Managing Event Capacity
Capacity management helps you control attendance and plan resources.
Understanding Capacity Levels
Church RSVP manages capacity at three levels that work together to give you fine-grained control.
Occurrence-Level Capacity
The total maximum for a specific time slot. This is a hard limit—once an occurrence reaches capacity, no new RSVPs are accepted.
Seat Type Capacity
Individual limits for each seat type within an occurrence. These add up to (or less than) the occurrence capacity. For example, your 9am service might have 500 total capacity with Adults at 400 and Children at 100.
Max Per RSVP
Limits how many seats one person can reserve. This prevents someone from booking all available seats and balances accessibility with abuse prevention. Set per seat type—typically 8-10 for family services, 4-6 for special events.
Occurrence Capacity vs Seat Type Capacity
Understanding when to use occurrence-level limits versus seat type limits is key to setting up your event correctly.
Use Occurrence Capacity When
You want one simple total limit. If you have a single seat type like “General Admission” and just need to cap total attendance at 500, set the occurrence capacity to 500 and leave the seat type unlimited. The occurrence capacity will handle the limit automatically.
You can also use occurrence capacity when you want attendees to self-categorize but don’t need to limit individual categories. For example, you need 50 volunteers for an event and want to know who’s doing setup versus cleanup, but you’re flexible on the split. Set your occurrence capacity to 50 and create unlimited seat types for “Setup Volunteer” and “Cleanup Volunteer”. The occurrence capacity controls total volunteers while seat types just collect their preferences.
Use Seat Type Capacity When
You need to control different categories independently. This is useful when:
Planning specific resources: You have childcare for 50 kids, so you set “Children with Childcare” to 50 even though your total occurrence capacity is 400.
Managing different areas: Your main floor holds 300 and your balcony holds 150. Create seat types for each area and set their individual limits.
Controlling special access: You want to limit “VIP Seating” to 20 people even though the occurrence has higher total capacity.
How They Work Together
Both limits are enforced. If your occurrence capacity is 500 and you have “Adults” set to 400 and “Children” set to 200, the system will stop accepting RSVPs when:
- Total RSVPs across all seat types reach 500, OR
- Adults reach 400, OR
- Children reach 200
Whichever limit is hit first closes that option. If Adults hit 400 but total RSVPs are only 450, people can still RSVP for Children (until Children hits 200 or total hits 500).
Simple Setup: Just Use Occurrence Capacity
For simple events with one seat type, just set the occurrence capacity and leave the seat type capacity unlimited. If your occurrence capacity is 300, that’s all you need—the occurrence limit will close registration at 300 automatically.
Capacity Display Settings
Control when attendees see remaining capacity:
Always Show: Creates urgency and helps distribute attendance across time slots. Best for high-demand events like Christmas and Easter services.
Never Show: No pressure on attendees, cleaner interface. Best for unlimited or very high capacity events and virtual attendance.
Show at Threshold: Display capacity only when X% full (like 75%). No pressure early on, but creates urgency as the event fills. This works well for most events.
Monitoring Capacity
Your event dashboard shows real-time capacity information for each occurrence: total RSVPs vs capacity, percentage full, remaining seats, and breakdown by seat type.
Adjusting Capacity
You can increase capacity anytime—just edit the occurrence and update the limits. New capacity is immediately available for RSVPs.
Decreasing capacity requires more care. Check your current RSVP count first to make sure you’re not already over the new limit. If you’ve already exceeded the new capacity with existing RSVPs, you’ll need to decide whether to contact attendees to move time slots, keep existing RSVPs and just close new ones, or add another occurrence to accommodate the excess.
Admin Privileges vs End User Limits
As an event admin or organizer, you have more flexibility with capacity than end users. Understanding these differences helps you manage exceptions while maintaining control.
Creating RSVPs Over Capacity
You can create RSVPs in the admin dashboard even when an occurrence is at capacity. The public RSVP form respects capacity limits and stops accepting new registrations, but you can always add more through the admin interface.
Use this for VIP accommodations, emergency exceptions, staff reservations, or fixing booking errors. Just remember that every RSVP over capacity is someone you need to accommodate in your physical space.
Reducing Capacity Below Existing RSVPs
You can set capacity limits lower than the current number of RSVPs. This won’t delete any existing RSVPs—all current registrations remain valid. But it will:
- Prevent new RSVPs from being accepted
- Prevent existing attendees from editing their RSVPs to increase seat quantities
- Show the occurrence as full on the public RSVP form
This is useful when operational constraints change (like reduced volunteer availability or space limitations) but you want to honor existing commitments.