“Attendance At” or “Attendance Of” – Which Is Correct?

The word ‘attendance’ can be paired with a variety of different prepositions. On this page, we are going to help you to determine whether ‘attendance at’ or ‘attendance of’ is the correct preposition to use. We will also look at some of the other paired prepositions.

Is It ‘Attendance At’ or ‘Attendance Of’?

In most cases, it will be ‘attendance at’. This indicates that a person will be attending a place. You would use ‘attendance of’ when you are indicating some sort of ‘possession’. You will find ‘attendance at’ used a lot more frequently.

You will always use ‘attendance at’ when discussing a particular place, or event e.g. ‘attendance at the wedding’ or ‘attendance at work’. If you are ever unsure as to which preposition to use then, most of the time, you can use ‘at’ and get away with it.

You can use ‘attendance of’ when the attendance can be possessed by the noun that follows the ‘of’. For example, a pupil at a school ‘owns’ their attendance at school. This means that you can say ‘the attendance of the pupil’.

For the most part, you are not able to use the prepositions interchangeably. Although, there are cases where you can use ‘at’ instead of ‘of’. For example, both of these sentences talk about a person’s attendance at school. Although, if you notice, the sentence structure will change ever so slightly.

• The attendance of the pupil was good
• The pupil’s attendance at school was good.

Attendance At

The phrase ‘attendance at’ is used whenever you are stating that somebody (including yourself) will be in attendance at a specific location or event. Because of this, ‘attendance at’ is likely going to get the most use out of all the prepositions.

It is important to note that ‘attendance at’ will only ever be used if there is a named location or event. There is no requirements as to the tense that the phrase needs to be in. So, you can say “attendance at” for present, future, and past tense. Here is an example:

• I will be in attendance at the work meeting (future)
• I am in attendance at the work meeting (present)
• I was in attendance at the work meeting (past)

To give you more of an idea of how ‘attendance at’ works in a sentence, here are a few examples:

1. My attendance at the wedding was important. (my attendance)
2. Your attendance at the work meeting is compulsory. (your attendance)
3. I can confirm attendance at the event. (confirm attendance)
4. I will be in attendance at the concert.
5. She was in attendance at the wedding.

Attendance Of

You would use the phrase ‘attendance of’ when the attendance is something that can be ‘possessed’ by the noun that either follows or comes before the ‘attendance of’. Basically, imagine if somebody could ‘own’ the attendance. This phrase doesn’t get a lot of use.

Here, you can imagine that the person is possessing the attendance. Perhaps the best way to imagine it is attendance is a physical object that can be filled. If you can fill that physical object, then you would use ‘attendance of’. For example, you can physically ‘possess’ a school record of attendance, and thus you can say “my school record of attendance was good”.

We know that the definition of ‘attendance of’ can be somewhat tricky to wrap your head around here, so let’s give you a few example sentences so you can see how it works.

1. My school record of attendance was fantastic (my attendance)
2. The meeting requires the attendance of you (your attendance)
3. I can confirm the attendance of my sister (confirm attendance)
4. The manager shared the record for the attendance of his employees.
5. She was asked to confirm her attendance of the wedding.

As a final point to note here, the final sentence can be substituted with ‘at the wedding’, although ‘of the wedding’ is still grammatically correct.

Attendance To

‘Attendance to’ is very rarely correct. When you use ‘attendance to’, it is normally to indicate that a notification must be sent somewhere. For example, if you are confirming attendance at an event, you would send a “notification of attendance to”.

Here are a couple of ways that you can use ‘attendance to’ in a sentence. Notice how there is an incredibly limited amount of use for this phrase here:

1. Send confirmation of the meeting’s attendance to the manager.
2. You must give reasons for your lack of attendance to the school.

Attendance For

While the phrase ‘attendance for’ is technically correct, it very rarely gets used. In most cases, if you say ‘attendance for’, it means that you are talking about an event that you are attending. Here, you will normally be able to substitute the phrase for something a little bit better.

Here are some examples of how ‘attendance for’ can be used. As you can see, most of these sentences, while technically correct, would look much better if you used ‘at’ instead. Most of the time, we wouldn’t really recommend that you use ‘attendance for’ at all.

1. I am in attendance for the Grand Prix.
2. I am flying home from Sweden so I can be in attendance for my sister’s wedding.

Correct Preposition For Confirmation Of Meeting Attendance

If you are confirming attendance at a meeting, you would almost always use “attendance at”. While you may be able to use other prepositions, you would normally have to change the structure of the sentence, which could make things a little bit difficult to read.

Technically, you could say something like “I will be at the office so I am in attendance for the meeting”, although this is a rather convoluted way of saying things, so it is probably best avoideded.

If you wish to confirm your attendance at a meeting, then you would be able to use one of these example sentences. Remember, you may have to change up the sentence a little bit, just to make it a bit more personalized for your situation:

1. I wish to confirm my attendance at the meeting
2. I, unfortunately, cannot be at the meeting today.