The Reckoner · Tangled Thistle
Show your
work.
Eleven instruments that run the arithmetic an event actually depends on — in the open, with every assumption labeled.
Every other planning tool answers “how many bartenders for 150 guests” with a number. That number is worthless, because it hides the three assumptions that decided it. These do the opposite. You supply the inputs, the instrument shows each step of the sum, and then it tells you plainly which of those numbers were measured, which were borrowed from a vendor, and which I invented so you could see the method.
Every input is labeled. This is what the labels mean.
Time it or measure it at the actual venue, in the configuration the event will run in. A figure carried over from the site visit is a different number.
A Tangled Thistle planning assumption, put here so the arithmetic is visible. It is not an industry statistic and it is not your event. Replace it.
An operating rate an operator published about their own business. A defensible starting range, not an engineering constant.
A figure from a published code or standard, reproduced for planning discussion. Never a compliance determination.
A decision you are making, not a fact to look up. Changing it changes the event, not just the answer.
The instruments below are live. Change any input and the arithmetic re-runs in front of you.
A number without inputs is just costume jewelry.
Nothing here is a recommendation for your event. Every instrument is a method with the arithmetic left visible, so that when a vendor, a venue or a spreadsheet hands you a figure, you can ask the only question that matters: what did you assume to get there? Where a standard is quoted, it is quoted for discussion. Occupant load, accessibility and electrical decisions belong to the venue, the authority having jurisdiction and the people qualified to make them.