Table bookings for event nights

An event can take its own table bookings. You give the event a booking window: the times guests can book a table that night, how many covers each time holds and which areas it covers. On the event's date, in those areas, the window replaces your usual service, so a Friday night gig can take tables from 19:00 to 23:30 in the main room while the terrace keeps its normal dinner times.

The public event page then shows Book a table beside the tickets, and every booking made in the window carries the event's name into the diary, the bookings list and the guest's emails. Tickets and tables stay separate: a guest buys tickets on the event page and books a table on the booking page.

Event-night bookings need Events and tickets and Table bookings, both on the Growth plan and above.

Opening table booking for an event

1. Open the event under Events.
2. In the Table bookings card, choose Add a booking window.
3. Areas: tick the areas the window covers. Leave every area unticked for the whole venue.
4. Opens (HH:MM) and Closes (HH:MM) on the venue's clock. A close at or before the open runs past midnight.
5. Covers a slot: how many guests can start in one booking time that night.
6. Parties a slot (optional): a cap on the number of bookings that can start in one time.
7. Leave Takes bookings on, and choose Add window.

The card lists each window with its times, its areas and its caps. Use the pencil to change one and the bin to remove it; a removal is confirmed by pressing and holding Remove window. Bookings already made in a removed window keep their time and stay on the event.

Covers a slot is counted against every booking at the venue that starts in that booking time, whichever area it sits in, the same way two services that overlap share their covers.

The window runs on the event's date as your venue's clock reads it, so an event that starts at 00:30 on a Saturday has its window on the Saturday. If you move the event to another date, its window moves with it.

An event can have more than one window, for example one per room. Two windows on the same night cannot overlap in time in the same area, because a booking has to start in exactly one of them; the form says so when they would.

A window only takes bookings while its event is on sale or sold out. On a draft the card says the windows take bookings once the event is on sale. A cancelled event or one that has ended opens nothing, and the areas go back to their usual services.

How the night is offered

On the event's date:

• A guest who comes from the event page's Book a table button sees the event's own booking times and nothing else. The page opens on the event's date, with a line saying which event the table is for and a link to book another date.
• In an area the window covers, the window's times and covers replace the weekday service for the whole date.
• In an area it does not cover, the usual service carries on.
• A guest on your normal booking page sees the usual service when it still serves other areas that night. The event's window is offered there too when it does not overlap that service.

Book a table shows on the event page only while the night is within the days ahead your venue takes bookings, and while the venue takes bookings.

The last booking time, turn times, lead time and party sizes are the venue's usual ones. A whole-day closure closes the event's window too; a closure or a capacity change for one service does not touch it.

Where the event shows

• The Diary groups the night's bookings under the event's name.
• The bookings list shows the event's name under the booking's time.
• A booking's own page names the event, with a link to it.
• The CSV export has an Event column.
• The guest's confirmation, change, reminder and cancellation emails include the event's name.

A booking made in an event's window stays inside that night's windows when its time or party size is changed.

Team permissions

Adding, changing and removing a booking window needs Manage table bookings. Seeing the windows needs View guest data, as the diary does.