Members book a court from their phone at any hour and the court they take stops being offered to anybody else. How long a booking runs and how far ahead it can be made are rules on the court itself, and a floodlit evening hour can be paid for as it is booked.
Blu CourtsBook online
Court 1, daytime1h · Members$8.00
Court 3, floodlit1h · Lights on$12.00
Club night2h · Courts 2 and 3Book
Next free7:00 PM8:00 PMSun 9:30 AM
Booked online
11:04 PM
Not on the sheet by the door
Paid at booking
$12.00
The floodlit hour, before anybody walks on
Court 3, 9:30
Held once
Two pairs cannot both have it
Each of these takes a booking off the sheet in the clubhouse and gives it to the member, without letting the same hour on the same court go out twice.
Each court is a resource, so an hour on it is held exactly once and stops being offered the moment it is taken. Nobody walks on at nine on a Sunday to find two other people already knocking up on it.
Your courts on a page of their own, showing what is genuinely free today and this week. A member books from a phone at eleven at night rather than driving over to look at a sheet and write on it.
Set the shortest and longest booking a court takes and how far in advance it can be made, per court. The rules stop being something written on a laminated notice and start being something the booking page will not let anybody past.
Price an evening hour under lights differently from a Tuesday afternoon, and take a guest fee as the court is taken. It is collected before anybody walks on, rather than through an honesty box nobody uses.
A club’s courts are never only for casual play.
A coaching session holds a court alongside the coach, a club night holds two or three as a recurring series with a last date on it, on the paid plans, and a home match blocks what it needs for an afternoon.
All of them sit in one calendar and none can be booked over, so a member looking for an hour on Wednesday is only ever offered a court that is genuinely free. When the season ends, the club night’s courts come back on their own.
A court booked and not used is the most annoying thing a club has, because it is invisible: the sheet says taken and the court is empty.
On the paid plans a reminder goes to whoever booked it, carrying a link to release the hour if their plans have changed, and a released hour goes straight back on the page for the next member looking.
Put a tablet by the courts and Picktime Rooms shows the state from the gate: available, busy, or waiting for somebody to check in, with a countdown that hands the hour back if nobody does.
Half past nine on a Sunday. Two members are on court three and two more are standing at the gate with a photograph of the sheet on their phone, taken on Thursday, that says the court is theirs. Somebody wrote over the entry on Friday because the pencil line was faint and the row above was crossed out.
Court one, meanwhile, has had nobody on it since eight, held by a member who booked it on Wednesday and decided on Saturday not to bother. The sheet says the club is full. Two visitors were turned away at nine because of it.
Picktime gives an hour on a court to one booking only, reminds whoever holds it before they are due with a link to give it back on the paid plans, and shows the real state of every court on a page and on a screen by the gate.
4People on court three, and two of them booked it
2Visitors turned away in front of an empty court
Each court goes in as a resource with its own hours, including when the floodlights are on. A court out for resurfacing simply stops being offered, without anybody crossing it off a sheet.
Decide the shortest and longest booking each court takes and how far ahead members may book. Price a floodlit hour and a guest fee, and say how late an hour can be released and still be usable.
The booking page is a link for the members’ newsletter, the club site behind a Book Now button and the noticeboard behind a QR code. A tablet at the gate shows the same availability to anybody walking up.
One calendar carries every court you have, by day, by week or by month, with each booking naming the court and the member who holds it.
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 court booking lands in the calendar the club already keeps, and the paid plans sync it both ways, so the committee’s diary and the members’ page cannot disagree. Floodlight and guest fees run through PayPal as the hour is taken, or through Stripe or Square on the paid plans.
Picktime runs in a browser on a phone, a laptop or a tablet mounted at the gate: nothing for a member to install to book a court on a Friday night, and a tennis court booking app on iOS and Android for whoever looks after the club.
Yes, and for a club the one that matters is your own. Picktime’s booking page opens in any phone browser with nothing for a member to install, shows the courts that are genuinely free and books one in a couple of taps. There are iOS and Android apps as well if you would rather have one on the home screen.
At a club running Picktime, from a link: you pick the court, the day and the hour, and it is held for you straight away. The page only ever offers hours that are actually free, so there is no waiting to hear back and no arriving to find somebody else on it.
It depends on what the club is buying. A club whose main need is membership subscriptions and per-member booking allowances is buying a club management platform. A club that mainly needs its courts bookable, never double-booked, with rules on how long and how far ahead, is buying court booking software. Picktime does that free to start.
No. Each court is a resource, so an hour on it can be held exactly once and stops being offered the moment it is taken. That is the one thing a pencil sheet in a clubhouse cannot promise, because two people can write on it on two different days.
Yes. The shortest and longest booking, and how far ahead one can be made, are rules on the court itself. The page will not accept a booking that breaks them, so nobody has to enforce a laminated notice in person.
Yes. Price a floodlit hour differently from a daytime one and take a guest fee as the court is booked, through a payment provider you connect. It is collected before anybody walks on rather than left to an honesty box.
A released hour goes straight back on the page for the next member to take. On the paid plans a reminder goes out before they are due with a link to release it, a tablet at the courts shows which are genuinely in use, and a court nobody checks into runs a countdown and hands its hour back.
Another court booking product, aimed at racquet clubs and sold as a club management platform rather than as booking on its own. We have not run a club on it and will not pretend to rank it against ourselves. The split above is still the useful one: if the committee is buying membership administration and league programming as well as the court sheet, that is a platform decision; if the problem is the paper sheet in the clubhouse, it is a booking one, and Picktime does that free to start.
Pitches and halls Courts, pitches and halls let by the hour, with a season block that ends.
See sports facility scheduling
Glass-backed courts Forty-minute slots booked back to back, and a ladder match in the diary.
See squash court booking
Fours Courts booked by fours, paid as they book, and busiest after work.
See padel court bookingFree forever for a single club. No card, no trial clock, and your courts can be bookable before the weekend.
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