The two booking modes

Spotly supports two ways of handling tables, and a venue must choose one. Getting this wrong in a demo makes the product look like it does something it does not.

Mode one — the guest picks

The guest sees a plan of the room and chooses their table. This is the default, and it is the thing venue owners react to in a demo.

The venue can still reassign a booking to a different table later. It cannot unassign it back to an unallocated queue — the guest chose a table and is expecting it, so the booking always has one.

Mode two — the venue assigns

The guest books a date, a party size and a time, with no table. The booking arrives unassigned, and a manager drags it onto a table on the floor plan when they are ready.

This suits venues that want to optimise the room themselves, or whose layout changes night to night.

How the setting resolves

The venue sets a default. An individual event can override it. If the event says nothing, it inherits the venue's setting.

That override is genuinely useful — a club that normally lets guests choose can take over the floor for a big night.

Important notes

Ask which mode a venue wants before demoing tables. Showing the floor-plan picker to a venue that will run in assign mode sells them a feature their guests will never see.