When an artist asks for seats held — comps for their agent, a manager's guest list, anything with a real contact behind it — a timed hold tracks who it's for and releases the unclaimed seats automatically instead of sitting until someone remembers.
This is different from the plain seat-blocking tool on this page: a plain block just makes a seat unavailable. A timed hold also carries a contact, a reason, and an auto-release time.
Placing a hold
Go to AdminBox OfficeHolds, pick the venue and event, then click Place a named hold.
Click each seat to hold on the seat map. Selected seats show as chips below the map — click the × on a chip to remove it.
Click Place hold (N seats), then fill in the contact's name and email, a reason/label (e.g. "Artist comps — Sarah Morris"), and when it should auto-release.
The release time defaults to 24 hours before the performance (a venue can change that default). If the hold should never auto-release — a house hold for production or ADA seating, say — check Keep past release instead of relying on the timer.
What happens as the release time approaches
- 24 hours before release, the contact gets an email that the hold will release soon unless claimed.
- At the release time, any seats still unclaimed release back to inventory automatically, the contact gets a second email confirming what was released, and the hold's history records exactly which seats went back.
- A venue can turn both emails off entirely if they'd rather handle holds silently.
Hovering a held seat on this page's seat map shows its reason and release time, so any staff member can see at a glance what a seat is being held for and when it frees up.
Managing an existing hold
Each active hold on the Holds page shows its contact, seat count, and release time, with three actions:
- Edit the release time — useful if the artist asks for more time.
- Keep — stop this specific hold from auto-releasing, without checking the "never release" box at creation.
- Release now — release the remaining unclaimed seats immediately, without waiting for the timer.
Releasing seats — by hand or automatically — returns them to general inventory immediately. If a hold needs to be extended, edit the release time before it fires rather than re-creating the hold after the fact.
Every hold keeps a short history (placed, edited, notice sent, kept, released) so you can see exactly what happened and when, even after the hold itself has released.