Great event planning skill

A Claude skill for planning great side events at conferences: dinners, cocktail evenings, breakfasts, or demo nights alongside a larger event.

Built from playbooks used to run 30+ events across Amsterdam, London, Paris, Stockholm, San Francisco, and Copenhagen.

What's inside

• SKILL.md — the full skill: setup phase, event execution, 8 artifact templates, guardrails
• README.md — this file

The skill produces these artifacts depending on what stage you're at:

1. Operating model — reusable playbook (save to Notion / Google Docs, reference for every event)
2. Venue comparison table — side-by-side with cost breakdowns showing the math
3. Per-venue detail cards — menu pricing, drink packages, tariffs, deposit terms, cost estimate
4. Registration page copy — Luma-ready, approval-required, with qualifying questions
5. Guest list tracker — Google Sheets structure with status tracking and stats
6. Outreach sequences — LinkedIn warm, LinkedIn cold, WhatsApp, with follow-up cadence
7. LinkedIn promotion post — personal account, no public link, DM-me pattern
8. Event-day run sheet — team roles, timeline, guest list, logistics checklist
9. Post-event report — numbers (not vibes), venue rating, follow-up status

Installing

% npx skills add https://github.com/arnons1/great-event-planning-skill

Sample prompts

Full event planning:

We're doing a dinner during SaaStr in SF, co-hosting with Vercel. 20 people, CFOs and finance leaders. Help me plan it.

First-time setup:

Set up the operating model for our event series. We're a billing infrastructure company, we target CFOs and revenue ops, and we run a series called "Revenue Rendezvous."

Venue scouting:

I need to scout venues in Amsterdam for a 25-person dinner on Sep 23 near the RAI in Amsterdam. Private room, budget around €2,500.

Outreach only:

Draft outreach messages for our London Tech Week side event. We've got the guest list ready, 30 people, mix of warm and cold contacts.

Co-host coordination:

We're co-hosting with a company called Pied Piper. They do accounts receivable automation. Help me figure out the theme and split the work.

Post-event:

The dinner was last night. Help me write the event report and draft follow-up messages for each guest.

Granola recipe for feeding this skill

If you're holding an internal meeting about this, add my "Great event organizer brief" Granola recipe and run /Great event organizer brief in Granola's chat. It produces a structured brief from the meeting: event snapshot, venue status, guest list plan, draft invite copy, task list, open items, and a condensed input block formatted for pasting directly into this skill.

Use it right after any planning call (internal or with a co-host) to turn the conversation into something actionable without manually re-reading the notes

How it works

The skill runs in two phases. Setup runs once and produces an operating model you keep in Notion or Google Docs. Event execution runs for each event and produces only the artifacts you need at that stage.

flowchart TD
    subgraph Setup["Phase 1: Setup (once)"]
        D[Discovery questions] --> OM[Operating model document]
    end

    subgraph Execution["Phase 2: Event execution (each event)"]
        OM -.->|read| I[Event inputs]
        I --> A{Which artifacts?}
        A --> V[Venue table]
        A --> VC[Venue cards]
        A --> R[Registration copy]
        A --> G[Guest list tracker]
        A --> O[Outreach sequences]
        A --> L[LinkedIn post]
        A --> RS[Run sheet]
        A --> PR[Post-event report]
    end

    style Setup fill:#f5f0eb,stroke:#b5523a,stroke-width:2px
    style Execution fill:#f0f4f5,stroke:#4f5d75,stroke-width:2px
    style OM fill:#fef0e8,stroke:#b5523a

Operating cadence

Events follow a three-phase timeline. The skill produces artifacts at each phase.

gantt
    title Event timeline (6-week example)
    dateFormat  YYYY-MM-DD
    axisFormat  %b %d
    tickInterval 1week
    weekday monday

    section Phase A · Setup
    Confirm co-host, agree terms           :a1, 2026-01-05, 1w
    Get conference attendee list           :a5, 2026-01-05, 3w
    Set up Luma page                       :a2, 2026-01-12, 1w
    Scout & book venue                     :a3, 2026-01-12, 2w
    Build target guest list                :a4, 2026-01-12, 2w

    section Phase B · Outbound
    Wave 1 warm outbound                   :b1, 2026-01-26, 1w
    Wave 2 expand outbound                 :b2, 2026-02-02, 1w
    LinkedIn promotion                     :b3, 2026-02-02, 1w
    Follow-up sequence                     :b4, 2026-02-02, 1w

    section Phase C · Execute
    Final confirmations                    :c1, 2026-02-09, 1w
    Confirm headcount with venue           :c2, 2026-02-09, 1w
    Event day                              :milestone, c3, 2026-02-16, 0d
    Follow-up within 48 hours              :c4, 2026-02-16, 2d
    CRM entry & event report               :c5, 2026-02-16, 1w
    Debrief with co-host                   :c6, 2026-02-16, 1w

Artifacts

The skill asks what stage you're at and produces what you need now.

flowchart TB
    subgraph setup["Setup"]
        OM["Operating model"]
    end

    subgraph venue["Venue scouting"]
        VT["Venue comparison table"]
        VC["Per-venue detail cards"]
    end

    subgraph outbound["Outbound"]
        GL["Guest list tracker"]
        RC["Registration page copy"]
        OQ["Outreach sequences"]
        LP["LinkedIn promotion post"]
    end

    subgraph event["Event day"]
        RS["Run sheet"]
    end

    subgraph post["Post-event"]
        PE["Event report"]
    end

    OM -.-> VT
    OM -.-> GL
    VT --> VC
    GL --> OQ
    RC --> OQ
    OQ --> LP
    LP --> RS
    RS --> PE

    style setup fill:#fef0e8,stroke:#b5523a,stroke-width:1px
    style venue fill:#f0f4f5,stroke:#4f5d75,stroke-width:1px
    style outbound fill:#f0f4f5,stroke:#4f5d75,stroke-width:1px
    style event fill:#f0f4f5,stroke:#4f5d75,stroke-width:1px
    style post fill:#f0f4f5,stroke:#4f5d75,stroke-width:1px

Operating model

On first use, the skill asks about your company, ICP, event series branding, budget range, and preferred format. It produces a document covering: identity and naming convention, target audience (including the "one level below C-level" insight), co-hosting defaults, per-city budget benchmarks, venue criteria, the 3-phase timeline with owner assignments, outreach principles, and a running venue database.

You save it once and it becomes the reference for every event.

Venue comparison table

Cost breakdowns show the math, not just totals:

Per-venue detail card

Each shortlisted venue gets a card with: address, capacity, contact, menu pricing by course count, drink packages (unlimited vs. wine pairing), tariffs and minimum spend, deposit terms, extras with prices, and a cost estimate for your headcount with the arithmetic visible.

Outreach sequences

Three channels, tailored message sequences:

Messages are short, personal, sent from a human account. The registration link is never included directly, always sent after a reply.

Other artifacts

Registration page copy follows the pattern: [Series Name]: [Theme] — [Conference] Edition. One paragraph on the challenge, one on the format, a simple agenda, one-liner per host. Approval required, never open registration.

Run sheet gives the on-site team a one-pager: who does what, timeline, confirmed guest list with conversation notes, logistics checklist.

Post-event report captures numbers (invited, confirmed, showed, show rate, ICP match rate, meetings booked), venue rating, what worked, what to change, follow-up status per guest.

Guardrails

These are baked into every artifact, not a separate checklist:

Co-hosting

Most events work better with a co-host that has an overlapping audience and a non-competing product.

The skill will coordinate: 50/50 cost split, max 3 people per company, shared Google Sheet for the guest list (double-inviting the same person is encouraged), co-host as Luma editor, each side adds qualifying questions to registration, local co-host scouts venues, both sides post from personal LinkedIn accounts.

Installation

Save great-event-planning.skill to your Claude skills.

License

MIT License - use these prompts however you want, commercially or personally.

See LICENSE for details.

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About

If this skill helps you organize events, give it a star!
Built by Arnon Shimoni