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Organizer guide: Best Available Seating

Showpass Support
Updated

Best Available Seating

This guide explains how to configure and use the best available seating feature in Showpass. Best available seating ranks seats by quality so that ticket buyers and box office staff are automatically shown the best open seats first, reducing friction during checkout and speeding up transactions.

Scope: This feature covers events only. Memberships are not currently included.

Gating: Best available seating is gated by waffle flags (enable_best_available_pos and enable_best_assigned_seating) on your venue. If your organization does not see the feature, contact your Showpass representative. See step 6 of setup for details.

How it works

Each seat in your venue layout is assigned a score from 1 (lowest quality) to 10 (best). When a buyer selects a ticket quantity, Showpass ranks the available seats by score and presents the top options. Buyers can accept the suggestion or browse the map to choose different seats.

This works across all platforms that support assigned seating: Web Box Office, iPad POS, Mobile POS, Desktop App, and the online checkout experience for customers.

Setting up Best Available Seating

1. Access the venue layout

  1. Log into the Showpass Dashboard.
  2. Select Venue Layout from the menu.
  3. Click Edit on your chosen venue.

2. Enable Seat Score Mode

Toggle Seat Score View to ON in the left panel. This activates the scoring interface so you can see and edit seat scores on the map.

3. Score your seats

You have two options for assigning scores: AI-assisted scoring or manual configuration.

Option A: AI-assisted scoring (Magic Brain)

Showpass provides an AI scoring tool that automatically ranks seats based on their position in the layout. This is ideal for new venues with no historical sales data.

  1. Click the Magic button in the left panel.
  2. The AI evaluates seat coordinates and map layout. You can provide a prompt describing your priorities (for example "centre stage should be highest priority").
  3. The AI generates a one-time ranking for all seats on a 1 to 10 scale.
  4. Review the auto-assigned scores using the heatmap view: green indicates the best seats, yellow is mid-tier, and red is lowest quality.

The AI does not continuously learn or update scores based on purchase behaviour. Scores remain static unless you manually adjust them or run the AI tool again.

Option B: Manual scoring

For finer control, set scores manually:

  1. Click on seats in the layout to select them.
  2. Use the Seat Score dropdown to assign a score (1 = lowest, 10 = premium).
  3. Bulk-select seats with Shift + Click or drag to assign the same score to multiple seats at once.

You can combine both methods. Run AI scoring first, then manually adjust individual seats or sections as needed.

4. Set optional seat properties

While in the seat editor, you can also flag seats with additional properties:

  • Accessible Seating: Marks seats for accessibility.
  • Limited Visibility: Flags seats with restricted views.

5. Save your layout

Click Save in the bottom-right corner to apply all changes.

6. Enable the feature flag

Note: this step is handled by Showpass staff. Contact your Showpass representative if these flags are not yet enabled for your organization.

Event setup requirements

For best available seating to work on an event:

  • The event must have assigned seating enabled with best available turned on for web.
  • The event must have assigned_space configured.
  • Desired ticket types must be set up for the event.

How buyers experience it

Online checkout (customer)

When a customer selects an assigned seating event online:

  1. They see the venue map with sections labeled. The "Select seats" panel on the right shows available seat options ranked by score.
  2. They choose how many tickets they want from a quantity selector.
  3. The system displays the best available seats ranked by score in a side panel, showing section, row, and seat numbers along with the price.
  4. Clicking on a seat option highlights its location on the map in blue/green.
  5. The customer selects their preferred option and proceeds to checkout.

Customers can also browse the map manually and select seats directly if they prefer.

Box office (organizer)

In the box office view (Web Box Office, Desktop App, iPad POS, or Mobile POS):

  1. Enter the event and select the number of seats the customer wants.
  2. The system displays the best available seats ranked by score.
  3. Hovering over a seat selection highlights its location on the map. Selected seats are shown in a different colour on the venue layout.
  4. Select the preferred seats and add them to the cart.
  5. Complete the sale as normal.

Mobile POS

The seating map on Mobile POS supports full interaction including direct tap selection, pinch-to-zoom gestures, pan gestures when zoomed, and zoom in/out/reset buttons. The same seat ranking and selection flow applies.

Rules maintained

Best available seating respects all existing purchase rules: isolated seat prevention (avoids leaving single empty seats between groups), full purchase requirements, and minimum purchase limits.