Glossary
Event operations, defined
Plain-language definitions of the terms event planners and agencies use every day. Each one answers the question directly first, then adds the practical context.
What is event operations software?
Event operations software is the system event teams use to run an event behind the scenes: tasks, vendors, payments, guest lists, timelines, approvals, and files, tracked together around the event.
It sits between two categories that do not cover the work. Ticketing platforms handle registration and payments from attendees, and generic project tools track tasks without understanding events. Event operations software makes the event itself the unit of work, so when a headcount or a payment date changes, everything connected to it stays in sync. Party Script is an event operations workspace.
What is run of show?
A run of show is a minute-by-minute timeline of an event that tells every vendor and team member what happens when, and who is responsible for each moment.
A good run of show covers setup, doors, each segment of the program, and teardown, with a name attached to every line. It is shared with everyone who appears in it, not just the core team, and a printed copy is kept on site because phones fail at the worst moments. In Party Script the run of show lives on the event and can be printed for the day.
What is event health score?
An event health score is a single live score from 0 to 100 that shows how an event is really doing by combining its key risk signals into one number.
Party Script computes it from five signals: budget utilisation, RSVP response rate, open issues, pending approvals, and overdue tasks. A score of 80 or above is healthy, 60 to 79 needs attention, and below 60 is at risk. The point is speed: a planner running ten events can see at a glance which one needs them today.
What is rSVP management?
RSVP management is the process of building, cleaning, and tracking an event's guest list: who is invited, who confirmed, who declined, and who actually attended.
In practice guest lists arrive as messy spreadsheets with duplicates and inconsistent columns. Good RSVP management imports those files, de-duplicates entries, maps fields, and then tracks confirmations and day-of check-ins so the caterer and the venue always have the real number.
What is vendor payment schedule?
A vendor payment schedule is the agreed set of payments owed to a vendor, each with an amount and a due date, typically a deposit to hold the booking and a balance near the event.
Missed vendor payments are usually tracking failures, not money failures: the due date lived in a contract and nothing reminded anyone. A payment schedule turns each payment into a dated, trackable item. Party Script reminds the planner automatically when a payment is coming due or has slipped past its date.
What is event template?
An event template is a ready-made event setup that pre-loads the tasks, checklists, and budget categories a given type of event needs, so planning starts from a working baseline instead of a blank page.
Party Script ships templates for weddings, destination weddings, corporate conferences, exhibitions, and social events, and planners can save any event of their own as a reusable template for the next one.
What is smart automations?
Smart automations are rules that watch an event and act without being asked: reminding about payments coming due, alerting when a budget crosses its threshold, and nudging approvers when a request sits too long.
Party Script's automations remind the planner when a vendor payment is due, alert the owner when spend reaches ninety percent of the budget, remind approvers when an approval has been pending for more than forty eight hours, and generate a standard checklist the moment an event is created. Every alert fires exactly once.
What is client portal?
A client portal is a read-only live view of an event that a planner shares with the client through a link, so the client sees real progress without needing an account or another update call.
The planner chooses which sections the client can see, such as overview, budget summary, guest stats, vendors, and the agenda. Because the view is live, a change made in the workspace is immediately what the client sees.
What is day-of coordination?
Day-of coordination is the work of executing an event on the day itself: managing vendor arrivals, the timeline, the team, and the inevitable surprises, against the plan that was built in advance.
Strong day-of coordination depends on preparation artifacts: a printed run of show, a vendor contact sheet, confirmed call times, and one person every vendor knows to call. The calmer the system, the calmer the coordinator.
What is event readiness?
Event readiness is a measure of how complete an event's preparation is, usually expressed as a percentage across tasks done, vendors confirmed, budget items settled, checklists ticked, and guests confirmed.
Readiness answers a different question from health. Readiness asks how much of the plan is complete. Health asks whether anything is currently going wrong. Party Script shows both: a readiness percentage per event and a live health score across its risk signals.
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