What are the attendance rules?
The invitation names them: mandatory or optional, one attendee or two, registration by when, identification required, safety induction, exhibited documents. A mandatory briefing missed is a failed mandatory; check mandatory criteria for how gates work and diary the session before anything else. Send people who can observe technically: the delivery lead sees what the bid writer cannot.
What do you observe and record?
Access and constraints: site access, storage, working hours, live operations around the work, ground and building conditions, services locations, safety environment. Questions raised by other attendees; they reveal rival readings of the scope, which is competitive intelligence earned honestly. Who from the buyer attended and what emphasis they gave; emphasis is not preference, but it hints at evaluation weight. Log all of it the same day; memory degrades faster than the close date approaches.
What do you ask, and where?
On site: clarifications of fact (measurements, access times, existing conditions). After: everything material goes through the pack’s published clarification channel, in writing, for written answer to all tenderers. Verbal answers on site bind no one. If it matters, it must return as an addendum; the handling is on addenda and clarification questions. Off-channel follow-ups with buyer staff met on site are probity events wearing friendly clothes.
What does this mean for the bid/no-bid call?
Ground truth observed on site reprices the pursuit: access costs, staging constraints, live-environment productivity, travel and accommodation for remote sites. If the site contradicts the price, re-gate before writing another page. And if competitors’ questions reveal the pack is wired (how to spot a tender written for the incumbent), believe the evidence over the invitation.