Session Seats and Waitlists | Planadar Help

Session Seats and Waitlists

Ask attendees to reserve a seat for a session, limit how many seats there are, and let a waitlist fill every seat that opens up. Sessions stay as they are until you switch this on: a session takes no reservations unless you ask for them.

Switch it on for a session

1. Open the session: click Add Session, or Edit on an existing one.
2. Scroll to Attendees reserve a seat and switch it on.
3. Set Seats: a whole number from 1 to 100,000, or leave it empty for no limit.
4. Waitlist when full is on by default. Switch it off if you would rather a full session simply say "Session full".
5. Save.

Attendees now see a Reservation required badge on that session in the agenda of your event page, and a Reserve a seat button.

Who can reserve, and what the numbers mean

• Only attendees who hold a ticket for the event can reserve a seat. You, the organizer, can too.
• A seat is taken by someone who reserved it, and stays taken by someone who attended. The Seats limit counts everyone who reserves, whether they attend in person or online.
• On the sessions list each session shows 12 of 30 seats and 3 waiting.

Hybrid events: seats for the room and for the stream

On a simulcast session of a hybrid event the session form also asks for In-person seats and Virtual seats. They are real limits once Attendees reserve a seat is on (with it off, nobody reserves anything, so they are only shown on the check-in screen and in reports):

• Which side a person is on is the way they chose to attend the event when they registered. A person who holds both an in-person and a virtual registration takes a seat in the room.
• A person can reserve only when the session has room and their side has room. A full side puts the next person of that side on the waitlist ("This session is full for in-person attendees"), and the other side is not affected: a full room does not stop someone watching online.
• Leave a side empty for no limit: an unlimited stream with a 50-seat room is just In-person seats: 50.
• A freed seat goes to the person who has waited longest whose side has room. A person who waits for the stream does not take a seat in the room.
• On the sessions list each side has its own badge ("In person 12 of 50", "Virtual 30"), and the Reservations list says which way each person attends.
• If you move a registered person to the other way of attending, the seats are counted again and the waitlists move up where a side now has room. Lowering a limit never removes anyone who already has a seat.
• The limits apply only to a simulcast session of a hybrid event; for any other session they are ignored.

The waitlist

• A person who finds the session full joins the waitlist at the end of the line, and sees their number.
• The moment a seat frees (a person gives theirs up, you take someone off, you add seats or remove the limit, or a ticket for the event is cancelled or moved to someone else), the person who has waited longest gets the seat automatically and receives an email, "A seat opened up". There is no offer to accept and no time limit.
• A person who gives up a seat and comes back to a full session goes to the end of the line.
• Lowering the seats never removes anyone who already has one; the next person simply waits until enough seats are free.
• If you switch reservations off, existing reservations are kept in the list, but the session takes no new ones and nobody is moved up.

See who holds a seat

On the sessions list, click the Reservations button (the people icon) on a session. You see everyone who holds a seat, then the waitlist in order, with names and email addresses (and, for a simulcast session, whether each person attends in person or virtually). The bin next to a name takes that person off the session (or off the waitlist); if it frees a seat, the next person is moved up and told.

Emails

• Someone reserves a seat or joins the waitlist: a confirmation, "Session Confirmed" or "Session Waitlisted".
• Someone is moved up the waitlist: "A seat opened up". It is sent once, within moments of the seat freeing (and at the latest within about five minutes).
• Reminders before the session go to people who hold a seat.

Good to know

• Reservations do not change check-in at the session door.
• Duplicating an event copies each session's seat settings, not the reservations.
• Seat reservations are unrelated to ticket tiers and their waitlists: see "Waitlist Management" for those.