What is a BEO (Banquet Event Order)?

A BEO is a Banquet Event Order: the single sheet that tells everyone working an event exactly what is happening, when, for how many people, and who is responsible for each part of it. One event, one BEO. If you are new to events and someone has just handed you one, it is the document you will work from all day.

The name is worth unpacking, because it puts people off. "Banquet" is a leftover from hotel banqueting departments, where the format started. It does not mean the event is a banquet. Hotels write BEOs for a 12-person board lunch, a 400-guest wedding, a school formal, and a two-hour product launch with canapés. "Order" means it is an instruction to the venue, not a proposal or a wish list. By the time something is on the BEO, it has been agreed and it is being delivered.

You will hear the same document called other things depending on where you work: function sheet or event sheet in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, catering order or event order in some hotel groups, and sometimes just "the sheet" or "the order". If someone says "check the function sheet", they mean check the BEO.

The one-sentence version

A BEO is the operational brief for one event: what to serve, how to set the room, how many guests to prepare for, when to get in, when to get out, and who to call if something goes wrong.

Why BEOs exist

An event has a lot of people who each hold one piece of it. The client talked to a salesperson three months ago. The chef needs a guest count and a dietary list. The banqueting team needs a floor plan. AV needs to know there are two wireless mics and a lectern. The duty manager needs to know the client's mother is in a wheelchair and the ceremony starts at 4pm sharp.

Without a BEO, all of that lives in someone's inbox, and the person who knows it is off on Saturday. The BEO exists so that a chef who has never met the client can walk in at 7am, read one page, and produce the correct food for the correct number of people at the correct time.

That is the whole idea. It is a handover document. It assumes the person reading it knows nothing about this event and needs to be operational in about two minutes.

Who actually reads it

This matters because it explains why a BEO is laid out the way it is. On the morning of an event, the same sheet gets read by:

The chef and kitchen team, who read the guest count, the dietary requirements, the service style and the meal times, and mostly ignore everything else.
The banqueting or floor team, who read the setup style, table count, and timings for when food goes out.
The bar team, who read the drinks package and when the bar opens and closes.
The AV team, who read the technical notes and the load-in time.
The duty manager or event manager, who reads all of it, because they are the person the client will find when something is wrong.
The planner or the client's own coordinator, who reads it to confirm that what they asked for in March is what is happening today.

Six readers, six priorities, one sheet. A good BEO makes each person's section easy to find at a glance.

What is on a BEO

Formats vary by venue, but nearly every BEO carries the same information. Here it is in plain English.

The header. Event name, date, day of the week, BEO number, and a revision number or date. The revision matters: if two versions are floating around, everyone needs to know which one is current.

The client. Who booked it, their contact number for the day, and who is on site representing them. Not always the same person. The bride's mother, the executive assistant, and the external planner are all common "on the day" contacts.

The space. Which room, which part of the room, and whether anyone else is using the building at the same time.

Times. Usually a short list: access from, guest arrival, ceremony or presentation, service times for each course, speeches, bar close, carriages, and vacate by. Two of those deserve their own explanation:

Access from is the earliest time crew can get into the room to set up. It is normally a contract term, not a suggestion. The room may be in use before you.
Vacate by is when the room has to be empty and back in the venue's hands. Running past it usually triggers overtime charges.

Older Australian sheets call these "bump-in" and "bump-out". They mean the same thing.

Guest numbers. Almost always two numbers, and the difference confuses everyone when they are new:

Expected or pax is the working number, which moves as RSVPs come in.
Guaranteed (or "guaranteed minimum", "the gtd") is the contractual floor. It is the number the client pays for whether those people show up or not, and the number the kitchen preps to. It is usually locked in a set number of days before the event, often seven or ten. That lock is called the cut-off.

If the guaranteed number is 120 and 104 people turn up, the client is still billed for 120. That is not the venue being difficult, it is why the kitchen was able to order the right amount of food.

Service style. How the food actually reaches the guest. Plated, buffet, family style, canapés or cocktail, grazing, or a mix.

The menu. Each course, written the way it will be served, plus any alternatives being offered. If guests preselected a main course, the counts go here.

Dietary requirements. The list the kitchen reads first. Counts by type (vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, dairy free, nut allergy, shellfish, halal, kosher) and, for genuine allergies, which guest and which table. Severity is flagged. An anaphylactic nut allergy is an entirely different job from a preference.

Beverage. What is included, what is on consumption, what the guests pay for themselves, when the bar opens and closes, and whether there is a spend limit or a bar tab cap.

Setup style. How the room is laid out, in the venue's shorthand. Rounds of ten, theater, cabaret, classroom, U-shape, cocktail. Usually with a table count and whether there is a head table, a stage, a dance floor, or a registration desk.

AV and technical. Microphones, screens, projector, lectern, sound for a band or DJ, lighting, and who is supplying each item. Venue-supplied and client-supplied kit get listed separately, because the argument at 5pm is always about which one it was.

Suppliers. Florist, band, photographer, cake, hire company, with arrival times. The person on the door needs to know who is expected and when.

Special notes. Anything that does not fit the boxes. The proposal after dessert. The surprise. The guest who must not be seated near another guest. The photo of the room setup the client sent through. Read this section. It is where the thing that ruins the night is usually hiding.

Billing. How it is being paid, what is prepaid, what settles on the day, and who is authorized to sign for extras.

A short example

BEO 1043 (Rev 2), Saturday 12 September, Garden Room

Client: Meridian Health. On site: Dana Okafor, 0400 000 000
Access from 12:00, vacate by 23:30
Guests: 86 expected, 80 guaranteed
17:30 arrival, canapés and sparkling on arrival, 18:30 seated, 20:15 speeches, 22:30 bar close
Service style: plated, alternate drop
Menu: entrée, main, shared dessert plates
Dietary: 4 vegan, 2 gluten free, 1 nut allergy (anaphylactic, table 6), 1 halal
Setup: rounds of 10, nine tables, no head table, lectern stage left, dance floor
AV: 2 handheld wireless, lectern mic, projector and screen, laptop supplied by client
Bar: house package to 22:30, spirits on consumption, capped at $800
Notes: staff awards, trophies arrive Friday, stored in the office. Guest in a wheelchair on table 3, aisle side.
Billing: 50 percent deposit paid, balance invoiced to Meridian Health after the event

That is enough for a chef, a floor team, a bar and an AV tech to run the night without asking a single question.

The shorthand you will see on one

Event teams write in shorthand, and a BEO is the densest place it appears. The terms that trip up new staff most:

Pax means people, the guest count. "180 pax" is 180 guests. It is used constantly.
Covers is the restaurant word for the same thing, a served guest.
BOH is back of house (kitchen, dock, service corridors). FOH is front of house (anywhere guests can see).
Alternate drop (or "alt drop") means every second plate is a different dish, so guests get one of two mains without preselecting. Common in Australia, less so elsewhere.
Canapés are the small hand-held items served standing, usually before a meal or instead of one.
Grazing is a shared table of food guests help themselves from through the event.
On consumption means the client is billed for what is actually used, rather than a fixed package.
Corkage is the per-bottle fee when the client supplies their own wine.
Cut-off is the deadline for confirming final numbers.
Turn or flip is resetting a room between two uses, for example clearing a conference lunch and re-setting it as a gala dinner.
Set and strike are building the room and taking it down.
Carriages is the polite word for the time guests leave.
Run of show, or run sheet, is the minute-by-minute timeline of the event itself. More on that next.
ROS is just the abbreviation of run of show, and you will hear it spoken as three letters.

BEO, run of show, contract and invoice

New staff mix these up constantly, and understanding the difference is most of the job.

The contract or booking agreement is the legal deal: the date, the space, the money, the cancellation terms. Signed months ahead. It rarely changes.
The BEO is the operational instruction: what to make, how to set it, how many to prepare for. Built from the contract plus everything agreed since. It changes right up to the cut-off.
The run of show (run sheet) is the minute-by-minute timeline: 17:29 doors, 17:30 arrival music, 18:32 welcome, 20:14 first speech. It is what the coordinator, the MC, the band and the AV operator work from live, and it is far more granular than the BEO's time list.
The invoice is what happened, priced. Built after, from the guaranteed number plus whatever went on consumption.

A useful way to hold it: the contract says what was sold, the BEO says what to produce, the run of show says what happens minute by minute, and the invoice says what it cost. A venue with a good BEO and a bad run of show has correct food arriving at the wrong moment. A venue with a good run of show and a bad BEO has perfect timing and the wrong number of vegan mains.

Who writes it, and when

Usually the salesperson, event coordinator or venue event manager who owns the booking. It gets started when the booking firms up, filled in as details land, and locked shortly before the event.

A rough life cycle:

Lead. Nothing on the BEO yet. Just a date, a space and a rough number.
Booking confirmed. Space, times, expected guests, service style and a draft menu go on.
Detail meeting, usually four to six weeks out. Menu confirmed, setup style, AV, timings, suppliers.
Final numbers, at the cut-off. The guaranteed count and the dietary breakdown are locked.
Distribution, usually the week of the event. The BEO goes to every department. Any change after this point is a revision, and revisions have to be reissued, not mentioned in passing.
On the day. Departments work from their printed or shared copy.

That "revisions have to be reissued" point is the one that catches people. A change agreed in a corridor and never written down is a change that will not happen. If the client adds ten guests on the Thursday, the BEO gets a new revision number and goes out again. Everyone reads the number in the header to check they are current.

If you are new, read it in this order

You do not need to read a BEO top to bottom. In your first thirty seconds:

Date, space and revision number. Confirm you are looking at the right event and the current version.
Guest numbers. Expected and guaranteed. Everything scales off these.
Your section. Kitchen reads dietaries and service style. Bar reads the package. AV reads the tech list. Floor reads the setup.
The times either side of yours. If you are plating mains at 20:00, look at what happens at 19:45 and 20:30. Speeches running long is your problem too.
Special notes. Always. That is where the surprise proposal and the allergy on table 6 live.

Then, once, read the whole thing. Ten minutes at the start of a shift is cheaper than one mistake at 20:00.

Common mistakes new staff make

Working from an old revision. Check the number in the header against whatever the manager is holding.
Reading pax instead of the guaranteed number. Prepare to the guaranteed count unless told otherwise.
Treating dietaries as a total rather than a list. Four vegan meals is not the same as four vegan meals on tables 2, 6, 6 and 11. Guests do not move to your convenience.
Assuming the client's timings are the crew's timings. Guest arrival is not your start time. Access from is your start time.
Agreeing to a change without getting it on the sheet. If a client asks you for something on the day, take it to the event manager. Verbal changes are how two departments end up doing different things.
Ignoring the supplier list. The band arriving at 4pm through the front door during a ceremony is a BEO reading failure, not a band failure.

How this works in 1pm

In 1pm the BEO is not a separate document you write and email around. It lives on the event itself, so the same record holds the client, the space, the guest count, the BEO detail and the run of show.

An event carries the BEO fields directly: service style, setup style, bar package, guaranteed pax, dietary requirements, an attached menu plus menu notes, AV notes, and the access from and vacate by times. All of them are optional and empty ones simply do not appear anywhere downstream. Filling them in is enough. There is no separate document to generate and no version to reissue, because there is only ever one copy and everyone is reading it live. The BEO or Function Sheet covers each field, where it appears, and how to turn the BEO tab on.

Crew and suppliers see the relevant parts through a shared link, with no login, on their phone. Dietary totals are handled more carefully than the rest, since they are personal data: they stay on your planner copy by default and are granted to the chef specifically. Collecting dietary requirements explains that.

Printing gives you the familiar sheet. When an event has both BEO detail and a timeline, the print comes out as one document with the BEO at the top and the run of show below, which is the format most venue teams already work from. See Printing the run of show.

Related reading: What's a run of show? for the timeline side, Access From and Vacate By for the load-in window in detail, Food and beverage menus for building a menu once and attaching it to events, and A venue walkthrough for the whole flow from lead to invoice.