The Spotly ecosystem

Spotly is five separate applications sharing one database. When a venue asks a question, the first useful move is working out which of the five it is about — a question about "the app" is usually about the admin panel, not the guest app.

The guest app

iOS and Android. Guests browse what is on tonight, follow venues, book tables, buy tickets and carry their passes. It also has a manager mode, so a venue's staff can use the same app to see bookings without opening a laptop.

The website

Everything a guest can do in the app, they can do on the web. This matters more than it sounds: a guest who clicks an Instagram link and does not want to install anything can still buy a ticket, because Spotly supports guest checkout — no account required.

The admin panel

Where the venue runs its business. Reservations, the live floor, events, ticket types, add-ons, offers, guests, payments, email campaigns and settings. This is the piece a venue owner spends time in, and it is what most of this Hub documents.

The panel is currently being redesigned. Some screens are the new design and some are the old one; the pages in chapter 08 say which is which.

The scanner app

A separate, deliberately tiny app for door staff. Sign in, pick the venue, scan. It reads every kind of Spotly code — tickets, reservations, add-on vouchers and guestlist entries — and tells the door immediately whether the code is valid and whether it has already been used.

It is separate from the guest app on purpose. Door staff should not need the venue owner's login, and a phone at the door should do one thing.

The backend

The API and a background worker. Nobody sees it, but two of its behaviours show up in conversations: it releases seats held by an abandoned checkout every couple of minutes, and it sends confirmation emails after payment rather than instantly.

Important notes

There are no SMS messages anywhere in Spotly. Notifications are push (in the guest app) and email. If a venue asks for SMS confirmations, the answer today is no.