Booking types and events
Two things shape the rules of a booking. A booking type is your everyday service. An event is a dated override for a specific occasion.
When you'd use it
Use booking types for recurring services such as Lunch, Dinner or Bar seating. Use events for one-off or seasonal occasions such as a Valentine’s service, a supper club or a Christmas sitting.
How it behaves
A booking type is a named service. Each type owns its own duration, party-size limits, availability windows, charges, buffers and the tables it can use. A venue can run several types side by side, each with different rules.
An event is a dated override for a specific occasion. It can carry its own charges, hours, tables and information, and can block the normal booking types for its window. An event can also be ticketed: rather than seating tables, it sells tickets with a price, a cap on numbers and one or more ticket types, for a single date or a recurring series. A guest books either a booking type or an event, never both on the same booking.
Special dates handle holidays and other one-off occasions. A special date can override hours, party size, duration and charges for a range of dates, or simply close the venue for a blackout period.
A ticketed event is sold from the venue’s own booking page and paid for at purchase through the venue’s own Stripe account, so an empty seat is no longer an unpaid one. Each guest receives a wallet pass for the door, and on the night the team checks people in by scanning passes or from the door list. Refunds stay in the venue’s control. A ticket order is not a table booking: it has no table, so it does not appear on the day planner or in the bookings list, and is managed from the event’s own tickets page. Every buyer still lands in the guest book with their history.
Configuration and options
- Name, emoji and colour
- How the type or event reads in the diary and to guests.
- Duration
- How long a booking of this type is held.
- Party size
- The minimum and maximum covers allowed.
- Interval
- The slot granularity for this type.
- Availability
- The hours and tables this type or event can use.
- Amendments
- Whether and until when a guest can change the booking.
- Event date or range
- The single date or range an event runs on.
- Ticketed event
- Sell tickets with a price, cap and types for a date or series, paid at purchase, instead of seating tables.
- Special dates
- Holiday and one-off overrides, including full closures.
- Check-in
- Scan wallet passes at the door or work from the door list.
Good to know
An event can block the normal booking types for its window. For a ticketed event, guests buy tickets rather than reserving a table, so table seating rules do not apply and ticket orders do not show on the day planner.
A special date can be close-only, blocking bookings for a holiday.
Ticket payments run through the venue’s own Stripe account.