Search, create, and manage event bookings

Open the booking dashboard

Open Events & Bookings > Bookings. Administrators and users with the Booking manager role can use this operational screen without opening each event editor.

The dashboard summarizes Active bookings, Booked places, Checked in attendees, and today's scheduled sessions. Its table shows the session, customer, reference and origin, attendance count, status, and available actions.

Find a reservation

1. Set From and To when you need an event-date range.
2. Choose one Event or leave All events selected.
3. Enter an attendee name, customer email, booking reference, public identifier, or attendee name in Attendee or reference.
4. Choose Pending, Confirmed, Cancelled, Checked in, or No-show under Status when needed.
5. Select Apply filters.
6. Use Clear to return to the complete list.

Results are paginated at 25 bookings per page, so the screen does not load every reservation into memory.

Create a booking for a customer

1. Select Add booking in the page header.
2. Choose an event that has bookings enabled.
3. Enter the Attendee count and choose a Status.
4. Select an Existing customer, or enter a new Name and Email.
5. Leave Create a customer account when this email is new enabled only when the customer should receive an account.
6. Add an Internal note for private operational context when required.
7. Review Booked, Checked in, Remaining, and Capacity.
8. Select Create booking.

The form checks current inventory before saving. A normal booking cannot exceed capacity. Administrators with the separate capacity-override capability can explicitly enable Override capacity for this booking; the warning, operator, and override marker make that exceptional choice auditable.

When a manual booking is created as Pending or Confirmed and has an email address, the customer receives the corresponding Free confirmation message.

Edit a booking

1. Find the reservation and select Edit.
2. Review its fixed Event and event date.
3. Correct the customer Name or Email when appropriate.
4. Change Attendee count, Status, Checked-in attendees, or Internal note.
5. Select Save booking.
6. Review the success message and capacity summary.

Increasing places or restoring a Cancelled booking checks capacity inside the same protected transaction. Cancelling releases held places. Changing Pending to Confirmed sends a confirmation email; changing to Cancelled sends a cancellation email when the record has a valid address.

Use reservation statuses correctly

• Pending holds capacity while awaiting staff review.
• Confirmed holds capacity for an accepted reservation.
• Checked in records attendance and continues to represent the booked places.
• Cancelled releases capacity.
• No-show is available only after the event has ended and remains part of attendance reporting.

A Cancelled booking cannot be changed directly to No-show. Restore it to an active state only when capacity is available, then apply the appropriate attendance state.

Apply a bulk action

1. Select up to 100 booking rows.
2. Choose Check in selected, Mark selected as no-shows, or Cancel selected.
3. Select Apply.
4. Review the accessible confirmation dialog.
5. Select Confirm action.
6. Read the updated and failed counts after processing.

Each booking is still validated independently. For example, a no-show action fails for a session that has not ended. Bulk cancellation sends the normal customer cancellation email for changed records with a valid address.

Free and Pro differences

The dashboard, filters, manual creation, editing, statuses, attendance, bulk actions, customer links, pagination, private notes, capacity checks, and Booking manager access are Free.

Pro can add pass and membership selectors to the same manager form and supplies advanced reports, CSV exports, waitlist operations, and automation activity. It does not replace the Free booking dashboard or duplicate reservations.

Troubleshoot booking management

An event is absent from Add booking

The event must be Published or scheduled for future publication and have Accept bookings for this event enabled.

Restoring or increasing a booking fails

There are not enough remaining places. Reduce the attendee count, increase the event capacity, cancel another reservation only when appropriate, or use the administrator-only override after accepting the overbooking risk.

A status email was not sent

Only creation as Pending or Confirmed, a later change to Confirmed, and a change to Cancelled trigger the core customer messages. Check that the booking has a valid email and verify the WordPress mail transport.

A booking manager cannot edit events

That is expected. The dedicated Booking manager role is intentionally limited to booking, agenda, customer, and reporting workflows. Event content editing requires separate WordPress post capabilities.