Guest list and table planner

Two modules do this job and they sit in chapter V The Room: Guest List (the Attendee Manager) and Table Planner. The guest list is the record of who is coming; the planner is the room they sit in. They read the same guests, so a change in one shows in the other.

Before you start

• An event record with a date — several counts on these screens key off it.
• Your room capacity and table sizes from the venue.
• A guest spreadsheet, if you are importing: names, organisation, email, and dietary or access requirements if you hold them.

1. Get the guests in

In Guest List, use + Add Attendee for one person or Import Guest List for a file. The attendee record holds First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone, Payment, Amount (£), Ticket Type, Job Title, Organisation, Assign to Table, Dietary Requirements, Access Requirements and Notes. Add & Send Invite saves and emails in one step.

Fill in dietary and access requirements as you go rather than chasing them in the last week. They travel through to the caterer's list and to the planner's warnings, and they are the fields nobody has time to backfill.

2. Lay out the room

Table Planner opens on the plan itself rather than a spreadsheet, with a Plan / List toggle and a link out to the full-screen room at /room that you can open in its own tab. Drag a guest onto a seat to place them.

Two assisted options sit in the header. Smart Assign places people against the real room and previews the result before it commits, weighing VIP status, dietary grouping, keeping an organisation together and pairing plus-ones. AI Optimise does the same job with the AI service. Both are suggestions: every placement can be dragged afterwards.

3. Let the validator do the counting

The planner checks the plan against the room rather than trusting the arithmetic in your head. It will tell you when the same person has been seated twice and when you have placed more people than the room holds. Treat an over-capacity warning as a hard stop and talk to the venue — the capacity figure on the event record is what it is measured against, so make sure that number is the real one.

4. Print what the room needs

From the Table Planner header: Export Guest CSV, Print Guest List, Export Table Plan CSV, Print Table Plan and Name Cards. The guest CSV carries the dietary column, which is the file the caterer actually wants. Print the table plan for the door team and the name cards for the room; do it the day before, not on the night.

5. Event day

Guest List has the day-of tabs: Live Check-In, Walk-in Registration, QR Tickets, Badge Design, Event Day Stats and Settings. Check-in works by scanning a pass, typing a code or typing a name — all three go through the same box.

Under check-in Settings you can set the Scanner Type and QR Code Format, play a sound on a successful scan, show the guest photo, allow duplicate scans for re-entry, and auto-print a badge on check-in. There is a kiosk mode with its own welcome message and idle timeout, and Open Live Display Board for a screen behind the desk. Walk-ins use Register & Check In or Register Only.

Late arrivals and no-shows: Send Reminder to Not Arrived, Print Remaining Badges and Generate Check-in Report are all in the same place. Moving a guest between tables on the night updates the plan for whoever is on the door.

Common problems

• The import brought in duplicates. The planner flags a guest seated twice, but two separate records for the same person are two guests. Search the name in the list and merge by deleting the spare before you seat anybody.
• A guest has no seat after Smart Assign. The room ran out of seats before it ran out of guests. Add a table or check the capacity figure on the event record.
• Plus-ones are missing from the count. Each plus-one needs their own attendee record, linked to the primary guest. A named "+1" in a notes field is not a guest and will not be seated, badged or fed.
• A QR code will not scan at the door. Use Regenerate Expired in QR Tickets, or check the guest in by name — the search box takes a name as readily as a code.
• The caterer wants numbers you cannot find. Export Guest CSV and pivot on the dietary column; the figure on screen is a live count and moves as people check in.