Unless you're hosting an event in a large venue with more than 1,000 seats or multiple floors, Simple seating charts typically include everything you need to sell reserved seating for your event.
💡 If you haven't yet, check out 'Getting started with our seating chart tool' to make sure you know how to use key tools in the seating chart builder.
How to create a simple seating chart using a reference image
If you have an existing image of your seating chart, it's incredibly easy to get started.
From your box office Settings, head to Seating charts in the left-hand menu.
Click the Create new seating chart.
Start by creating a new Simple seating chart.
Upload your existing seating chart – you can submit a PNG, GIF, JPEG, WEBP, PDF or SVG file up to 15MB. When it appears, click the Next button to continue.
Step 1: Upload a reference chart
Scanning a reference chart (recommended)
Next, you'll need to zoom into your chart so that the cursor circle matches with the size of a seat. Click on the seat to scan it.
Rows may be curved or straightened automatically to beautify your chart. Don't worry, you can disable this if needed.
Check that your seating chart has been scanned as expected, and click Done when you're happy.
💡 Top tip: The scanner only detects seats accurately if the shapes on your chart are completely closed e.g. they are circles or rectangles. You should also aim to use a high-resolution image, if possible.
If the scanner is not working well for you, you can try calibrating it or drawing it manually using the editor tools.
Calibrating a reference chart
If the scanning option isn't right for you, then you may want to go through the calibration steps instead.
Calibrating matches the spacing between seats and rows in your image with the seats in the designer, so that you can trace more accurately.
When you see a close-up version of your image, click to place a seat over one of the seats in the image. You can use the toggle at the bottom to adjust the size of the seat marker – you want the seat edges to match the edge of the marker.
Click to mark at least four seats to help calibrate. When you're ready, click Next.
You may find that the designer automatically resizes your seats for you. You can manually adjust again if you'd like. Click Next when you're happy.
Next, you'll be provided a duplicate row, and asked to move it so that it's parallel with another one. This helps calibrate the distance between rows in your image. When you're done, click Next.
Now, you're ready to start tracing! Use the Row and Multiple rows tools to start tracing the seats in your image. The calibration should have set up the designer so that the spacing between seats and rows accurately matches the reference image below.
Step 2: Add the finishing touches
If you want to preview what your chart looks like so far, click on the 'eye' icon.
You can toggle the Reference chart off by unticking the Visible checkbox.
If you want to display your reference image (or a branded background) on your customer-facing seating chart, you can upload it underneath the Background header on the right-hand side of the editor. You can adjust the size using the percentage toggle.
💡 Background images must be in PNG, GIF, JPEG, WEBP or SVG format and the file size cannot exceed 10MB.
Next, you need to label and categorise your seats. Use the Select tool to select the first block of rows you want to label. This will bring up the Category and Row menus on the right hand side.
First, update the Row labelling. You can choose between alphabetical, numerical, or roman numeral labels.
Next, select your Seat labelling. Again, you can choose from multiple options in the Labels dropdown.
Once you've set these, you should see the changes reflected in your seating chart.
Then, make sure to set and add a Category to all seats, which we'll explain below.
How to create a simple seating chart by drawing sections by hand
In this example, we'll use a standard 200 capacity room, with an even number of rows, and an aisle in the middle.
Open a new Simple seating chart in the designer.
Instead of uploading a reference chart at this stage, you can just click the Skip button.
Head to the Row tool to draw your seating chart, and draw your seats in the layout of your venue.
If you have a symmetrical venue, you can draw a section of your venue, Select all of your seats, and then use the Duplicate and Mirror tools, to duplicate your first section. You can move this over to illustrate the venue layout and create space for an aisle.
Next, you need to label and categorise your seats. Use the Select tool to select the first block of rows you want to label. A panel will appear on the right-hand side where you can add labels to your seating chart.
First, update the Row labelling. You can choose between alphabetical, numerical, or roman numeral labels.
Next, select your Seat labelling. Again, you can choose from multiple options in the Labels dropdown.
Once you've set these, you should see the changes reflected in your seating chart.
Before you finish, you'll need to set a Category for all of your seats.
How to add seat categories
As explained in 'Getting started with our seating chart tool', categories are required for all seats within a seating chart.
The Category is what will be associated with a ticket type in Ticket Tailor so that the system knows what each seat costs, and what remains available per ticket type. Read more about this here.
In a simple seating chart, you may not need more than one category. In this case, you can just create one called 'Reserved seating'. However, if you want to have different pricing in different areas of your venue, you'll need to add multiple categories.
To do this, make sure you've not selected any seats with your cursor, and click the Manage button next to the Categories header.
Then, click + Create a new category, and enter the name of your new category. Hit enter, or click out of the text field to save it.
Once you have all of your categories created, select the relevant seats from your seating chart, and select the related category from the menu on the right. In the example below, we're creating 'Band A' seating.
Once the categories have been applied, you'll see the seats change colour to match the category.
Before you finish, you can use the Shape and Text tools from the left-hand menu to indicate notable markers in your venue, like a stage or screen.
Make sure to give your seating chart a name in the top left corner, and click X in the top right corner to leave the designer.
If you don't see any errors in red on the right hand side, your seating chart is ready to use! 🎉
How to link your seating chart to your event
If you haven't created your event yet, open the Events tab in your dashboard, and click Add new event. If your event is already partially set up, click on the relevant event and head to Edit event and tickets.
Add your event details.
Scroll down to the Tickets section, and click the Use seating chart button.
Select the relevant seating chart from the dropdown menu.
You can choose whether or not you'll allow your ticket buyers from leaving single seats available when placing an order.
Click Save settings.
Click the Add ticket button, and you'll see the option to create a Seated ticket type. When you click Seated, your categories will appear.
Add all of the remaining seated tickets you want to sell for your event.
For a more detailed look at this step, read How to link your seating chart to an event.