Assigned Seating Through the Venue Designer
Setting up a venue? Don't stress! Follow our tips to create seating charts easily. The Venue Designer feature allows you to design the layout of your venue and create a reserved seating chart through a drag-and-drop builder.
Once you create your ticket types, you can design your venue and create your assigned seating chart. If you still need to create your ticket types, click here.
🚫 IMPORTANT REMINDER 🚫
Please do not ignore the warning when you try to unlock / edit the seat/table/row labels. This may cause registrations to disappear or allow duplicate bookings for the same seats.
If there are existing registrations and labels are changed, the existing registrations will still have the old labels, and the seats become available again for the new labels, so this can cause duplicate seat bookings.
1. Enable Assigned Seating
After creating the ticket types, select which ones will be included in the assigned seating chart.
Open the ticket type of editing
Go to Advanced Settings
Enable Assigned Seating
Note: Assigned Seating is available for free and paid tickets. It's not available for Donations.
2. (Optional) Show the existing ticket owner's information to other purchasers
When new registrants hover on tickets that are already purchased, you can show the existing ticket owner's information such as their Organization name. If you're selling booths, this might be a helpful way to select which location to pick based on the locations that other companies picked.
Note: The ticket owner's information will show only if the order is fully paid.
After enabling the toggle for Assign Seating, you'll see the field for Display Name on Floor Plan appear.
In the dropdown, you'll see the active Ticket Buyer fields
Select the field you want to display in the seat selector (e.g. Organization)
We recommend making the field required in the order form to ensure that they won't skip this field when registering
Save and repeat step 1 and 2 if you have multiple ticket types.
3. Open the Venue Designer
Below the ticket list, you'll find the Open Venue Designer button. If this is your first time opening the Venue Designer, you'll see a quick 60-second tutorial. We highly suggest taking a look at this!
3. Upload Images
This is an optional step. If you have a reference chart or a background image, you can upload it to the Venue Builder. This will make it easy for you to lay out your seats! We suggest keeping things simple so your chart is easy to understand.
4. Add Seats
Click the Table or Row icon on the left-hand toolbar to add tables or individual seats to your venue.
For Tables: Select your table shape, and then on the right-hand side, set the number and location of the seats at the table. You can place your table in the spot it will be at your venue by left-clicking on your trackpad or mouse.
Note: Use Tables if you're selling bundles and match the number of seats per table to the number of tickets per bundle.
For Individual Seats: Select the Row tool and choose whether you want to simultaneously set an individual or multiple rows. Click where you would like the row to begin and drag to where you would like it to end to set the row(s).
5. Assign Seats to Ticket Types
After designing the layout of your venue, it’s time to designate seats for each ticket type. The ticket types you created in step one will appear as categories on the right side of the Venue Designer.
To assign a seat or a whole row, select the seat(s) and then select a ticket type from the Category section on the right-hand toolbar.
6. Add Seat Labels and Numbering
Each seat must be labeled so attendees can easily identify their seat row and number when they arrive at the venue.
Please do not ignore the warning when you try to unlock / edit the seat/table/row labels after publishing. This may cause registrations to disappear or allow duplicate bookings for the same seats.
7. Add Other Venue Features
Add other important venue features like restrooms, bars, stages, and exits using the last icon on the lefthand toolbar in the Venue Builder.
8. Save and Test
To save your seating chart, publish it or close the Venue Builder. A pop-up will ask if you want to save your plans before exiting.
You can go to your event page and try to purchase a ticket; the seating chart you created should show after clicking the buy button.
If you have tickets not on the seating chart, they will show below the seat picker.
To make any edits, simply reopen the Venue Builder and click the publish button in the upper left of the Venue Builder to save your edits.
Seats in the Order Confirmation
After registering for the event, attendees will receive their order confirmation. They will find their seat number in the attached ticket PDF file.
Change Seats After Registrations
Go to the Orders tab
Click the 3 dots on the order
Select Edit Holder Info
Select the new seat and click Update.
Note: Changing seats will not automatically notify attendees. You may want to resend the order confirmation with the PDF file to ensure they have the updated seat information.
Free-Seating in the Venue Designer
If you don’t need assigned seating but still want to use a seating chart to help attendees see which section they’ll be in, you can use the Rectangular Area Tool. This lets you create section-based ticket options, so attendees choose a section without having to pick a specific seat number.
Note: This can only be used for individual tickets, it won't work for bundles.
1. Add the Rectangular Area Tool
Add the Rectangular Area Tool to your template, then choose the select tool, and click on it to open the settings panel on the right. Choose the ticket type you want to assign to that section and enter a section label.
2. Choose the Capacity Types
The capacity type allows you to choose how you want tickets to be sold, whether to purchase individual tickets in a section, purchase the whole section, or purchase some tickets in the section without letting others purchase the left over seats in the section.
General Admission | This means a registrant can select one or multiple tickets in the section. |
Fixed Occupancy | This means the registrant will purchase the whole section.
So if there are 100 available seats in the section, then they will need to purchase all 100. |
Variable Occupancy | This means the registrant can purchase one or multiple tickets in the section, but the section becomes unavailable for others if a ticket is already purchased in that section.
This can be used for selling VIP rooms or private tables. |
In the registration page, registrants will be able to buy tickets in the section without a seat assignment.
Since no seat is assigned, they will see the section label as the seat number in the ticket pdf.
Sell Exhibitor Booths Using the Venue Designer
To sell booths, you can use the Booth tool. You can sell a booth and package it with tickets for the booth staff. Instead of using the Booth tool, use the Table tool or Rectangular Area tool.
