Can gravity forms do what I need?

FORM # 1 (simple, I know GF can do this) :
-- Name of Club / Affiliation [this will be a dropdown list]

Yes

-- Contact Person personal information

Yes

-- Participant personal information

Yes

-- Role [Select Athlete, Coach, Judge, Manager]

Yes

-- Date of Birth (dd/mm/yyyy)

Yes

-- Discipline [choose using checkboxes]

Yes

-- Paragraph input for their childs competitive category

Yes. So far, so good.

FORM # 2 (this one is a bit more complicated) :
-- Event location, start + end dates, and description

Four different things there. Location, no problem. Two dates; start and end: no problem. Description, no problem.

-- Registration Deadline

Another date; no problem.

-- Intended date of Departure: (dd/mm/yyyy)

Another date, no problem.

-- Intended date of Return: (dd/mm/yyyy)

No problem.

-- Description of event

No problem

-- Checkbox to indicate if registration for this event will have an option to purchase clothing. If this checkbox is checked, display the clothing options below as purchase options (each one has a different price, and they can enter a quantity for each one):

Couple things here. A checkbox to indicate if they want to purchase clothing. If so, then conditionally display the clothing options below. You can put all the clothing in a form section, and hide teh section with conditional logic unless the box is checked. Your products can all have a price, and you can accept any quantity for each product.

-- * 10 different clothing articles of various costs (to appear as options if they clicked the checkbox to purchase clothes) *

See above (yes)

-- Fees: TOTAL COST of registration based on which check boxes they chose in the clothing section + depending on the cost of registration for this event

You didn't mention a cost to register for the event. I got the impression they were entering events. Are you going to present a list of events where they will pick, or are you going to allo people to be creating events. This line does not jive with what I though you were doing in the beginning of form 2.

** Registration amounts owing are tracked in the admin area and the date of payments can also be entered for payments not made online. I need a list of everybody who has "registered" for an event (filled out the form), AND whether or not they've PAID via PayPal. **

Each entry will record which event was selected, and the price, and the payment status (paid or not using PayPal.) If you are using one form for all events, you will have to sort in the admin by the event name or date or other identifier, or will have to export all the entries for the form and do your sorting in a spreadsheet program like Google Docs, OpenOffice.org Calc or Excel.

** PayPal payment: Set up payment by PayPal as an option for registrants. **

You can accept PayPal payments using one of our PayPal add-ons so long as you have a developer license. However, you said "PayPal payment as an option. How else will the registrant be paying?

If you found the time to read this, I truly appreciate it. I need to know, 110%, whether or not GF can do all of the above before I purchase... my boss would kill me if I requested that he spend 200$ only for it to go to waste if GF can't quite do what we need.

If it can do what I need, we will be buying the developer package ASAP!

Let me know, thanks
Sam

I need you to clarify if this form will be used to register people for a pre-selected set of events, or how this is going to work. I got the impression initially that you were going to be collecting those dates from the visitor, but it sounds like what you are doing is registering people for events, charging some amount for that, and allowing them to optionally purchase clothing, all with PayPal. Is that accurate? Can you add anything to that to clarify?

You can allow people to select offline payment or PayPal payment in your form. Then it's up to you to collect payment for the offline ones. The online ones can complete their transaction with PayPal if you have installed one of the PayPal add-ons.

I don't see any problems with form 2 in allowing users to select from events you've already created. If those items are not pre-set by the creator of the event (like the location, which would not be something the visitor can change for an event) you can allow the visitor to enter those details using the available form inputs.

The one thing which might not meet your needs exactly is in trying to get a list of the people who have signed up for an event. I think you can export the entries and then sort them offline in a spreadsheet tool as previously explained.