A pre-bid meeting is held during the bidding period (often 1 to 3 weeks before bid submission) to give prospective bidders a chance to walk the site, ask questions about the drawings and specifications, and clarify any ambiguities. The architect and owner typically host. Questions raised at the meeting are often answered at the meeting and then formalized in a written addendum so all bidders have the same information.
Pre-bid meetings are sometimes mandatory (failure to attend disqualifies the bid) and sometimes optional. Even when optional, attending is strongly advisable because the in-person observation of the existing site conditions, the chance to question the architect about scope ambiguities, and the visibility into who the competition is all inform a more accurate bid. Bidders should arrive with a written question list, take photos and notes on existing conditions, and submit any post-meeting questions in writing through the formal RFI process.