Private hire

A guest planning a party, a launch or a company night can ask for a private hire from your booking page. Their enquiry lands on your Enquiries page with the space they want, the start and end time, the kind of event and their budget. When you agree terms, you turn the enquiry into a hire: the areas you choose, or the whole venue, are blocked for the hours booked, and no table booking can be made in them over that time.

Private hire is part of Table bookings, on the Growth plan and above. It works whether or not you use table allocation.

The enquiry form

The enquiry form on your booking page asks for a name, email, party size, the date, a start time and notes, as it does for a large party. It also offers four optional fields:

1. Space you would like: the room or area in the guest's own words, for example the Glass Hall.
2. Until: the end time.
3. Type of event: a birthday, a company party, a wedding.
4. Budget: an amount in your venue's booking currency.

A guest who fills in any of the space, the end time or the type of event can send the enquiry whatever the size of the party. The email to your enquiry address is headed "A private hire enquiry" and lists every field.

On the Enquiries page, the Wanted column shows the day with the start and end time, and under them the space, the type of event and the budget the guest gave.

Turning an enquiry into a hire

1. Go to Bookings then Enquiries.
2. On the enquiry's row, choose Book as a private hire.
3. Tick the Areas the hire takes, or switch on Whole venue.
4. Check Starts and Start time (HH:MM), and Ends and End time (HH:MM), on the venue's clock. They start from the enquiry's date and times, with the end on the next day when the guest's end time is after midnight. One hire can run for up to 48 hours.
5. Choose Book the hire.

The enquiry is marked Hired, and its row shows the areas and the hours it blocks. From then on, for any booking whose visit would meet the hire's hours:

• a guest cannot book a table in a hired area on your booking page, and staff cannot book one from the diary
• with table allocation on, every table in the hired areas is held for the hire, so no booking is seated on them
• a booking that names no area is only refused when every area it could sit in is hired

Two hires cannot share an area over the same hours. A hire that would is refused with the hire it meets, so release that one first or choose other areas or times.

A hire never cancels, moves or changes a booking you already have. When you save it, the bookings it overlaps in the hired areas are listed above the enquiries, each linked to the booking, so your team can move them to another area or time, or speak to the guests. With the whole venue hired, every booking over those hours is listed. The list stays until you close it.

With table allocation on, the diary also lists the day's private hires above the bookings.

Releasing a hire

If the hire falls through, choose Release hire on the enquiry's row and press and hold to confirm. The areas and their tables are free again at once, and the enquiry goes back to replied, so you can turn it into a hire again later or close it.

Guest data

The space and the type of event are the guest's own words, so they are removed with the rest of the enquiry when the guest's details are erased or reach the end of the retention period. The end time and the budget stay, as the party size does.

Team permissions

Turning an enquiry into a hire and releasing it need Manage table bookings. Reading enquiries needs View guest data.