Every heat is a grid with a number on it, and the booking page counts down as places go. A party of nine takes nine in one action rather than nine separate bookings, the deposit is taken while they are booking, and the junior karts are their own line so nobody arrives expecting one that is already out.
Blu RacewayBook online
Arrive & drive14:00 · 10 karts$25.00
Junior heat15:00 · 6 karts$20.00
Birthday party9 drivers · SatBook
Next free1:00 PM2:00 PM4:00 PM
Booked online
11:04 PM
While the race office was shut
Deposit
$56.25
25% held the party’s nine places
Adult grid
6 of 10 left
Counted down as they book
A karting booking is a group taking places on a grid at a fixed time. Everything here is about the number, the time and the money arriving before the day.
Set the number of karts on each heat and the page counts down in public. When it reaches the grid size it says full, rather than quietly taking an eleventh driver for a track with ten karts.
Somebody booking for nine takes nine places off the count at once, so the number on the page is the number of karts you actually have left. No arithmetic on Saturday morning, and no ninth person who was never counted.
Take the whole fee or a deposit when the booking is made, through a payment provider you connect. A Saturday afternoon grid is only held once the money has gone through, which is what a phone booking never was.
On the paid plans you add your own questions to the booking form, so you know on Wednesday how many of Saturday’s nine are under the height for an adult kart. That is a seat allocation you can make in advance instead of at the barrier.
Junior karts and adult karts are different heats with different numbers, and a family session that uses both needs each of them to have room.
Picktime treats them as separate bookable sessions with their own caps, so eight adults and four juniors is only offered when there are eight adult karts and four junior karts genuinely free at that hour. Marshals and the race office are held the same way, so a heat cannot be sold into an hour where nobody is rostered to run it.
The gap between one heat and the next is not left to chance either: you publish the start times you want, so the changeover is already built into the timetable people book from.
Saturday afternoon is the whole week’s takings, and a party that pulls out on Thursday is only a loss if nobody finds out in time to sell it again.
The confirmation carries a link to cancel and reschedule, so the group organiser can move themselves rather than ringing a race office that is trackside.
The places go straight back onto the page, and on the paid plans anybody who could not get on that heat when it was full is on a waiting list waiting to be offered them.
Quarter past two on a Saturday. There is a birthday party of nine standing at the barrier in overalls, and the two o’clock heat has six karts free because three were sold this morning over the phone by somebody who did not know the party was coming.
The booking was taken on Tuesday. It was written on a wall planner as “bday, 9?” with a question mark, and nobody ever took a deposit for it.
Picktime caps every heat at its grid, takes the party’s nine places off in one action, and holds them with money rather than with a question mark.
9 for 6Drivers at the barrier, karts free on the heat
$0Deposit taken when the party booked on Tuesday
Add the sessions you run (arrive and drive, junior heats, a grand prix format) with their start times, their length and the number of karts on the grid. That number is the cap.
Set a deposit, a full payment or nothing at all, per session. A party booking nine places can take a deposit where a single arrive-and-drive is paid in full at the point of booking.
The booking page is a link, so it goes on your site behind a Book Now button, in your Facebook page and on a QR code at the barrier. A parent planning a birthday at ten at night books at ten at night.
Nobody in a race office can take a call while a session is running, and the calls that come in then are parents asking about a birthday for twelve.
The free plan is a plan, not a trial. There is no date at which it stops, no card to add, and nothing that quietly turns off in a fortnight.
A heat lands in the calendar the office already has open, and the paid plans sync it both ways, so when it moves there it moves here. Put a Book Now button or a booking widget on your own website so a parent pricing up a birthday never has to leave it.
Picktime runs in a browser on a phone or a tablet as well as a laptop, and there are iOS and Android apps, so whoever is on the grid can see the next heat without going back inside.
It depends on which half of the job you mean. Lap timing, transponders and leaderboards come from a timing system. Getting the right number of drivers onto the right heat, with the money in before Saturday, is a booking job, and that is what Picktime does, free for a single track.
Yes. Picktime’s free plan gives you a booking page for your heats, a grid size on each one and group bookings that take the right number of places, with no card and no end date. There are iOS and Android apps as well as the browser version.
Start with the sessions rather than the karts: what you run, when it starts, how long it lasts and how many karts are on the grid. Add what has to be paid up front, then put the booking link on your website and your Facebook page. Most tracks are taking bookings the same afternoon.
Yes. A group booking takes nine places off the heat in one action, so the count on the page is the number of karts you actually have left. It is one booking to find, one deposit to take and one person to contact if it moves.
Yes. They are separate sessions with their own start times and their own kart counts, so a family session is only offered when both grids genuinely have room. Nothing is sold against karts that are already out.
Yes, through a payment provider you connect. Charge the full amount, a percentage or a fixed deposit, and set it differently per session: a party can take a deposit where a single arrive-and-drive is paid in full.
Yes, on the paid plans. Add your own questions to the booking form and make the ones that matter compulsory. Knowing on Wednesday that two of Saturday’s nine need junior karts is a seat allocation rather than a problem at the barrier.
The land, the fleet, the insurance and the licensing are the hard part, and none of that is something we can help you with. The booking side we can describe exactly: sessions with a fixed start and a fixed number of karts on the grid, money taken when the party books rather than at the barrier, and driver heights and ages asked in advance instead of discovered at the gate. Get that shape right and a Saturday runs to time.
It turns on whether the event has a capacity or a guest list. Ticketing platforms suit a one-off with hundreds of seats and a scan at the door. A karting party is neither, being a session that runs anyway with nine of a fixed number of karts taken in a single booking, and that is the shape Picktime handles on the free plan.
Games and groups A field, a marshal and a group booked onto a morning that has to be paid for.
See paintball scheduling
Stations by the hour Stations and tournaments booked by the hour, and parties that take the room.
See gaming centre scheduling
Hire and delivery An inflatable, a date and a deposit, booked long before the party.
See bounce house schedulingFree forever for one track. No card, no trial clock, and Saturday can be bookable this afternoon.
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