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What to do when a workshop is full

Capacity is used up and people keep signing up. How to spot it early, what to offer those who missed out, and why waiting for a wait list will not help.

A workshop has filled up and further people cannot sign up. There is no wait list in Happenee, so the situation is not handled by the system but by you — either you raise the capacity, add a second run, or offer people an alternative. What matters is reacting before the people who missed out start asking.

Getting started

Look at workshop occupancy in the agenda while registration is still open, not a week before the event. A workshop that fills up three weeks ahead is information you can act on; one that fills up the day before is just a problem.

Details

Three realistic options

  • Raise the capacity. The simplest route if the room and the facilitator can take it. You edit the capacity in the session settings; the new places are offered to the next people immediately.

  • Add a second run. For a popular workshop this usually beats an overcrowded room. You create the new session by copying the original, so you do not have to rebuild the settings.

  • Offer an alternative. When neither of those works, tell people which workshops still have space. Without that they stop at "it was full" and never sign up for anything else.

Communicating with the people who missed out

The system does not tell anyone that capacity ran out — that is on you. The fastest route is a notification in the attendee app: it arrives as a push notification and suits a short message such as "workshop A is full, B and C still have space".

When the change is substantial (a second run, a time shift), send an e-mail campaign targeted at the affected group.

There is no wait list

No setting will do this for you. If you need a queue, you keep it outside Happenee and assign people to freed-up places manually — you can add them to the session's registered list. People added that way are marked as Assigned by organizer.

Common pitfalls

Raising the capacity but not the room

A number in the admin does not make the room bigger. Before you raise capacity, confirm the room's real capacity and check with the facilitator whether the format survives a larger group — for a workshop with group work, that is the difference between a good and a bad experience.

Telling the people who missed out nothing

An attendee who hits a full workshop and hears nothing usually does not sign up for another one. A short notification saying where space is left saves more attendance than anything else.

Setting capacity after registration opens

If somebody signs up for a session before you set its capacity, you can end up with more registrations than the limit. So set capacity when you create the session, not afterwards.

Related articles

  • Setting up workshops and session registration

  • How time slots work

  • Using Notifications in the attendee app

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