Using Isolated Seat Detection rules you can prevent or limit customers from leaving isolated seats.
Isolated seats arise when customers purchase tickets leaving single seats between bookings. This applies only on reserved areas of your Seating Plans.
Setting up Isolated Seat Detection
The options for Isolated Seat Detection can be found in the Settings Interface.
TIP: You will need the Settings Administrator user role to be able to do this.
Go to the Configuration tab > System Setup > Seating Plans. In this section you’ll see three options:
Which option you choose will decide how seat selection works on your website.
- Allow customers to book isolated seats
This is the default setting, which turns off the Isolated Seat Detection feature. Customers can book any available seats and it does allow customers to leave single seats. - Prevent customers from leaving isolated seats unless there are no other similar seats available (known as Flexible Mode)
This option will stop customers from leaving single seats unless there are no other similar options within the same row and area of your Seating Plan. Isolated seats won’t be prevented completely, but greatly reduced. - Prevent customers from leaving isolated seats at all times (known as Strict Mode). Not recommended.
This will never let customers leave single seats. We do not recommend this option as it can create a frustrating customer experience. For example: for a sold-out performance there are three seats left available. The customer only wants to book two tickets but this is prevented as their selection would leave a single seat.
In the Sales Interface
You can also choose whether or not to display a warning message to staff in the box office by checking the box 'Show a warning message to Users in the Sales Interface when they make a selection which leaves isolated seats'. Whenever seats are selected which would leave one or more isolated seats, the user will receive a warning message. This message won’t stop them from continuing with the order but is a notification intended to make them aware that they’re leaving isolated seats.
For more information about Event Set Up and Seating Plans, see the Set up Events, Offers and Merchandise section of the Support Centre.