Capacity is the control layer behind your ticket strategy. It decides how many people can enter the event, how many tickets a specific type can sell and how many tickets one buyer can place in an order.
Use capacity settings before your event goes live. They are easier to reason about when no orders exist yet, and they reduce manual corrections during a busy launch.
Before you start
Decide your venue or operational limit first. Ticket-level capacity should never add up to more than your real event can handle unless you intentionally use shared capacity.
Choose the event capacity
Event capacity is the overall ceiling. If your venue can hold 600 visitors, set that number as the main guardrail. This keeps the event from selling beyond what your door team, venue or production plan can support.
Use event capacity for:
- strict venue limits;
- room or area limits;
- operational limits for staff, scanners or entry lanes;
- timed-entry events where each block has a clear maximum.
If you leave event capacity open, ticket types can still have their own limits. That can work for small events, but it gives your team less protection against total overselling.
Set capacity per ticket type
Ticket type capacity limits one ticket tier. For example, you can cap VIP at 50 tickets, Early Bird at 100 tickets and Regular at 450 tickets.
This is useful when the ticket type represents something limited:
- VIP access with a smaller area;
- early-bird tickets with a limited promotion;
- partner tickets with a fixed allocation;
- table or group tickets that consume multiple seats;
- day tickets for a multi-day event.
If a ticket type should use the full event capacity, leave its ticket capacity empty or use the full event capacity option in the ticket settings. That tells the ticket to compete inside the event's overall limit instead of carrying a separate cap.
Limit tickets per order
The maximum tickets per order setting controls buyer behaviour. It does not replace capacity, but it helps prevent one order from taking too much of a release.
Use an order limit when:
- demand is high and you want fairer access;
- a ticket should only be bought in small quantities;
- you need cleaner attendee data;
- partners should use dedicated codes instead of buying from the public pool.
For example, a public Early Bird ticket might have 100 total tickets and a maximum of 4 per order. That keeps the release limited and reduces the chance that one buyer clears it.
Use group quantity when tickets must be bought together
Group ticket quantity is different from max tickets per order. A max order limit says "you can buy up to this many". A group quantity says "this ticket is sold in fixed sets".
Use fixed group quantities for:
- 4-pack friend tickets;
- table sales;
- team bundles;
- company outing packages.
If the group quantity is 5, buyers purchase in multiples of 5. Make sure the capacity can be divided by that quantity, otherwise the last few tickets may be hard to sell cleanly.
Test capacity scenarios
Before launch, test the three most common scenarios:
- A buyer tries to buy more than the order limit.
- A ticket type reaches its own capacity.
- The event reaches overall capacity while some ticket types still look available.
The goal is not only to prevent overselling. The buyer should also understand what is happening in the shop: available, limited, sold out or not yet on sale.
Common mistake
Do not use ticket capacity as a substitute for event capacity. If your real event limit is 600, set that at event level first. Then use ticket type caps to shape the mix of buyers inside that total.
What's next
Once capacity is in place, add discount or access codes for the audiences that should not use the public ticket pool.