Some events do not fit into a single block. A conference runs for three days and offers parallel workshops on Saturday afternoon. A Christmas show is performed three times in one day, with 300 seats for each showing. One date and one capacity are not enough for those: sessions split the event into moments, each with its own time, room, capacity and check-in.
Note: an event without sessions behaves exactly as before. Sessions are only added when you need them.
Adding a session
- Open your event, then the Sessions tab.
- Click Add a session.
- Give it a title that makes sense to the public: “Second showing”, “Worship workshop”, “Saturday morning”.
- Set the start, and the end if you know it.
- Pick a room, or type a location by hand.
- Set a capacity if the session has a limited number of places.
A session that falls outside the event window widens it automatically. If your poster says Saturday and you add a session on Sunday, the event extends to Sunday by itself: the public page cannot end up announcing the wrong date.
Choosing how people register
This is the most important setting, and it sits at the top of the Sessions tab. Two situations that look alike but are not handled the same way.
They pick one session. Each session has its own capacity, and a ticket is valid for the chosen session only. This is the show performed several times: turning up at the second showing with a ticket for the first means taking somebody else's seat.
One registration covers them all. One ticket covers the whole event, and is scanned at every session. This is the multi-day conference: you register once, you come for three days.
The default is They pick one session, because that is the setting that protects capacities. You can change it at any time.
Capacity, session by session
A capacity set on a session takes precedence over the event's.
| What you want | What you do |
|---|---|
| 300 seats for each showing | A capacity of 300 on each session |
| 900 seats in total, freely spread | A capacity of 900 on the event, none on the sessions |
| An overall maximum AND a per-session one | Both: the tighter one applies |
When a session is full it stays visible on the public page, marked Full, and can no longer be chosen. Free registrations move to the waiting list. For a paid event, payment is refused before it opens: nobody is ever charged for a seat that no longer exists.
What the public sees
The public event page lists the sessions above the form, each with its time, place and remaining seats. The choice comes before typing a name: nobody fills in a form only to discover afterwards that the one slot that suited them is full.
In “one registration covers them all” mode, the sessions are shown as a programme, with nothing to choose.
Sessions stay readable even once registration has closed: knowing what time the second showing starts is still useful to someone who was not planning to register.
Check-in at the door
In the Check-in tab, a selector appears as soon as there are sessions: pick the one your door is handling. The counter next to it shows how many people have already come in for that session.
- A ticket bought for a specific session is only valid there. Presented elsewhere, the screen says Wrong session - the person does hold a valid ticket, they are simply at the wrong door, so point them the right way rather than turning them away.
- An “all sessions” ticket is scanned at every session. Day two works normally, without the ticket counting as already used.
- Scanning the same ticket twice at the same session shows Already checked in and does not count the person twice.
Rooms and clashes
Picking a room from the directory brings three things that free text cannot: the position on the map, the booking of the slot, and clash detection.
Two kinds of clash are flagged before publishing, in the Sessions tab:
- Two sessions of the same event in the same room at the same time. This is the easiest mistake to make: you duplicate a workshop to create a second one and forget to change the room.
- Another church activity already using that room in that slot.
Publishing is refused while a clash remains, and the message names the session concerned, the activity blocking it and its time.
A session with no room of its own inherits the event's. When the event is published, each session books its real slot - not the whole period: a conference running from Friday to Sunday does not block the room for the two nights in between.
Deleting a session
Deleting a session deletes nobody. The people who had chosen it lose the link but keep their ticket: redirecting them is up to you. The screen tells you how many people are affected before you confirm, and the operation is recorded in the event's activity log.