across the UK and internationally, so you can source for events anywhere without starting from scratch.
Joel, TL Marquee Hire:
“10x more time to grow the business. The biggest benefit of Good Event for me has been the ability to delegate tasks and focus on other aspects of the business. The team can access everything they need online from their phone or iPad. Now I no longer worry about the general stresses of running a rental company, such as ensuring jobs are loaded, quoted, and paid. I now have 10x more time to grow the business.”
How Wedding Planners Use This Feature
Wedding planners typically source between five and fifteen suppliers per event. Most have a core list of trusted companies they work with regularly — a preferred marquee hire company, a furniture supplier, a reliable caterer.
With GoodEvent Planner, they invite their preferred suppliers first. If a package comes back over budget, or a supplier is already booked on the date, they search GoodEvent Network to find an alternative — viewing profiles and ratings before sending an invitation. Both quotes arrive in the same dashboard and compare side by side.
The result: their trusted suppliers get first refusal, new suppliers get a fair chance, and the planner always has options.
How Festival Organisers Use This Feature
Large-scale event organisers often need to source suppliers across dozens of trades — power, staging, fencing, toilets, catering, security, medical, and more. Some of those trades they have strong relationships in. Others, especially for specialist requirements or new event locations, need fresh sourcing.
With GoodEvent Planner, they build one tender with all packages, invite their known suppliers to the relevant sections, and search GoodEvent Network for trades where they need new contacts. All responses come back to the same dashboard, organised by package.
When a supplier is fully booked or passes on a package, the network means there’s always someone else to try — without starting the search from zero.
How Marquee Hire and Equipment Rental Companies Benefit
This feature isn’t only for the planner side. Marquee hire companies and equipment rental businesses are often on the receiving end of tenders — but they also need to source from sub-suppliers and cross-hire companies when their own stock is committed.
A marquee company tendering for a large festival might need to cross-hire additional frame sections, extra furniture, or specialist flooring. GoodEvent Planner lets them build a sub-tender to their own cross-hire contacts or search GoodEvent Network for alternatives — using exactly the same workflow their clients use when tendering them.
Common Mistakes When Sourcing Event Suppliers
Only ever calling your usual two or three contacts. Familiarity is valuable, but competition keeps pricing honest. Inviting one or two additional suppliers costs no extra time with GoodEvent Planner.
Not checking a new supplier’s profile before inviting them. Taking two minutes to review ratings, past work, and experience before sending an invitation saves a lot of pain later.
Sending different briefs to different suppliers. When every supplier gets a slightly different version of the requirements, you’re comparing quotes that aren’t actually comparable. One tender, one brief, sent to everyone.
Not setting a response deadline. Without a deadline, quotes drift in over weeks. Set a clear closing date in the tender so you’re not chasing indefinitely.
Assuming the supplier you’ve always used is the best fit for every event. A supplier who’s brilliant for a private wedding might not have the scale for a 2,000-person festival. Match the supplier to the event, not just to your contact list.
Forgetting to attach documents. Suppliers quoting without the site map, floor plan, or H&S requirements will come back with questions that delay everything. Attach everything upfront.
Why GoodEvent Planner is Different
Generic procurement tools and basic email workflows both fall short for event supplier sourcing. Generic tools weren’t built for events — they don’t understand marquees, BOQs, multi-trade tenders, or the fact that a supplier might need to quote on access, terrain, and rigging requirements rather than just price per unit.
Eventbrite is for ticket sales. Cvent is enterprise event management built for large corporate programmes. Facebook groups lack any structure for formal quoting. Generic procurement platforms like Jaggaer require IT teams and weeks of configuration.
GoodEvent Planner was built from the ground up for event professionals. It understands the language — packages, zones, tenders, BOQs, marquee hire, cross-hire. It handles the multi-trade complexity of a festival and works just as well for a single-trade wedding supplier request. And uniquely, it’s connected to a live directory of verified event businesses, so when you need a supplier you’ve never worked with before, you don’t leave the platform to find one.
For corporate event managers, the audit trail it creates — every invitation, quote, message, and award decision timestamped and stored — satisfies procurement compliance requirements without any extra admin.
It’s also free. No trial period. No subscription. No per-tender fees.
Access & Compatibility
Works on any device. Desktop, laptop, tablet, and mobile. No downloads. No installations. Always up to date.
Suppliers don’t need an account. They receive a direct link to the tender, click it, and submit their quote. No sign-up required. This is why response rates are higher than email.
Works with the rest of your GoodEvent tools:
- GoodEvent Network — Search and invite verified event suppliers directly from your tender
- GoodEvent Maps — Attach site plans to your tender so suppliers understand exactly what they’re quoting for
- GoodEvent Layout — Include floor plans and venue drawings in your tender documentation
- GoodEvent Docs — Require specific forms or H&S documentation from suppliers as part of their response
- GoodEvent Business — Convert awarded tenders into confirmed bookings and track costs against actuals
Getting Started
- Create a free GoodEvent Planner account — no credit card needed
- Build your first event and add your packages
- Invite suppliers from your own list, search GoodEvent Network, or both
- Send your tender
- Track responses and compare quotes from your dashboard
First tender sent in under 10 minutes.
Ryan, UK Marquee Hire:
“Logistically it has saved us so much time and money. Super easy to use, full support from the team, very good value for money and endless features to help with the running of our company.”Will, Canopi Marquees & Events:
“The system has been intrinsic to our growth and it’s been fantastic to see the system develop with us. Just as I need something new from the system you seem to launch it as a new product which is amazing.”
Related Resources
Other GoodEvent Planner Features
- How GoodEvent Planner works
- Tender creation and packages
- Quote comparison and management
- Supplier invitations
- Team collaboration
- Tenders for every event type
GoodEvent Network
Industry Pages
- Wedding planners
- Corporate event planning
- Marquee hire companies
- Furniture rental companies
- Festival and event agencies
Complementary Tools