event-package

---
name: event-package
description: Builds one printable page that sells a Christmas, party or private booking, with an inclusive price per head, the deposit and payment dates, the service charge stated honestly, and the allergen and final-numbers deadlines. Use when enquiries ask "what do you do for Christmas" and you are sending a menu photo, or when your existing package sheet causes arguments on the night.
---

# One page that sells the Christmas booking and holds up on the night

You give this your menu, what you can seat, your deposit terms and how you handle service charge. You get back a single page an organiser can forward without editing: one inclusive price per head, what is inside it and what is not, three dates with what happens at each, the deposit schedule as a table, and one line on allergies. It is built to survive the two moments a package sheet is tested, which are the moment the organiser sells it to eleven other people and the moment the bill lands.

## What it does

1. **One page, one package, one price. Do not send three options.** An organiser choosing between the £42, £52 and £65 menus will take the sheet back to a group, fail to reach agreement and go quiet. Build one package that suits the room, and if you genuinely need a second, make it a different shape rather than a different price point: a lunch and a dinner, a canapé reception and a seated dinner. Put the price in the largest text on the page and make it a number per head. Everything else on the sheet exists to justify that number or to prevent an argument about it.

2. **Make the headline price inclusive of everything the party cannot avoid.** The Competition and Markets Authority's price transparency guidance says a price "will be realistic, meaningful and attainable if the headline price includes all mandatory charges that consumers will need to pay to purchase the product", and forecloses the usual workaround: describing something as an "extra service does not make it optional. If the consumer will have to pay the additional charge in order to purchase or receive the advertised product, it is a mandatory charge." Its list of examples includes "purchase taxes (eg VAT)", "administration fees, however described, such as booking or processing fees" and "mandatory cover or service charges". So VAT, room hire, a compulsory cover charge and a compulsory service charge all go inside the per-head figure on this page. You may still show the breakdown underneath, and the guidance permits that, but the big number is the one they pay.

3. **Decide whether your service charge is compulsory or discretionary, then say which, in one sentence.** These are different products and venues blur them. If it is compulsory it is inside the headline number under step 2. If it is genuinely discretionary, say so in words a guest understands: added to the bill at 12.5% and removable on request. Then say where it goes. The statutory Code of Practice under the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023, in force since 1 October 2024, covers tips, gratuities and service charges "including both automatically added and other voluntary service charges", and requires employers to "pass on all tips and service charges to workers without deductions, except in very limited scenarios, such as deduction of income tax". A sheet that says the service charge goes to the team is saying something a guest cares about and that the law now expects you to be able to evidence.

4. **List what is included as countable things, and what is excluded as a short list.** Included: three courses from the set menu, a glass of something on arrival, the room from 7pm to 11.30pm, crackers, still and sparkling water. Excluded: all other drinks, cake cutting, anything after 11.30pm, a DJ. Write both lists as bullets, not prose. The test is whether the organiser can answer "are drinks in it?" from the sheet without messaging you, because that question will be asked by at least four of the twelve and the organiser will not want to look uninformed answering it.

5. **Put the deposit and the payment schedule on the page as a table with dates in it.** The CMA's unfair contract terms guidance says a genuine deposit may be kept in full where the venue "makes clear to the consumer at the earliest opportunity that a deposit is required, and the precise circumstances in which it would be non-refundable", and that "those circumstances must be clear and narrow, so that the trader does not have wide discretion to retain the deposit". It also accepts an ascending scale, noting that such a scale "can provide consumers with certainty and clarity as to their position if they need to cancel" and quoting a court's approval of one shown "not in small print but in a very clear form, namely a table of cancellation charges in ascending scale". Three or four rows: deposit to confirm, balance date, and what is retained at each notice band.

6. **Write the three deadlines as calendar dates and say what happens if each is missed.** Final numbers, pre-orders with dietary requirements, and balance. "Final numbers by Friday 5 December. After that we charge for the confirmed number." "Pre-orders by Friday 12 December. Any guest without a pre-order gets the vegetarian main." That second sentence prevents a real argument: a party of twenty with three missing pre-orders becomes a kitchen problem at 7pm unless the sheet already decided it. Never write "two weeks before", because the organiser is working from a calendar and the venue is working from a diary, and they will not agree.

7. **Handle allergens in one line on the page and one process behind it.** The Food Standards Agency's best practice guidance says businesses should "make allergen information easily available in writing for consumers and ensure staff are able to support this with a conversation", and that written information should be "comprehensive - it should provide information on all 14 allergens". For pre-ordered group food it is explicit: allergen information "should also be discussed with individuals on the day, before the food is served. It may not be sufficient to rely only on information supplied in advance as ingredients could have changed or details been missed in the original order." So the page says allergen information for every dish is available in writing on request, asks for requirements with the pre-order, and states that a member of staff will check with each guest at the table. The sheet does not attempt to list allergens per dish, because a package sheet printed in October will be wrong by December.

8. **Say what you can actually seat, and in which configuration.** Maximum seated, maximum standing, whether the room is exclusive at that number or shared, and whether there is a minimum spend. State the minimum spend as a number, inclusive on the same basis as the headline price. The organiser's real question is "can we have the room to ourselves", and a sheet that answers it with "subject to availability" is a sheet that generates four emails. Give the honest answer, including the awkward one: the back room is exclusive at 24 or more, and shared below that.

9. **Produce the three artefacts and keep them identical.** A printable one-page PDF for attaching and for the bar. A plain text version for pasting into an email or a DM, because an attachment sent to a phone often does not get opened. A deposit and payment schedule the venue can work from, with a row per confirmed booking. The same price, the same dates and the same deposit appear in all three, checked value by value. Put a version date in the footer of the PDF, because the single most common failure of a package sheet is last year's file going out in October with last year's prices on it.

## Then it checks

1. One price per head appears as the largest number on the page, and no mandatory charge, VAT line, room hire, cover charge or compulsory service charge appears outside it anywhere on the sheet.
2. The service charge is described once, in one sentence, as either compulsory or discretionary, with a percentage and, if discretionary, the words for how a guest removes it.
3. The included and excluded lists between them account for every cost the party will meet on the night, and no item appears on both.
4. The deposit table has at least three rows, ascends, and states what the venue does if the venue cancels.
5. All three deadlines are calendar dates, each states the consequence of missing it, and no deadline is expressed as a relative period such as "two weeks before".
6. The printable version, the plain text version and the schedule state the same price, the same three dates, the same deposit and the same capacity, compared value by value rather than read over, and the PDF footer carries a version date.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is: the sheet names a real contact at the venue with a direct route.
- Never advertise a price with a mandatory charge outside it. The CMA's position is that a charge the guest cannot avoid is mandatory however it is labelled, and a party that discovers a compulsory 12.5% after the sheet has been forwarded to eleven people will remember the venue for it.
- Never claim a service charge goes to the team unless you can show how. The statutory tipping code requires a written policy on how tips are dealt with, kept available to workers, and a record of allocation, so the claim on the sheet has to match a document that exists.
- Never print allergen information per dish on a package sheet. A sheet lives for three months, a supplier changes a product in a fortnight, and the FSA's own guidance requires the information to be accurate and reviewed. Point to information you maintain instead.
- Never reissue last year's sheet with the dates changed. Check every price against the current menu cost and every capacity against the current room, because the sheet is a commitment for the whole season.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner's accountant, solicitor or environmental health officer to check before it is published, particularly the VAT treatment, the service charge and tipping wording, the deposit terms and the allergen line. It drafts a sales page; it is not legal, tax or food safety advice.

## Built from
- Competition and Markets Authority, "Unfair commercial practices: price transparency, CMA209", https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/691b10065a253e2c40d705d9/Price_transparency_-_CMA209_.pdf, published 18 November 2025, read 14 September 2026: paragraphs 3.3, 4.3 and 4.4 on the total price and what counts as a mandatory charge, including VAT, booking fees and mandatory cover or service charges, which set step 2, step 3 and check 1.
- Department for Business and Trade, "Code of Practice on Fair and Transparent Distribution of Tips", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/distributing-tips-fairly-statutory-code-of-practice/code-of-practice-on-fair-and-transparent-distribution-of-tips-html-version, in force 1 October 2024, read 14 September 2026: the statutory duty to pass on all tips and service charges without deductions and to keep a written tipping policy, which is why step 3 requires the sheet to say where the service charge goes and rule five requires it to be evidenced.
- Competition and Markets Authority, "Unfair contract terms, CMA37", https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f8b58ed915d74e33f716e/Unfair_Terms_Main_Guidance.pdf, 22 July 2026, read 14 September 2026: paragraph 6.62 on disclosing the deposit at the earliest opportunity with clear and narrow circumstances, and 6.64 and 6.67 on the ascending cancellation table, which set step 5 and check 4.
- Food Standards Agency, "Allergen information for non-prepacked foods: best practice", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/allergen-information-for-non-prepacked-foods-best-practice/allergen-information-for-non-prepacked-foods-best-practice, published 24 February 2025, read 14 September 2026: paragraphs 28 and 29 on written information covering all 14 allergens and paragraph 50 on group pre-orders being re-checked with individuals on the day, which set step 7 and the sixth rule.
- ResDiary, "Beyond the Booking: UK & IE Hospitality Industry Report 2024", https://resdiary.com/industry-insights/uk-ie-hospitality-industry-report-2024, no publication date shown on the page, read 14 September 2026: across 175 surveyed venues, 76% were affected by no-shows with an 8% average rate and £3,621 average annual loss, and 51% took deposits at an average trigger of nine covers, which is why a package sheet for a seasonal party is written as a deposit product rather than a menu.

# Event package one-pager builder

## You are given

A UK hospitality venue's details for one bookable package, as a menu in a PDF, DOCX or photo, notes, or a config file. Expect: venue name and address, package name, the set menu courses, the price per head, whether VAT is inside that figure, any room hire or cover charge, the service charge percentage and whether it is compulsory or discretionary, seated and standing capacity, exclusivity and at what number, minimum spend, deposit per head, the balance, final numbers and pre-order dates, and a named contact.

## Produce

Write all files into an output folder named `event-package-output`.

1. `package-onepager.html`, one A4 portrait page with a print stylesheet. Top to bottom: venue and package name, the inclusive price per head as the largest element, a bulleted `What's included` list, a bulleted `Not included` list, a `Key dates` table with columns `date,what happens,if missed`, a `Deposit and payment` table with columns `when,amount,what we keep if you cancel`, a one-line allergen statement, a capacity and exclusivity line, and a footer with the contact, phone, email and a version date as `DD Month YYYY`.
2. `package-onepager.pdf`, the same page rendered to PDF.
3. `package-email.txt`, plain text under 2,000 characters, same price, dates, deposit and capacity, for pasting into an email or DM.
4. `payment-schedule.csv`, columns `booking_ref,organiser_name,event_date,covers,price_per_head,total_inclusive,deposit_due_date,deposit_amount,balance_due_date,balance_amount,final_numbers_date,preorder_date`. Header row plus one worked example row.

## Rules

- The headline price must include VAT, room hire, cover charge and any compulsory service charge. Compute it, state it once, breakdown only in smaller text below. A discretionary service charge stays outside the headline, described with its percentage and how a guest removes it.
- Every date on every artefact is a calendar date, `Friday 5 December 2026`. Never a relative period such as "two weeks before".
- The deposit table has at least three rows and the retained amount ascends as the notice shortens.
- Do not list allergens per dish. Print one line offering allergen information in writing on request, asking for requirements with the pre-order, and saying staff will check with each guest on the day.
- Never invent a price, capacity, date or contact. Print a missing value as `[MISSING: value name]` and list every one at the top of your return.
- The price, the three dates, the deposit and the capacity must match across the HTML, PDF, text and CSV. Verify by extracting each value from each file, not by reading them over.
- British English, `£` for money, no em dashes, no emoji.

## Return

One paragraph, under 120 words: the four file paths, the inclusive price per head and its components, the three key dates, and every value marked as missing.