A night has a door time, a start time and a number of people the room is allowed to take, and only one of those is negotiable. Picktime publishes the nights, stops taking bookings at the number you set, and lets you check people in at the door from the phone in your hand.
Blu VenueBook online
FridayDoors 7:30 · 38 left$18.00
SaturdayMain room · 120$22.00
Back bar · Thu45 placesBook
DoorsThu 8:00 PMFri 7:30 PMSat 7:30 PM
Main room
120 places
It stops selling at the cap
Paid at booking
$22.00
The whole price, before the door
Place given back
Back on sale
On the page again, the same minute
Every one of these is about the hour either side of doors, which is when a night either runs properly or turns into a person with a printout and a queue.
Your own page listing each date, when the doors open, when it starts and how many places are still free. People take one from a phone at any hour, without a message asking whether Saturday has gone.
Set the cap from the room rather than from optimism, and the page says sold out the moment it is reached. Nobody is turned away at the door having paid, which is the one mistake a venue does not recover from.
Publish the same show across three evenings in one action and each night keeps its own number. Thursday selling slowly does not quietly borrow seats from a Saturday that has already gone.
Take the whole price as somebody books, through a payment provider you connect, so the room you set out is a room that has been paid for. A door price for anybody who turns up on the night still works.
A venue with a main room and a back bar is running two capacities, two sets of opening hours and often two different kinds of night, and a tour is the same problem spread across cities. Each place keeps its own hours, its own cap and its own booking page, and every date across all of them shows in one calendar. That is what stops the back room being sold as though it were the main one, and it is what lets somebody programming three venues look at one month instead of three.
Sold out is the point at which people start wanting in, and it is also the point at which somebody drops out. A place returned goes straight back on the page, and on the paid plans it is offered to the people already waiting for that night, so the seat is taken by somebody who wanted it rather than left empty because it came free at half past five and nobody was watching. On those same plans everyone booked gets a reminder before the day carrying the address and the door time, and the link to give a place back is in it, which is how a dropout reaches you early enough to be worth something.
Doors were at half past seven. The list on the clipboard was printed at five, and people kept booking after five. Somebody is at the front of the queue holding a phone with a confirmation on it and their name is not on the paper, so everybody behind them waits while it gets sorted out.
Inside, two of the places sold have not arrived and will not, because they dropped out at teatime and there was nowhere for that to go. There were people who would have taken them and no way to reach any of them by half past seven.
Picktime keeps the night on one live count instead of a printout. Bookings stop at the number the room is allowed, and a place given back is on sale again the same minute rather than sitting in somebody’s messages. On the paid plans it goes first to the people already waiting for that night, and the door list opens on a phone that is reading the bookings as they stand rather than as they were at five.
Put in every space you run a night in, with its opening hours and the number of people it is allowed to take. That number is what everything else on the page counts down from.
Add each date with its door time, its start time, its price and its cap, or publish a run of them at once. Decide what is paid at booking and how late somebody may give a place back.
The booking page is a link, so it goes behind a QR code on the poster, in the bio of whichever account announces the nights, in the listing you send out and behind a Book Now button on the venue’s own site.
The door is the only part of a live event that everybody experiences, and it is usually the part run on paper. Open the night on a phone, free from the first booking, and the people booked onto it are there as a list, updating as the last few bookings land rather than frozen at whatever time it was printed, so anybody who booked in the hour before doors is simply on it. Marking each one Arrived as they come in is on the paid plans. And because every night somebody has been to sits on their record, the regular who comes to everything is visible as one person rather than as eleven unrelated bookings.
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 night lands in the calendar the venue already has open, and the paid plans sync it both ways, so it moves there when it moves here. Payments run through PayPal, or through Stripe or Square on the paid ones, so the money arrives where your money already arrives, and the booking page sits behind a Book Now button on your own site and on the profile that announces the nights.
Picktime runs in a phone browser as well as a laptop, and there are iOS and Android apps, which matters more here than almost anywhere, because the person on the door is standing up, outside, with one hand free.
Picktime is a free live event booking system for gigs, club nights and performances, and it covers the parts of the job that happen before anybody arrives: self-booking, online payment and invoicing for the people coming, and management of your team and your equipment.
The online calendar shows daily slot availability, team schedules and days off in one place, so an organiser can see what a week is committed to without opening four diaries.
Customer management saves details and booking history securely and, on the paid plans, lets you book recurring dates on somebody’s behalf, which is what a returning promoter or a regular hire actually needs, and sends automatic reminders by email and text so the people who booked know when the night is and where.
Ticket prices can be collected in advance through PayPal on the free plan, or Square and Stripe on the paid ones, with an invoice sent straight afterwards to finish the transaction rather than leaving it to be chased.
And the booking page itself is customisable to your own brand, the paid plans add the mandatory booking fields that bring the information you need in with every booking, and a booking button goes on your own website. Where a promoter sells the whole date to one client instead of places in a room, the page on booking a whole event is the closer fit.
For a night in a room with general admission, what you need is a live count and a door list rather than a seating plan. Picktime publishes each night with its door time and its cap, stops selling at the number the room is allowed and puts a returned place straight back on sale, free to start, with no card. A waiting list and check-in from a phone are on the paid plans.
Picktime’s free plan covers a page of your nights with door and start times, a cap on each one, email notifications as bookings come in and a record of everybody who has been. No card, and no date at which it stops.
Yes, and that is the main thing this does. Set the cap from the room and the page says sold out the moment it is reached, rather than taking a booking you would have to turn away at the door. It is the same control behind a press briefing more journalists want to attend than the room holds.
Yes. Each night carries both, so the confirmation tells people when to arrive rather than when the first act walks on, which is the difference between a room that is in by eight and a queue that is still outside. Reminders before the night are on the paid plans, and carry the door time too.
Yes. Publish the run in one action and each date keeps its own count, so a Thursday selling slowly and a Saturday that has gone are two separate numbers rather than one average.
It goes back on sale straight away, so a dropout at teatime becomes somebody in the room instead of a seat you set out for nobody. Offering it to a waiting list first is on the paid plans.
Yes, from a phone, on the paid plans. The night opens as a list of everyone booked and you mark them Arrived as they come in, working from the bookings as they stand rather than from a sheet printed hours earlier.
Rooms by the night A hall let out to promoters, weddings and hires, each on its own terms.
See venue scheduling
Dates and sets Dates held months ahead, and a deposit rather than a message that says yes.
See musician scheduling
Seats and sessions Places sold on a session that only works at the number the room was set for.
See workshop schedulingFree forever for one venue. No card, no trial clock, and Friday can be on sale this afternoon.
Google Calendar
Outlook Calendar
Stripe
PayPal
Facebook