With season seats, every seat your package prices is taken out of each date ahead of time and kept for the season. Single-ticket buyers see those seats as Unavailable. When the season window ends, you release the seats nobody bought to single sale, on every date or on some.
Season seats are switched on for one season at a time, before its sales open (see Switch them on). A season without them sells as before: a buyer’s seat is held on every date at the moment they pick it.
Do you need season seats?
Most seasons don’t. Without them, a seat nobody has bought for the season yet can still sell as a single ticket on one date, if the season sells single tickets. Whoever picks it first gets it. Use season seats when every season seat must stay off single sale until your season window ends, and then go on single sale in one release.
Switch them on
- With no developer: email hello@seatlayer.io with the season’s name and ask us to switch season seats on, before you publish the season. There is no switch for it in the dashboard.
- With a developer: your developer can switch them on with the Seasons API,
with
inventoryMode: "block", while the season has one package and its sales are closed. See Season seats in the API.
Once they are on, the season’s Overview shows the Season seats step.
Set the seats aside
Open the Season seats step
Once season seats are on, the season’s Overview shows a Season seats step after Checkout and prices. Choose Choose season seats.
Check what goes in
The table lists each section your package prices, with its category, its seats and how many will be set aside. Every seat your package prices is a season seat.
Keep sections for single tickets
To sell a section game by game instead, choose Keep for single tickets on its row. Put back in the season undoes it.
Set them aside
Choose Set seats aside. Every date takes its seats in the background. You can leave the page; the step shows Done when every date has its seats. Then publish the season and open sales.
Season sales can open only once every date has its seats.
Seats that aren’t free on every date
A seat becomes a season seat only if it is free on every date. The others stay with single tickets, so no season buyer gets a seat that is taken on one of their dates. Each one has a reason:
- Sold as a single ticket
- Blocked by staff
- A partner’s seat, with the partner’s name
- In a cart on that date
- Not for sale on that date
- Not on that date’s plan
Partner seats and seats you closed are left out this way. Before you set the seats aside, the sheet lists them by date, seat and reason, and Download all saves them as a CSV. Afterwards the Not free on every date card on the Seats tab has the full list: See the list ›, then Download all for a CSV with the columns Date, Starts, Seat, Why and Reason code.
Before you publish
From the moment the seats are set aside until you publish:
- Date and package changes are refused. Adding or removing a date, adding another package, or pricing other categories would make the set-aside wrong, so the season refuses it and changes nothing.
- Prices still change. A new price for the same categories reaches every date. It doesn’t change which seats are in.
- Changing dates or packages anyway. Ask us to give the seats back. Make the change, then set the seats aside again.
Publishing checks that every date has its seats, then turns season seats on.
Watch the seats
The Seats tab shows season seats above the season seat map. Its figures refresh every 30 seconds while the tab is open.
- Five counts: Set aside, Held, Sold, Free on the season page, and Released.
- Every date gets every season change in the background, in about a second. Each date reads Up to date, Catching up or Retrying. Needs a look lists the dates that are not up to date. A date that is retrying keeps the seats waiting on it off single sale until it catches up, so none is sold twice.
- Dates that have left. A date you cancel, or one marked as past, leaves the season seats. Its row reads Cancelled or Past with its date and time, greyed, with no count. The counts then say “on the dates still to come”, and a release leaves those dates out.
- Release to single sale, with any release you have set.
- Not free on every date, as above.
The seats CSV
Download the list on the Seats tab gives one line per season seat, with the columns Seat, Section, Category, Status, Booking ref and Holder ref. Status is Free, Held, Sold, Released to single sale, Single tickets (not free on every date) or Setting aside. Admins and designers can download it.
Release unsold seats to single sale
Choose Release to single sale… on the Seats tab, then pick three things.
| Choice | Options |
|---|---|
| What to release | All unsold seats, Sections (one or more, like Main E), or Seats (type them, like Main C, row A, seats 1–6) |
| Which dates | All dates, leaving out dates already played, or Pick dates: one date or a few |
| When | Now, and the seats go on single sale in a few seconds, or At a set time, for example when your season window ends |
The dialog counts the seats first. Free seats go on single sale. Held seats go when their hold ends unsold. Sold seats stay with their holders. A season buyer can’t pick a seat that is on single sale for one of their dates.
A release at a set time shows on the release card until then. Change opens it again; Cancel cancels it, and the unsold seats stay in the season. With nothing set, unsold seats stay in the season until you release them. Setting a new time, or releasing every unsold seat now, replaces a release you had set.
Releasing every unsold seat on every date still to come ends the season window.
Only admins and designers can release seats.
When a seat comes back
While season sales are open, a refunded seat or a lapsed renewal goes back into the season, so another season buyer can have it. After the season window ends, it goes to single sale with the other unsold seats.
What season seats don’t do yet
A season with season seats on refuses these changes, and nothing is changed:
- adding or removing a date;
- postponing a date, or replacing it with another;
- cancelling a season booking made through your own checkout;
- taking back one date of an order (Cancel one date…);
- a holder giving one date back, or taking it back;
- recovering a booking.
These still work: moving a date to a new time, cancelling a date, marking a date as played, refunding a whole order, and renewals. See Season date changes.
One package
A season with season seats sells one package. Set the seats aside while the season has one package; once they are set aside, another package is refused.