A lightweight planning tool for CITCON organisers, based on attendance
and t-shirt ordering experience from recent events including CITCON Europe
2026 Helsinki. Enter your current registration numbers to get catering and
t-shirt order estimates.
No data is sent anywhere. All calculations happen in your browser.
Catering Estimate
Post-COVID planning baseline: Around 50% of registrants
typically attend CITCON. Order catering for expected attendance plus a
10% buffer — equivalent to registrations × 55%.
Catering can often be adjusted closer to the event; use these figures as
your early estimate.
Expected attendance:
Recommended catering (exact):
Recommended catering order (rounded up):
T-Shirt Estimate
T-shirt orders are usually placed earlier than catering, so estimates
matter more. Enter the count of each shirt-size request from your
registration form. “No Shirt” responses are excluded
from the order.
The baseline uses 66% of each size’s requests (not
the catering formula). Sizes with very few requests are noted so you can
round them up manually. A small safety buffer is added to the total.
Size
Requests
Baseline (×66%)
Recommended
Small
—
—
Medium
—
—
Large
—
—
X-Large
—
—
XX-Large
—
—
Other / Custom
—
—
No Shirt
excluded from order
Totals
—
—
—
Shirt requests (excluding “No Shirt”):
—
After rounding per size:
—
Safety buffer:
—(spread across M / L / XL) Recommended total shirt order:
—
Note: one or more sizes have very few requests (baseline
below 1). Consider rounding those sizes up to at least 1 in your final order.
Planning Notes
Catering vs. t-shirts need different assumptions.
Catering can often be adjusted closer to the event; shirts usually
need earlier estimates.
Catering default: registrations × 55%
(50% no-show rate plus a 10% catering buffer). Adjust if your event
has a different historical pattern.
T-shirt default: size requests × 66%,
rounded per size, plus a fixed safety buffer of 3–5 shirts
— spread across Medium, Large, and X-Large. Exclude
“No Shirt” from the count.
Helsinki 2026 reference: 88 registrants, 46 attended
(47.7% no-show). Catering was ordered for 65 — too high. A 55%
estimate would have given about 49. T-shirt orders came out 4 shirts
short, which is why the default safety buffer is 4.
These are planning guidelines, not guarantees. Use your local knowledge
and early registration pace to tune the defaults.