Seats.io helps you sell individual seats, that should be obvious. But sometimes, you want people to book tickets for theatre boxes, corona-proof pods, business lounges in a football stadium, or even tents on a camping ground.
This article describes how you can do exactly that on a seats.io seating chart.
Good bye GAs, hello Areas 👋
Seats.io has always supported general admission areas: zones that can hold a maximum number of people. However, that didn't cover the whole spectrum of possibilities: even with "book-as-a-whole general admission areas", it was still impossible to have people book a pod that holds between 5 and 8 places, for example.
So, in order to make that possible, and to streamline the concepts, we've revamped GA's into Areas.
What is an "Area"?
An area is an object that can be selected and booked, just like e.g. seats, but with a capacity in number of places.
That capacity can be either a fixed number, or a range.
They come in three types:
General admission areas: these are areas with a capacity, e.g. 100 people.
Fixed occupancy areas: these areas are typically a lot smaller, still have a single capacity (e.g. 10 people), but - and that's an important distinction with general admission - they can only be booked by a single user. So just a single ticket buyer can select and book all available places in the whole area in one go.
Variable occupancy areas: these are areas with a minimum and maximum occupancy. For instance, a box with a capacity for 5 to 8 people. Just like their fixed occupancy brothers, variable occupancy areas can only be selected and booked by a single ticket buyer. So once such an area is booked, it is unavailable for everyone else, even if just the minimum capacity was booked (5 in our example).
How to create areas on your floor plan
First, draw it using the Areas tool (keyboard shortcut: g). You can choose between a rectangular shape, a round or oval one, or a polygon, with or without rounding options.
Then, to specify the capacity, select your new shape and head over to the inspector sheet on the right. Under the Capacity header, you can set the type (GA, Fixed occupancy or Variable occupancy), and then either specify a single capacity, or a min and max occupancy.
Finally, just do the things you'd normally do, such as giving the area a label and category, and publish your seating chart.
The ticket buyer experience
Depending on the type of area, the ticket buyer will be presented with a choice when they click or tap on an area.
General Admission Areas
If the area is a GA area, ticket buyers will be able to select a number of places, or a number of places per ticket type if there are multiple ticket types to choose from.
To deselect, the ticket buyer simply clicks the area again, and edits their selection by decreasing the number of selected places.
Fixed Occupancy Areas
When they click or tap on a Fixed occupancy area, the area is either selected entirely, or they are shown a ticket type selector where they are required to select the number of places per ticket types. The confirm button is unavailable until they have chosen a ticket type for every place in the area.
To deselect, a simple tap on the area is all that is required.
Variable Occupancy Areas
Since the number of selected places on a variable occupancy area is variable by definition, the user will always be presented with a modal to make and confirm their selection. They can only confirm their selection if it is valid, meaning the total is between the min and max occupancy for that area.
Since these areas are also of the all-or-nothing kind, just like fixed occupancy areas, deselecting happens in the exact same way: just by simple click on the area.