Session Waitlist and Room Optimizer

Overview

Two Pro+ features help you manage session capacity: a waitlist for attendees when a session fills up, and a Room Optimizer that suggests room swaps and auto-assigns rooms based on signup counts. Both features are available on Pro and Enterprise only.

Session Waitlist (Attendee-Facing)

Joining the Waitlist

When a session on a Pro+ event reaches its capacity, an attendee who clicks Sign up for this session is added to the waitlist instead. The session card then shows “You're on the waitlist” and their position (for example, “Waitlist position: 3”) so they know where they stand.

On Free, Starter, and Growth events, signing up for a full session shows This session is full. with no option to join a waitlist.

Leaving the Waitlist

To remove yourself from a waitlist, click the Leave waitlist button that replaces the sign-up button once you're queued. Your spot is released and the next person in line moves up.

How Auto-Promotion Works

When a registered attendee cancels their session signup, the first person on the waitlist is promoted automatically (first in, first out). They are signed up for the session right away and receive an email telling them so. Positions for everyone else on the waitlist shift up by one.

Planners do not need to take any action — promotion happens immediately when a cancellation is recorded.

Room Optimizer (Planner-Facing, Pro+ Only)

Setting a Session's Room Mode

Each session has a Room mode field in the session form. Choose one of three modes:

• Fixed room — assign a specific room now. Auto-assign never changes it.
• Fluid — assign later — leave the room undecided. The session counts toward Unassigned (manual) in the optimizer so you can assign it when you're ready.
• Fluid — auto-assign — let the system assign a room. When you run auto-assign, CompleteEvent picks the smallest available room that fits the session's signup count with a 20% buffer. Until it has a room, the session counts toward Unassigned (auto).

Opening the Room Optimizer

Go to Sessions in your event dashboard and click the Room Optimizer tab. The tab appears only on Pro and Enterprise.

Reading the Stats Row

The stats row at the top of the optimizer shows three counts:

• Swap suggestions — the number of oversubscribed/undersubscribed session pairs the system has identified in the same timeslot.
• Unassigned (manual) — sessions set to Fluid — assign later that have not yet been assigned a room.
• Unassigned (auto) — sessions set to Fluid — auto-assign that don't have a room yet, including any that didn't fit an available room when auto-assign ran.

Row Highlights in the Sessions Table

The sessions table in the optimizer uses color to flag sessions that need attention:

• Amber rows — the session is oversubscribed (more signups than the room can hold). These are the candidates for a swap to a larger room.
• Blue rows — the session uses a fluid room mode (assign later or auto-assign).

Applying a Swap Recommendation

When swapping rooms with another session in the same timeslot would better match capacity to demand, the oversubscribed session's row shows a Swap → button.

To apply a swap:

1. Click Swap → on the session's row.
2. A modal shows the two sessions, their current rooms, room capacities, and signup counts. Check Notify attendees by email if you want an email sent to registered attendees in both sessions telling them their room has changed.
3. Click Apply swap, or Dismiss to hide the suggestion.

The rooms are exchanged immediately. If you selected notify attendees, emails go out straight away.

Running Auto-Assign

Click Auto-assign [N] sessions to assign rooms to all Fluid-auto sessions at once. For each session, CompleteEvent finds the smallest available room in the same timeslot that fits the session's signup count plus a 20% buffer. This keeps sessions from being packed into an undersized room while still avoiding unnecessarily large spaces.

Sessions that don't fit any available room (because all fitting rooms are already taken in that timeslot) are left unassigned. They stay in the Unassigned (auto) count so you can assign them yourself or re-run auto-assign.

You can re-run auto-assign after making manual changes. It only processes sessions still set to Fluid-auto without a room assigned — it won't overwrite rooms you've already set manually.

After Optimization

Sessions with Fixed or manually assigned rooms remain unchanged regardless of what the optimizer suggests. Room mode can be changed on any session at any time from the session form.