Banquet Seating

Banquet Seating offers a new option to event hosts. Events that use this feature require no reserved seating setup, and all tickets are sold as “open” seating. As ticket orders are received, the event host may assign guests to their tables.

Note: this is an advanced feature. If you don’t see the Banquet seating option pictured below after creating your ticket types, contact our support team. 

Create an open-seating venue for your event. The event may have multiple performances that use banquet seating, and the seating requirements for each performance may differ regarding the number of tables and the total capacity.

Note: Even before proceeding to the next step, it’s now possible to publish the event and start selling tickets. The banquet table configuration does not need to exist yet, but the limit on tickets to sell should reflect the capacity of the banquet room where the performance or session will be held – especially as this is typically less than the capacity of a convention center (which is often set to unlimited).

Once the event has one or more applicable ticket types, a new Banquet Seating section will appear in the main menu. The Table Assignments page is used both for initial setup to generate the tables, as well as for ongoing management of the table seating assignments.

To get started, enter the number of tables and the seating capacity of each. This should equal the total capacity of the banquet room for the performance selected. Hit ADD TABLES. In the example below, note how we’ve already sold 4 tickets before setting up the tables, which show up in the Unassigned Tickets section.

Periodically, the host should use the Table Assignments page and pop open the Unassigned Tickets section to assign guests to tables. Using the default of “Best Available Table” will place guests at tables in the order in which their ticket orders were received. To do this, leave the Assign To settings with this default and hit ASSIGN SEATS.

Note that when an Order has multiple tickets, its guests will be assigned to the best table that has the capacity to seat them all together. In the unlikely case that an order has more guests than any table can accommodate, the host will have to manually select a table for each ticket/guest in the order.

Here’s an example of an order that needed 4 seats. The system skipped over Table #1, which had only 3 seats available, and assigned the seats at Table #3.

Sometimes the parties from two or more different orders would like to sit together. Start with one of the orders and click the “Move Group” icon.

In the pop-up dialog, pick a table from the Move-To list that has sufficient seats to put both parties together. Click MOVE for the first order, then repeat the process for the second order to complete the action of putting all the friends together at one table.

Easily find guests, tickets, or orders by typing a few characters in the Find Guest/Table field. If you know the Order ID, you can enter that in its corresponding field. If there are matches at multiple tables, they will all be listed. 

Give tables “nicknames”. If you have a special group at a table (such as the Board of Directors, the Denver Crowd, etc.), you can give the table a name and then find it that way.

Free up seats for REFUNDs. If you enter a ticket status in the Find: field, such as REFUND, tickets with that status will be selected. This is very useful when you need to find refunded tickets to free up assigned seats.

If you want to save seats for folks who haven’t yet placed their orders, just set a Hold for that many seats. Remove the hold when the orders show up and you’re ready to assign the guests to that table.

If you want to move one guest to another table, but not the entire group from their original ticket order, set the Move Individual Guest option. The move icon for all the guests will change to a single person to reflect the status.

As more and more seats are assigned, tables will fill up. For a large banquet, that would mean scrolling way down to get to see available tables. Select the Hide Sold Out option to show only tables with available seats.