Noctern marks a show Sold out by itself when nothing is left to sell online: every reserved seat is sold or held by your venue (box office holds, named or comp holds, group sales), and every general admission area is sold to capacity. Seats sitting in another buyer's cart do not count: they come back within minutes. You can also mark a show sold out early, or hide the label.

What buyers see

When a show is sold out:

• the event page shows SOLD OUT with "This show is sold out." in place of the buy button. The seat map or ticket list is still shown, but nothing on it can be selected
• event listings and your venue page show a Sold out badge on the show's card
• search engines are told the show is sold out
• online checkout refuses the show with the same message

When a seat comes back (a refund, or a hold that is released or runs out), the show goes back on sale by itself and the badge disappears.

The sold-out email

The first time a show sells out by itself, every venue admin gets one email: "Show on date is sold out". It is sent once per sell-out. If the show goes back on sale and sells out again, you get one more.

The sold-out switch

Open the show from AdminEvents. The Sold out card shows the current status and three choices:

• Automatic — the default. The show is sold out only when nothing is left to sell online.
• Mark as sold out — stops online sales now, even with seats left. Buyers see SOLD OUT and online checkout refuses. Use it to keep the last seats for the box office or the door.
• Hide sold-out label — buyers see no sold-out badge. It does not open up any seats: checkout still only sells seats that are really available, so a show can never be oversold.

Every change to the switch is recorded in your venue's activity log.

Selling at the box office

Mark as sold out only closes online sales. The box office and the Door POS can still sell the remaining seats. When staff open a show marked sold out, they see a Marked sold out online banner first, so they know online buyers cannot get tickets.