With restrictions on social distancing in place, you may need to make changes to your usual event set up to ensure that you comply with your local authorities stipulated regulations.
We have introduced a new feature that will allow you to set rules that will automatically block seats on either side of bookings on reserved seating plans.
No more manually assigning seats, and constant re-calculations of capacities to ensure your attendees are safe. Simply set how many seats you would like to have blocked either side of each booking, and let TryBooking do the hard work you!
For further details on blocked seats, including how it works for the customer and making edits once your event is live, see: Socially distanced reserved seating plans - blocked seats
Confirming specifics with your venue
Venues you have used in previous years may have changed configuration or the capacity permitted on-site based on the local government's restrictions around social distancing.
Getting the specifics from the venue will assist in setting the total number of tickets you can sell per session on your event. It will also allow you to evaluate whether the venue's capacity will be sufficient for your expected audience.
Should the venue's new capacity no longer be large enough for your estimated attendee numbers:
Consider splitting your audience into defined categories based on your performance, and running multiple sessions to accommodate
Consider placing a limit on the number of tickets an individual can purchase to keep distribution fair
Look for a larger venue
Setting up your event on TryBooking
Step 1: Create the event with the seating plan uploaded:
Ensure you have your seating place set as a Venue Template on your TryBooking account. Our Client Success Team can assist you in setting this up
From the left menu, click Dashboard
From the left menu, click Events then click Create New Event
In Step 2: Venue Details, select Use venue Template
Select the require Venue Template the Venue Template drop-down field
With the venue template selected, click Next: Session Times and proceed with completing Create New Event
With your event created, you are enable Blocked Seats on the seating plan.
Step 2: Enable Blocked Seats on the seating plan
From the left menu, click Seat/Space under Allocation
Should you have multiple session times on your event, select Master from the Session Time drop-down menu
Click Edit Seating Plan
In the Block Seat Either Side Of Bookings field, select the number of seats you wish to be blocked out either side of each booking eg. to automatically block 1 seat either side of bookings, set the number next to block seats either side of bookings to 1
Click Save
Note: this rule will also apply to seats you mark as reserved, so that there are enough seats available when a reserved seat is purchased. Please ensure that you reserve and press save seats for each party, rather than reserving seats in one go. This will ensure that seats are blocked between each party.
Should you also require to have seats blocked out in front and behind each booking, we recommend you manually block out seats in every second row to accommodate.
To block out entire rows:
Within Edit Seating Plan, From the Mark Seat As dropdown, select Blocked
Starting from the second row, click on each seat in the row to change the status from Available to Blocked. Repeat for every second row
Click Save