Long before there is a running order there is a person who wants to look round on Thursday, and a date somebody wants held. Both of those are bookings, and both of them usually live in an inbox. Show-rounds go into a real diary, the hire slot comes off the board when it is paid for, and every space you have sits on one calendar.
Blu VenueBook online
Main hallSat · 200 seated$1200.00
BarnEvening · 80$450.00
Show-round45m · NoraBook
Next free11:00 AM2:30 PM6:00 PM
Show-round
Booked
Taken, not asked for
Deposit
$300.00
25% took the Saturday off the board
Space and person
Both free
Or the viewing is not offered
Every one of these happens before anybody writes a running order, and every one of them is currently an email thread with a person’s name on it.
Put your viewing hours on a page and let people take one. A show-round that is booked at eleven at night is a show-round; a message asking when you are free is the start of four more messages.
Take a deposit or the hire fee at the point of booking, so a Saturday in September is held against money rather than against an intention somebody expressed in March.
The main hall, the barn, the courtyard and the meeting room each have their own capacity, their own price and their own hours. They cannot be sold twice, including on the days you only let the whole site go at once.
On the paid plans the booking form asks the guest count, the month they want and what kind of event it is, so the hour you spend showing somebody the hall is spent on somebody the hall actually fits.
A show-round is two bookings pretending to be one: the hall has to be empty and somebody has to walk them round it. Both are held together, so a viewing is never offered for an hour when the hall is being turned around for an evening booking or when the only person who does viewings is already doing one. Each member of the team keeps their own hours and their own days off, so a Saturday morning slot only exists when somebody is actually there to open the door.
A venue is not bookable back to back the way a meeting room is, because the room has to be reset between one thing and the next. Set the shortest and longest booking each space takes and the hours it can be booked at all, so a Saturday that runs to midnight does not put a nine o’clock Sunday viewing on the page. The rules sit on the space rather than in somebody’s head, which is the difference between a diary anybody on the team can use and one only you can.
Twenty to seven on a Thursday. There are two couples in the car park, both here to see the main hall, both told six thirty: one by email on Monday, one by phone on Wednesday by somebody who did not see the email. The hall itself is being set for a sixtieth on Friday and there are stacked chairs across the middle of it.
None of the three problems is unusual and none of them was anybody’s fault. They happen because a viewing lives in an inbox, a hire lives in a diary, and a turnaround lives in the head of whoever is doing it.
Picktime puts the viewing hours on a page people book from, holds the space and the person showing them round together, and takes the deposit that turns a date somebody likes into a date you have sold.
The hall, the barn, the courtyard, the smaller room. Give each one its capacity, what it costs by the hour, the evening or the day, and the hours it can be booked, including the mornings after a late licence when it cannot.
Say when show-rounds happen and which of you runs them, and put the guest count and the month they want on the form. A viewing is then only ever offered when the space and the person are both genuinely free.
Take a deposit or the hire fee at the point of booking, per space, and set how late a booking may be cancelled. Put the link on your site, your Google listing and the social profiles people find you through.
A venue’s phone rings hardest on the days it is busiest, and the person who would answer it is in the hall with two hundred people. Picktime’s AI receptionist answers on a number of its own, around the clock, and takes several calls at once rather than sending the second one to voicemail. It works out what the caller wants, captures their name and their number, guides them towards a show-round and can end on a booking that lands in your calendar. If the question is a price only you can quote, it transfers the call. Every one is transcribed, so a date and a guest count read out on a Saturday night is written down rather than remembered on Monday.
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 viewing or a hire lands in the calendar you already have open, and the paid plans sync it both ways, so when it moves there it moves here. Deposits run through PayPal, or through Stripe or Square on the paid ones. The booking page goes on Facebook, Instagram and your Google listing as well as your own site, which is where somebody looking for a hall on a Sunday evening is actually looking.
Picktime runs in a browser on a phone as well as a laptop, so you can see tomorrow’s viewings from the middle of a turnaround, and there are iOS and Android apps if you would rather have one.
It depends which part of the job you mean. Platforms like Perfect Venue and Planning Pod are built around the event itself (running orders, catering and floor plans). Picktime is free and built around what happens first: show-rounds people book themselves, a date held against a deposit, and every space on one calendar so nothing is sold twice.
Picktime’s free plan covers a booking page for viewings and hire, every space on its own hours, and a confirmation by email the moment a date is taken. There is no card and no end date. It is a plan rather than a trial.
Yes. Put your viewing hours on the page and people take one directly. The hour is only offered when the space is free and somebody is there to show them round, so a booking made at eleven at night is a booking you can keep.
Yes. Take a deposit or the whole hire fee at the point of booking, set per space, and the date is only held once the payment has gone through. A date held on an email is not held.
Yes. The hall, the barn, the courtyard and the smaller room each have their own capacity, their own rate and their own hours, and each is booked separately unless you only let the whole site go at once. Where one event takes the hall, the foyer and the green room together, event venue booking holds all three against the same date.
Yes. Each space has its own bookable hours, so a Saturday that runs to midnight can close Sunday morning entirely and reopen in the afternoon. The rule sits on the space rather than in somebody’s memory.
Yes, on the paid plans. Put the guest count, the month they want and the kind of event on the booking form, so the hour you spend walking somebody round is spent on somebody the space fits.
Two different products get sold under that name. Selling tickets or places to attendees is event registration, and it is not what this page is about. Letting a space, where the thing that has to be right is which Saturday has gone, is venue hire. Picktime is the second: the show-round somebody books themselves, the deposit that takes the date off the board, and every space on one calendar.
A wedding venue is judged on the eighteen months before the day rather than the day itself. Somebody wants to look round on a Thursday evening, and then a date has to be held for a couple who are provisionally holding dates at two other venues as well. Picktime books the show-round and takes the deposit that turns a pencilled date into a real one, so it comes off the page for everybody else the moment it is paid. The running order, the seating plan and the catering sheet are what the event platforms are for.
Perfect Venue is an event-management product for venues, built around the event once it has been won: proposals, running orders and catering. Picktime sits earlier than that, on the show-round and the date, and the two answer different halves of the same year. If you meant the question more generally, the app that suits a venue is the one an enquirer can use without an account, because a couple looking at four venues on a Sunday evening will not make four logins.
Ask which stage of the year you are buying for and the shortlist halves. Event management software takes over once the booking exists: the proposal, the running order, the catering count, the schedule on the day. None of it is built to be opened by a stranger on a Sunday evening, and it is not meant to be. The half that has to be public is the show-round and the date, which is where enquiries are actually lost, and that is the half Picktime does for nothing.
The big day Show-rounds, tastings and a date held by a deposit rather than by an email.
See wedding venue scheduling
Halls by the hour A hall let by the hour to whoever books it, paid for before the door opens.
See space rental scheduling
Dates and places Workshops and private hire, capped and held by a deposit rather than an email.
See event schedulingFree forever for one venue. No card, no trial clock, and Thursday’s show-rounds can be bookable this afternoon.
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