The hardest part of many gatherings is not the planning or the cost. It is agreeing on a date. The group chat fills with what about the 14th, no I have a thing, the week after maybe, and a fortnight later there is still no date and the energy has drained out of the whole idea.
Why date threads fail
Open ended date discussion is a bad format for a group decision. Each person replies to a different message, availability is scattered across a dozen texts, and nobody can see the overall picture. The person trying to organise it ends up holding the whole thing in their head, cross referencing who can do what, and that person quietly gives up. The plan dies of logistics, not lack of interest.
Propose, do not ask
The fix is to stop asking when works for everyone and start offering a small set of specific options. Three or four candidate dates is plenty. A constrained choice is far easier to answer than an open question, and it moves the group from brainstorming to deciding.
Let a date poll do the counting
When you create the event on PopIn you can add a date poll: put up your candidate dates and let guests vote. The voting is approval style, so each person can tick every date that works for them, not just one. That is the important detail. A poll where people pick a single favourite tells you what people prefer. A poll where people tick all the dates they can do tells you which date the most people can actually attend, which is the thing you need to know.
When the votes are in, you finalise the winning date and the event locks to it. Everyone who voted already knows it is happening, and you never had to hold the availability spreadsheet in your head.
Keep the window tight
Do not leave a poll open for two weeks. The longer it runs, the more people forget they voted and the more the chosen date drifts toward irrelevance. Put up the options, give people a few days, then call it. A poll is a tool for making a decision quickly, not a way to defer the decision indefinitely.
Two or three options, not ten
Resist the urge to offer every possible date. Ten options split the vote and make the result mushy. Three or four well chosen dates, ideally a mix of a weeknight and a weekend, give a clear winner and a fast decision. The goal is to get a date on the calendar before the enthusiasm fades, and a short poll is the quickest path there.