Watch out. There’s a new Lancaster events calendar.

And it’s on this site.

It’s powered by event organizers.

When you create a Facebook Event, invite the Facebook user Lancaster Event-Calendar.

Voila! Your event is now listed on this public Lancaster events calendar.

Your event should be open to the public and take place within Lancaster County. That’s all I ask.

If you’re an event goer looking for something to do, bookmark the events calendar on this site.

And if you’re an event organizer, jump on Facebook and send a friend request to Lancaster Event-Calendar then invite “him” to your upcoming Lancaster County events.

I expect this calendar to get a little cluttered and chaotic, since it’s aim is to be easy and democratic. If you’d like something with a little bit of curation to it, the MOOSE/JSID/DID calendar is a good resource.

Where’d this event calendar idea come from?

Calendar of Things to Do In Lancaster, PAOn my personal Facebook account, I receive around three event invitations a day. Most of them are to really cool things going on right here in Lancaster County.

I say no to nearly all of them, and I feel bad doing it. I feel like I’m saying, “Not only can I not come, but I don’t support what you’re doing, and I’m OK with all the other people you’ve invited and all my friends seeing that I’ve personally decided not to attend your event.”

That’s the opposite of the message I want to send.

So instead of RSVPing “Yes” or “Maybe” to tons of events I have no intention of being a part of, and instead of complaining about getting invited to every last event taking place, I decided to try something new.

It struck me that when seen as a whole, the list of my pending invitations on Facebook looked like a pretty full community events calendar. I thought about all the event organizers who spend a couple hours for each event making sure all the right people, websites, and publications get the information about their event.

The rest was straightforward. Facebook creates a feed of all your events. Google Calendar displays such feeds, and lets you embed a calendar on a website. I have a website.

I don’t plan on policing or curating the calendar very much, and I hope I won’t have to. If push comes to shove, I expect that unfriending anyone who takes advantage of this resource (by inviting Lancaster Event-Calendar to every last silly event) will keep this calendar useful and relevant.

I’d love to hear your reactions, advice, or questions in the comments.