event-promo-plan

---
name: event-promo-plan
description: Turns one event into a dated three week promotion plan, with every post and email written, every price stated in full, every deadline checked against the thing that actually makes it a deadline, and the claims that would breach the advertising code struck out with the rule that kills them. Use when you have a night in the diary and nothing written to fill it.
---

# Three weeks of promotion written in an hour, so the night is not empty

You give this the date of the night, what is actually happening, the price, the capacity you are allowed to sell, and the accounts and list you can post from. You get back a dated plan from three weeks out to the morning after, with every post, email and reply written in full, the total price stated the same way in every one of them, every scarcity or deadline claim either evidenced or struck, and a named person against every item. It will not invent an act, a menu, a number of tickets left, or a reason to hurry that does not exist.

## What it does

1. **Write down what is genuinely true about the night before writing a single piece of copy.** One line each: the date and door time, what happens and who is doing it, the total price a customer pays including every unavoidable fee, how many tickets exist, what is included and what is not, the last date you can still sell without losing money on food ordered, and what happens if it is cancelled. Then list every factual claim you intend to make. Everything written afterwards is checked against this list. A promotion written before the facts are settled is a promotion that has to be corrected in public, and a corrected price is the one thing a customer remembers.

2. **State the total price in every single piece, the same way, with nothing added later.** Section 230(4) of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 defines it: "the total price of a product includes any fees, taxes, charges or other payments that the consumer will necessarily incur if the consumer purchases the product." The CMA's own guidance puts the prohibition plainly: "The practice of showing consumers an initial headline price for a product and subsequently introducing additional mandatory charges as consumers proceed with a purchase or transaction, sometimes called 'drip pricing', is prohibited." So a GBP 30 ticket with a GBP 2.50 booking fee is a GBP 32.50 ticket in the post, the story, the email and the poster. CAP rule 3.18 says the same for tax: quoted prices "must include non-optional taxes, duties, fees and charges that apply to all or most buyers."

3. **Build the plan backwards from the door, not forwards from today, and anchor it to the dates that are real.** Three weeks out: the announcement and the on-sale. Two weeks out: the detail nobody knew, one piece of proof, and the first email. One week out: the practical post (parking, time, what to wear, whether children are welcome) and the reminder email to people who opened and did not buy. The last three days: one post a day, each about something different. The morning after: the thank you and the next date. If the night needs a temporary event notice, that application is its own dated item, because GOV.UK states "You must apply at least 10 clear working days before your event" and the latest a late notice can go in is "5 clear working days before the event". Promotion that runs ahead of the permission is promotion for something you may not be allowed to do.

4. **Make every deadline in the plan point at a real thing, or delete the deadline.** CAP rule 8.22: "Promoters must not claim that consumers must respond by a specified date or within a specified time if they need not." Schedule 20 paragraph 7 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 bans "Falsely stating that a product will only be available for a limited time, or that it will only be available on particular terms for a limited time, in order to elicit an immediate decision and deprive consumers of sufficient opportunity or time to make an informed choice," and those banned practices applied from 6 April 2025. A venue usually has two real deadlines and does not need to invent a third: the date the kitchen has to order, and the moment the tickets run out. Name which one each urgency line is standing on, in the plan, next to the line.

5. **Strike every claim you could not evidence today if somebody asked.** CAP rule 3.7: "Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that consumers are likely to regard as objective and that are capable of objective substantiation. The ASA may regard claims as misleading in the absence of adequate substantiation." Award winning, the best in the town, the only place doing it, locally sourced, sold out last time: each needs a document you can put your hand on. Rule 3.2 protects the obvious joke, since "Obvious exaggerations ('puffery') and claims that the average consumer who sees the marketing communication is unlikely to take literally are allowed provided they do not materially mislead," which is why the best pie in the world survives and the best pie in the town does not.

6. **Put every condition in the post that changes whether somebody can come.** CAP rule 8.17 requires marketing communications to convey "all applicable significant conditions or information where the omission of such conditions or information is likely to mislead," and rule 8.17.1 names "How to participate, including significant conditions and costs, and other major factors." For a night, the significant conditions are the ones people find out too late: over 18s only, no children after nine, ticket only with no walk ups, no refunds after a stated date, standing not seated, card only, dietary requirements needed by a date. These go in the post itself, not in a reply to the person who asked. A condition discovered at the door is a refund argument and a review.

7. **Make it obvious that a promotional post is a promotional post, including the ones your staff and friends put up.** CAP rule 2.1: "Marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such." Rule 2.3: "Marketing communications must not falsely claim or imply that the marketer is acting as a consumer or for purposes outside its trade, business, craft or profession; marketing communications must make clear their commercial intent, if that is not apparent from the context." A post from the venue's own account is obvious. A post from a member of staff, a friend given free tickets, or a local account paid or gifted to mention it is not, and it needs to say so. The plan lists every account that will post, who controls it, and whether anything of value changed hands.

8. **Do not buy, bribe or nudge a review, and do not ask a friend to leave one.** Schedule 20 paragraph 13 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 bans submitting or commissioning "a fake consumer review" and reviews that "conceal the fact it has been incentivised". The CMA's own guidance describes concealed incentivised reviews as "reviews that conceal the fact that they have been incentivised". So a free drink for a five star review is out unless the incentive is disclosed in the review itself, and a review written by anyone who was not a customer is out entirely. The plan may include asking every attendee to leave an honest review, with no reward attached and no steering toward the happy ones.

9. **Give every item in the plan a date, an owner, the finished copy and the image it needs, then log what actually went out.** No item reads "post something about the food". Each one carries: the date and time it goes out, the account or list, the full copy word for word, the image or video it needs and whether that exists yet, the link, the significant conditions it must carry, and the person who presses send. At the end, a single log line per item: what went out, when, and on what. That log is what makes the debrief possible, and without it the only honest answer to "what worked" next month is that nobody knows.

## Then it checks

1. Every piece of copy in the plan states the same total price, inclusive of every unavoidable fee, and no piece introduces a charge that an earlier piece did not show.
2. Every deadline, countdown or scarcity line names the real constraint it stands on, and any line that cannot name one has been deleted rather than softened.
3. Every objective claim in the surviving copy names the document that evidences it, with its date, or has been struck under rule 3.7 rather than kept with a caveat.
4. Every significant condition from step 6 appears in the body of the copy for each piece that invites a purchase, not only in the plan or in a reply.
5. Every account that will post is listed with who controls it and whether anything of value was given, and any post from a person rather than the venue carries a disclosure.
6. Every item has a date, a named owner, finished copy and a named image, and any item whose image does not yet exist is listed as blocked rather than shown as ready.

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. Copy written as though the chef or the owner wrote it goes to them before it goes out.
- Never write a number of tickets remaining, a number of people coming, or a sold out claim that has not been read off the booking system that morning. A sold out sign on a night with forty spaces is the single fastest way to teach a town to ignore you.
- Never state an engagement rate, a reach figure, a conversion rate or a best time to post for a single independent venue. No such published figure exists for one pub in one town, and an owner who sets a target from a borrowed number will conclude a perfectly good night failed.
- Never promote a licensable activity before the licence or the temporary event notice that permits it is confirmed, and never assume a late notice will be accepted.
- Refuse to write any post, reply, review or comment presented as coming from a customer, a neutral local or an unconnected account when it comes from the venue or from anyone the venue has given something to. That is a banned practice under Schedule 20, not a grey area, and the skill does not produce it in any form.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own prices, capacity, licence and bookings before anything is published, and for their solicitor or trade body to check any comparative or superlative claim. It applies published advertising and consumer rules to draft copy; it is not a ruling that the copy complies.

## Built from
- Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, section 230, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/13/section/230, read 16 September 2026: the definition of total price in subsection (4), which is the whole of step 2.
- Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Schedule 20, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/13/schedule/20, read 16 September 2026: paragraph 7 on false limited time claims in step 4 and paragraph 13 on fake and concealed incentivised reviews in step 8, with the commencement date of 6 April 2025 shown on the page.
- Competition and Markets Authority, "Unfair commercial practices" (CMA207), https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/unfair-commercial-practices-cma207/unfair-commercial-practices, last updated 18 November 2025, read 16 September 2026: the drip pricing prohibition quoted in step 2 and the requirement to present price information clearly and in a timely way.
- Committee of Advertising Practice, CAP Code (Edition 12), Section 3 "Misleading advertising", https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/03.html, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: rule 3.7 substantiation and rule 3.2 puffery in step 5, and rule 3.18 on non-optional taxes and charges in step 2.
- Committee of Advertising Practice, CAP Code (Edition 12), Section 8 "Promotional marketing", https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/08.html, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: rule 8.22 on false deadlines in step 4 and rules 8.17 and 8.17.1 on significant conditions in step 6.
- Committee of Advertising Practice, CAP Code (Edition 12), Section 2 "Recognition of marketing communications", https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/02.html, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: rules 2.1 and 2.3 behind the disclosure requirement in step 7.
- GOV.UK, "Temporary Events Notice", https://www.gov.uk/temporary-events-notice, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: the 10 clear working days and 5 clear working days notice periods that fix the licence item in step 3.

# event-promo-plan

## You are given
The facts of one event at a UK hospitality business, already settled by the owner: the date, the door time, what happens, the total price a customer pays including every unavoidable fee, any optional extras and their prices, the number of tickets that exist, the capacity the venue is permitted to admit, the significant conditions (age limits, ticket only, seated or standing, refund cut off, dietary notice date), and the date the kitchen must order by. The finished promotional copy for every item in the plan, written word for word, each already assigned a date, a time, an account or list, an image filename and a named owner. The list of accounts that will post, each with who controls it and whether anything of value was given to that person. Any evidence documents behind claims in the copy, such as an award certificate, a supplier invoice, a menu, a licence or a booking report. The temporary event notice status, if one is needed, with the date it was submitted. And the judgements already made by Claude: which claims were kept and which were struck, and the rule cited for each strike.

## Produce
Write into a `./event-promo-plan-output/` folder:

1. `event-facts.csv` with these columns in this order: `fact_ref`, `fact_name`, `value_verbatim`, `source_document`, `source_date`, `settled_by_owner`. `fact_ref` is F001 upward. `settled_by_owner` is `yes` or `no`. One row for each of: event date, door time, headline price, booking fee, any other unavoidable charge, total price, tickets available, permitted capacity, refund cut off date, kitchen order date, and each significant condition.
2. `plan-items.csv` with columns: `item_ref`, `days_before_event`, `send_date`, `send_time`, `channel`, `account_or_list`, `owner_name`, `copy_verbatim`, `characters`, `total_price_stated`, `price_matches_event_facts`, `image_filename`, `image_exists`, `link_url`, `conditions_carried`, `status`. `item_ref` is P001 upward. `channel` is exactly one of `instagram post`, `instagram story`, `facebook post`, `email`, `poster`, `website`, `whatsapp`, `other`. `image_exists` is `yes` or `no`. `price_matches_event_facts` is `yes`, `no` or `not applicable`. `status` is exactly `ready` or `blocked`.
3. `claims-register.csv` with columns: `claim_ref`, `item_ref`, `claim_text_verbatim`, `claim_type`, `evidence_document`, `evidence_date`, `substantiated`, `decision`, `rule_cited`. `claim_type` is exactly one of `price`, `date or time`, `superlative`, `award or accolade`, `provenance`, `availability or scarcity`, `deadline`, `free or no-cost`, `number`, `puffery`. `substantiated` is `yes` or `no`. `decision` is exactly `kept` or `struck`. Every `struck` row carries a non-empty `rule_cited`.
4. `deadline-audit.csv` with columns: `item_ref`, `urgency_phrase_verbatim`, `real_constraint_named`, `constraint_type`, `constraint_date`, `verified_against`. `constraint_type` is exactly one of `kitchen order date`, `tickets exhausted`, `licence or notice deadline`, `venue capacity reached`, `none given`. Any row reading `none given` is listed in `gaps.md`.
5. `disclosure-register.csv` with columns: `account_or_list`, `controlled_by`, `relationship_to_venue`, `value_given`, `value_description`, `disclosure_required`, `disclosure_wording_verbatim`, `disclosure_present_in_copy`. `relationship_to_venue` is exactly one of `the venue`, `employee`, `owner or family`, `friend or regular`, `paid third party`, `gifted third party`, `unconnected`. `value_given`, `disclosure_required` and `disclosure_present_in_copy` are each `yes` or `no`.
6. `send-log.csv` with columns: `date`, `time`, `item_ref`, `channel`, `account_or_list`, `sent_by`, `link_url`, `notes`. Appended to any existing log, never overwritten. Written with headers only where nothing has yet been sent.
7. `gaps.md` - a numbered list of: any item with `status` of `blocked`; any item whose stated total price does not match `event-facts.csv`; any urgency phrase with no real constraint named; any kept claim with no evidence document and date; any item inviting a purchase that does not carry the significant conditions; any posting account whose controller is not named; any required disclosure missing from the copy; any image marked as not existing; and, where a temporary event notice is needed, any item dated before that notice was confirmed.

## Rules
- Codex measures, records and checks. It never invents, never rewords the owner's copy, and never makes the judgement that was supplied to it. Copy is recorded exactly as written, including punctuation, capitalisation and emoji.
- Never write a new post, caption, headline, hashtag or reply, and never replace a struck claim with a suggestion.
- Never compute, estimate or fill in a total price. The total price is read from `event-facts.csv` as the owner supplied it, and any item stating a different figure is flagged, not corrected.
- Never mark a claim substantiated without a supplied evidence document named in the row with its date.
- Never write a number of tickets remaining, a sold out claim, or an attendance figure that was not supplied as a dated reading from the booking system.
- Never write an engagement rate, a reach figure, a conversion rate, an industry average or a best time to post. No such figure exists for a single independent venue and none is to appear in any file.
- Never produce, record as ready, or carry into `send-log.csv` any item presented as coming from a customer or a neutral local when `disclosure-register.csv` shows a relationship to the venue and no disclosure in the copy. Such an item is `blocked` and listed in `gaps.md`.
- Never publish, post, send or connect to any social platform, email platform or booking system. Every file produced is a draft for a person to send.
- Character counts are counted, not estimated, and include spaces and punctuation.
- Use British English, GBP and DD Month YYYY dates. No em dashes in any file you write, and any supplied copy containing one is recorded verbatim and flagged in `gaps.md`.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own prices, capacity, licence and bookings before anything is published, and for their solicitor or trade body to check any comparative or superlative claim. It applies supplied rules to draft copy and is not a ruling that the copy complies.

## Return
The absolute path of each file written, the row count of each CSV, the number of plan items by channel and the earliest and latest send dates, the count of items marked ready and blocked with the reason for each block, the number of claims kept and struck with the rule cited for each strike, every item whose stated total price does not match `event-facts.csv`, every urgency phrase with no real constraint named, every posting account requiring a disclosure and whether that disclosure is present, the number of images marked as not existing, the temporary event notice status and any item dated before it, the `send-log.csv` row count, and the `gaps.md` item count.