Event Bookings – Guest Flow and Slot Handling

This article describes exactly how a guest books a spot at your event and how Vendion guarantees that you never overbook – even if two guests click "Book" on the last seat at the same time.

The guest journey – step by step

1. The guest finds the event Share the booking link via Instagram, newsletter or your website. The link is /book/yourrestaurant?type=event (e.g. https://app.vendion.com/book/cafe-latt?type=event). The guest sees a list of all active events in chronological order:

• Image and name
• Short description
• Next occurrence and price
• "See all occurrences" for recurring events

2. The guest picks an occurrence When the guest clicks an event, all upcoming occurrences are shown:

Wine Tasting – "Piedmont Premium"
Five selected wines presented by our sommelier.

Upcoming occurrences:
  Fri Apr 25, 19:00–22:00   |  8/20 seats  |  595 SEK/pers
  Fri May 02, 19:00–22:00   |  6/20 seats  |  595 SEK/pers
  Fri May 09, 19:00–22:00   | 20/20 seats  | SOLD OUT

Sold-out occurrences are greyed out and unclickable. Available seats are computed live.

3. The guest picks party size After choosing an occurrence, a slider appears: "How many of you?" Min is 1 and max is the smallest of:

• The event's max guests per booking (e.g. 6)
• Remaining seats on the occurrence (e.g. 12)

4. The guest fills in details

• Name
• Phone (required – used for SMS confirmation)
• Email (optional)
• Allergies (if any)
• Special requests (e.g. "Vegetarian options for one person")

5. The guest confirms A summary appears:

• Event: Wine Tasting – Piedmont Premium
• Date: Friday Apr 25 at 19:00
• Seats: 3
• Total: 3 × 595 SEK = 1 785 SEK

Click "Book" → the booking is created.

6. Confirmation and SMS The guest gets an immediate SMS confirmation:

Hi Anna! Your booking at Café Lätt Fri Apr 25 at 19:00
for Wine Tasting Piedmont Premium (3 seats) is confirmed.
Modify/cancel: https://app.vendion.com/book/cafe-latt/manage?token=...

Slot handling – how seats are counted atomically

Vendion has built-in overbooking protection. Here's how:

1. Capacity check: The system verifies there are enough seats available
2. Max-per-booking check: Verifies the request doesn't exceed max per booking
3. Phone match: Matches against existing customer by phone
4. Create booking: Adds the booking and recalculates booked seats

Two concurrent bookings can never bypass the capacity check. If 19/20 seats are booked and two guests click "Book 2 seats" at once, both are rejected (only 1 seat available, but 2 required by each).

No overbooking ever happens. This holds even if ten bookings arrive within a tenth of a second.

Guest self-service after booking

Using the SMS link, the guest can (/book/:slug/manage?token=...):

• View the booking – date, time, count, price
• Reduce party size – e.g. from 3 to 2 (if "Allow guest modification" is enabled)
• Cancel completely – if "Allow guest cancellation" is enabled and before the cancellation deadline

Increasing the party size is not possible via the guest link – the guest must contact you or make a new booking. This protects against sneaking in extra guests.

When a booking is cancelled:

• Status is set to Cancelled
• The booked seat count is decremented automatically
• Next guest can now book the freed-up seats
• SMS cancellation confirmation is sent to the guest

No event waitlist (yet): Unlike regular table bookings, events do not have a waitlist feature. A sold-out event shows as SOLD OUT and the guest can't book. You can however add a note in the event description ("Email hello@vendion.com to be contacted on cancellations").

Troubleshooting:

• "No occurrences show up on the public page" – verify the event is active and occurrences have future dates
• "Guest gets: 'No spots available'" – check the capacity on that specific occurrence
• "SMS never arrived" – check the admin log to see if the confirmation SMS was sent; if not, click "Resend SMS"

Next step: See how SMS reminders for events and resources handle automatic reminders the day before.