Plan an Entire Event in Notion!

As a Product Marketing Manager, I’ve run hundreds of large-scale events at work but those usually involve spreadsheets with over 20 tabs!

In this post I share how to plan and organize smaller scale events (such as birthday parties) with ease using a simple Notion template 🎉

Resources

• Download my Event Management Notion template here
• Thomas Frank's Ultimate Tasks tutorial

Watch it in action

Large-scale events (for work)

If you've ever organized an event, you know that the process can be quite complicated.

Large-scale events, like the ones organized by Product Marketing Managers, can involve dozens of team members, complicated spreadsheets, and crazy formulas.

In this blog post, we will show you how to easily plan and organize personal events, like birthday parties, all by yourself using a simple Notion template.

Event Management Notion Template

Our template has a very simple overall structure. At the very top, you will find an overview of the event with toggle blocks that you can use to quickly access information such as the venue name and address.

On the left side, there is a key info section with the six elements that are involved in 99% of events. Additionally, there is an empty archived page to throw outdated information into, and an action items table that clearly shows what your next step should be.

Overview Callout Block

Starting with the Overview callout block, the event brief is where you brainstorm what the event is going to be about.

• Is it going to be a casual dinner party with ten friends or a bachelor party with sixty bros? Your ideas here will and should affect your action items and how you plan the overall event.

Once you have a date, time, and venue, write that down in a "venue and logistics" block so you can easily access that information. For example, you can take a screenshot from Google Calendar and highlight the date so your friends can visually see when the event is happening.

Action Items

Moving over to action items, you will see that each item represents a key milestone that needs to be reached to push the event planning forward. There’s a status, due date, and item type.

The “Action” item type includes normal activities like confirming the event date and location, paying the deposit for the venue, and confirming food and beverage. In the Confirm Food & Beverage page, relevant information like the menu and quotation is included directly on the page for easy reference.

The “Comms” item type is where you will send communication to event attendees, like sending an invitation, a confirmation, or a reminder message. When planning these action items, you can start off with a few key milestones and add more as you go along, since each event is going to be different.

Timeline

The Timeline page is just a calendar view of the milestones database, where you can see all the action items by due date in a nice visual format. This timeline view is super useful for you to reference, but you can also screenshot it to share how the planning is going with others.

Invitees

The Invitees page is a database to keep track of friends you’ve invited, their status - Invited, Maybe, Confirmed, or Declined - and whether or not they’re bringing a +1 so you can get an accurate headcount.

The Follow Up view filters for people who haven’t responded, so you know to follow up with them. In the Confirmed view, you can see a Count All at the bottom, summing up all the +1s, so you know at a glance how many people are coming.

Communication

Lastly, the Comms page is where you can send invitations, confirmations, and reminders to your guests. Each type of communication has a slightly different approach, and the page provides detailed guidance on how to communicate with your guests.

Summary

In conclusion, organizing events can be a time-consuming and complicated process, but with our Notion template, it doesn't have to be. Whether you're planning a small birthday party or a large-scale event, this template can help you stay organized, track your progress, and communicate with your guests.

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