Twenty-four chairs, twenty-seven guests
Your tastings sell well. The Thursday evening Rhone tasting has twenty-four seats. Tickets are on the website, the shop sells some over the counter, and regulars ring to book and pay later. On the night, twenty-seven people turn up with a reasonable claim to a seat, and you pour smaller measures and find three more glasses.
Two of them had told the shop they were vegetarian, which mattered because there was charcuterie, but the note was on a paper list the presenter never saw.
Three places selling the same seats
Each channel is sensible on its own. The website ticket tool knows its own sales. The shop keeps a paper list by the till. Phone bookings go in a diary. The total is only known when someone adds them up, and they are updated at different times by different people.
- Website capacity is set once and not reduced for shop sales.
- Phone bookings are held without payment and sometimes forgotten.
- Dietary and access notes are written wherever the booking was taken.
- Cancellations are not passed to the people with a waiting list.
- Guests who book for a friend give only one name.
What overbooking costs
An overfull room means less wine per guest, a presenter under pressure and a worse evening for everyone, including the people who paid in advance. Unpaid phone bookings that do not show leave empty seats that could have been sold. Staff time goes into reconciling lists. And a guest whose dietary note was lost has a poor evening that no amount of wine will fix.
One booking record for every tasting
- Each tasting is set up once, with its capacity, price, date and the wines being shown.
- The website, the shop counter and phone bookings all create bookings in the same record, so the remaining seats are always correct everywhere.
- Phone bookings can be held for a period you set with a payment link; unpaid holds are released automatically.
- Each guest, not just the booker, gets a line with dietary and accessibility notes.
- When a tasting is full, a waiting list opens; a cancellation offers the seat to the next person by message.
- Reminders go out before the event, and the presenter gets a printed or on-screen guest list with notes.
- Attendance is recorded on the night, which builds a picture of who comes to what.
| Channel | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Website | Own capacity, not updated | Draws from the shared count |
| Shop counter | Paper list by the till | Booked on the shop computer or tablet |
| Phone | Diary entry, pay on the night | Held with a payment link |
| Cancellation | Seat left empty | Offered to the waiting list |
If your current ticketing tool can share one capacity across channels already, we will say so and set it up rather than build something new.
A room that matches the list
The number of chairs and the number of guests agree. The presenter knows who is coming and what they need. Cancellations fill themselves. And because attendance is recorded against customers, you can invite the right people to the next Burgundy evening instead of emailing everyone.
On a normal week it looks like this. On Monday the tasting goes on sale and the shop, the website and the phone all see the same number of seats. By Wednesday it is full and a waiting list of six has formed. On Thursday morning one guest cancels by clicking the link in her reminder, and by lunchtime the first person on the waiting list has taken the seat and paid. At six o'clock the presenter prints the guest list with two vegetarian notes and one guest who needs a seat near the door, and the room is laid for exactly the number who are coming.
Signs your tastings need this
- You have had more guests than seats.
- Tickets are sold through more than one channel.
- Dietary notes do not reach whoever runs the tasting.
- Unpaid phone bookings do not show up.
- You cannot easily see who has attended past tastings.