Collect event RSVPs as attendee records
Each RSVP becomes an Attendees record with guest count and dietary notes, stamped with the event date.
New form submission
Create a record in the Attendees table with the event date
One-directional. A submission triggers the action — nothing is written back into your form.
Headcount is the number everyone asks for and nobody has to hand. An RSVP form writing into an Attendees table gives you a running total that the caterer, the venue and whoever is printing badges can all read from the same view.
Events teams reach for this once one form is doing the work of a spreadsheet and a mailbox at the same time. The event date is not something a guest fills in, so it is typed into the Zap as a fixed value — which is what lets one base hold several events and still group a calendar view properly.
Setting it up
- 1
Publish one RSVP form per event, so the event date can be set once inside the Zap rather than asked of every guest.
- 2
In Airtable, give the Attendees table a Guests number column, a Dietary single-select, an Attending single-select and an Event Date date column.
- 3
In Zapier, select formformform, the New Submission trigger and the RSVP form for this event, then load a sample RSVP.
- 4
Add the Airtable Create Record action, connect the account, and choose the events base and its Attendees table.
- 5
Type the event's date straight into the Event Date field in the Zap. It is identical for every guest, so it should not come from the submission.
- 6
Map Your Name to the primary field, Email Address to Email, and "How many in your party?" to the Guests number column.
- 7
Map "Will you be attending?" to the Attending single-select and Dietary Restrictions to the Dietary single-select, adding an Airtable option for every choice on the form.
- 8
Test with one yes and one no, build a calendar view grouped by Event Date with Guests summed in the summary bar, then turn the Zap on.
What maps where
Using the Party RSVP Form as the starting point. These are its real fields — swap in your own and the mapping works the same way.
| Form field | Airtable |
|---|---|
| Your Name | Primary field of the Attendees table |
| Email Address | Email column |
| Will you be attending? | Attending single-select |
| How many in your party? | Guests number column |
| Dietary Restrictions | Dietary single-select |
| Anything else we should know? | Notes long text column |
Variations worth knowing
Point a Zap from each event's form at the same Attendees table, each typing its own date into Event Date. A calendar view then shows the whole season, and a grouped grid gives per-event headcounts. Add a Source column with the event name typed in as well, since two events can share a date.
It is tempting to filter the Zap so only a yes creates a record, but then you cannot tell a no from someone who never answered. Write every RSVP and filter the view to Attending = Yes for the headcount instead. The full table becomes your chase list for people still silent a week out.
If something isn't arriving
"How many in your party?" gets read as the total by some guests and as extra guests by others. Say which you mean in the question's help text, and if you decide it means extras, add a Zapier Formatter step that adds one before the value reaches the Guests column.
Each submission creates its own record, and nothing is read back from Airtable to update the first one. Sort the view by created time and keep the newest row per email address, or put a Zapier Find Record step in front of the action to update instead of adding.
Frequently asked questions
How do guests change an RSVP after submitting it?
They fill the form in again, which adds a second Attendees record rather than editing the first. Deduplicate by email address in Airtable, keeping the most recent row. Saying so on the confirmation screen saves you a round of emails asking what happened.
Can the record hold the event date if the form never asks for it?
Yes. Anything constant for the whole event — the date, the venue, the event name — is typed as a fixed value in the Zap's Airtable action rather than mapped from a field. Every record created by that Zap then carries the same value.
Should dietary requirements be a select or free text?
A single-select keeps the caterer's grouping clean, but it will drop any answer that is not already an option in Airtable. Offer the common choices as a select and add a free-text notes question underneath for the allergy nobody anticipated.
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Build the form first
The automation needs somewhere to fire from. Publish a form, connect it once, and every submission from then on runs this flow.
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