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.
Before you Begin
✅ If you're adding ticket logic to tickets / add ons sold through the Venue Designer - add the logic first before you enable assigned seating for the ticket or add on. If the toggle is enabled, the ticket type or add on will not appear in the logic settings. If you've already turned it on, you can turn it off, add your logic, and turn it back on.
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.
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 or Tables
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.
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 / Tables to Ticket Types
After designing the layout of your venue, it’s time to designate seats / tables 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 / Table Labels and Numbering
Each seat / table must be labeled so attendees can easily identify their seat or table 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. Choose the Capacity Type for Tables
In the table type settings, you can choose whether they can buy a seat in the table, buy all the seats in the table or be force to buy
Book by Seat | This means a registrant can select one or multiple seats in the table. |
Book by table | This means the registrant will purchase the whole table.
So if there are 5 seats in the table, then they will need to purchase all 5 seats.
When you choose this option, the ticket / category attached to the table should be a bundle ticket type (table). The number of seats per table should match the number of tickets per bundle. |
Variable occupancy table | This means the registrant can purchase one or multiple seats in the table, but the table becomes unavailable for others if a seat is already purchased in that table.
This can be used for selling VIP or private tables. |
8. 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.
9. 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.
Seats in the Report
When you download the Registration Data Report, you can check the Seat Number column to see their currently assigned seats / tables.
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'll need to create exhibitor add ons instead of tickets so that booths are automatically created in the event.
View Who Purchased Seats or Booths
In Attendees > Seating, you can hover on a seat or booth to see the purchaser's basic information. When you click on it, you'll see the profile appear on the left side where there's a View Details button that allows you to see more information (same menu in Attendee Management).
Reassign Seats and Booths
Important Notes:
⚠️ Do not reassign attendees that purchased a bundle for a table, you won't be able to move all the attendees to the new table. It may allow you to move an attendee that's part of the bundle to another table, but you cannot move the others to the new table. You also cannot assign a new attendee to a old table even if you already moved one attendee out. Should you need to move them, we suggest to cancel the order and create a new one.
You can reassign attendees to any vacant seat, or exhibitors to any vacant booth, even if the ticket / exhibitor add on attached to the category is not the same category they purchased. Moving them will not trigger a ticket exchange, refund or new charge.
If the ticket is not part of the seating chart categories, you can still assign that ticket a seat through the 2 options below.
Only admins can reassigns seats / booths, attendees do not have access to this.
Reassign in the Orders Tab
To reassign an attendee to another seat, you can easily do that in Attendees > Order > Edit Holder. Simply select the new seat to reassign them.
If you have free seating, you can also move them from an assigned seat to the free seating area and vice versa.
Notes:
When they are moved from this menu, attendees will not be notified of the change. You may want to resend the order confirmation with the PDF file to ensure they have the updated seat information.
You can assign a seated attendee to a booth in the menu - but it will not exchange their ticket to an exhibitor add on, it will also not create a booth - we do not recommend doing this. If needed, please cancel their ticket and create a new order for the exhibitor add on.
Reassign in the Seating tab
You cannot assign / unassign attendees from the "Free Seating" are in this menu, please do that in the Orders tab.
If you're moving exhibitors to another booth or if you're moving multiple attendees to multiple seats, you can access Attendees > Seating.
In this menu, you need to unassign them first to be able to reassign them to a new seat or booth.
Unassign from the seat or booth
Select the seat or booth where they are assigned
Click Remove
Select the checkbox if you want to notify them that you have unassigned them
Click Remove
The email would look like this:
Assign to the new seat or booth
Click the seat or booth where you want to assign them
Select the unassigned tab and select the unassigned attendee or exhibitor
Select the checkbox if you want to notify them that you have reassigned them
Click Assign
The email would look like this:
Purchase Now and Assign Seats Later
If you don't need your attendees to pick a seat, but you later need to assign them to one to ensure that they would know where to go when they arrive at the venue, you can have them purchase their ticket, then you can assign them to their seats later.
1. Create a hidden ticket with assigned seating enabled
You'll need a ticket with assigned seating enabled so you can create your seating chart in the venue designer. This is the only purpose of this ticket, you won't need to assign this ticket to a category in the venue designer. You can hide it to ensure no one purchases it.
2. Build your venue
In the venue designer, build your design, make sure to include all the seat / table labels. Do all the steps above on how to build your seating chart, except assigning the ticket to a category.
3. Create a regular ticket
This is what you will sell, you don't need to enable assigned seating for this.
4. Create a Limited Display Link for the regular ticket
You'll need a limited display link that shows only the ticket your created in step 3. This is the link you will share to potential attendees. If you're using the regular registration page, it will show the seating chart, which we don't want them to see since they aren't selecting their seats.
5. Assign seats after purchase
After purchasing, you can assign their seat in orders or in the seating tab.