Rooms, Groups and Private Hire
A reservation space represents a distinct guest proposition with its own
capacity, flow, or inventory—for example a private dining room, terrace event,
chef's table, or whole-venue hire. Normal table bookings do not need a space.
Choose the guest flow
| Flow | Guest result | Inventory held? | Best for |
|---|
| Direct reservation | Confirmed immediately when all rules pass | Yes | Standardised, instantly bookable rooms |
| Booking request | Pending until a manager confirms or declines | Yes while pending | Groups that need review before confirmation |
| Enquiry only | Enquiry form and follow-up conversation | No | Bespoke events, very large parties, whole-venue hire |
The request acknowledgement clearly says the booking is not confirmed. The guest
receives confirmation only after a manager approves it.
When the selected offering requires a deposit, a booking request secures the
guest's card without charging it. The deposit is collected only when a manager
accepts the request. A failed deposit charge leaves the request pending. A venue
decline never incurs a cancellation fee and refunds any deposit already charged
on a legacy request before the decline is completed.
Enquiry-only spaces require Sites Advanced. They do not need a table or area
footprint because an enquiry never reserves inventory. Active direct or request
spaces must use the whole venue or select at least one area/table.
Guest-facing private-hire page
Private hire has its own page on the venue website at /private-hire. It is not
shown as a competing option inside the regular /book journey.
The journey follows five clear decisions:
- Event needs — the guest chooses the occasion, seated or standing layout,
and expected party size.
- Eligible spaces — TablePort shows only exclusive spaces whose active
layout and capacity fit the event.
- Space storytelling — the guest sees why a space fits, its approved range,
whether it is exclusive, and whether the result is direct or a request.
- Availability — after choosing a space, the guest selects a date and
preferred time. TablePort searches the full service day and groups valid
event windows by shift.
- Confirmation — the guest reviews the occupied time, commercial terms, and
request status before providing details or a payment method.
The private-hire page therefore:
- shows only spaces configured for exclusive use;
- recommends a space from the guest's event needs before checking availability;
- explains whether the result is a direct reservation, booking request, or
enquiry;
- uses the same live table inventory, overlap checks, pacing, deposits, and
confirmation rules as every other reservation; and
- links back to regular table booking for guests who chose the wrong journey.
The regular-booking maximum does not constrain this journey. The chosen space's
seated or standing range is authoritative, so a venue with a regular maximum of
14 can still accept a correctly configured 40-person seated hire or 100-person
whole-venue event.
Review the offered event window
Inspect the returned date, shift, start/end, footprint, and buffers. A quiet
floor plan is not proof that the room is free: pending requests, regular
bookings, active service, setup, or clear-down can overlap the intended window.
Review the conflicting records rather than overriding an exclusive hire blindly.
The regular booking page continues to show food, drinks, experiences, normal
seating preferences, and any non-exclusive named spaces. When private hire is
available, it provides a quiet link to the dedicated page. A private-hire
section on the venue home page also opens the dedicated page instead of dropping
the guest directly into a generic enquiry form.
Define the space
Configure:
- a clear name and guest-facing description;
- whether the space is active;
- areas and individual tables, or Whole venue;
- Best-fit tables or Hold entire footprint allocation;
- allowed offerings, if not all;
- minimum and maximum seated party size;
- optional standing-reception minimum and maximum;
- whether the event shares normal service pacing or has dedicated event
capacity;
- direct, request, or enquiry flow; and
- setup and clear-down minutes.
Commercial terms belong to the offering rather than the room footprint. Give the
private-hire offering custom deposit and cancellation terms when they should
differ from normal restaurant bookings. All spaces linked to that offering use
those terms; the space continues to define capacity, layout, inventory, and
guest flow. See
Deposits, Cancellations and Changes.
Set an offering duration for the intended event length, then review matching
shift party-size turn-time rules: those take precedence when applicable. If no
shift rule applies, the offering duration is used, then the venue default.
Verify the actual event window returned before confirming the hire. Setup and
clear-down belong to the space and sit outside the guest-facing event duration
while still blocking inventory.
Best-fit tables chooses the smallest suitable table or combination within
the space. Use it when multiple bookings may share the room or area.
Hold entire footprint blocks every configured table for the full occupied
window. Use it when privacy, layout, sound, or service makes sharing impossible.
The hold applies even to footprint tables whose normal offering compatibility
differs from the selected booking.
Setup and clear-down extend the hold before and after the guest's booked time.
Use Hold entire footprint or Whole venue for choices that should appear
on the private-hire page. A best-fit space is not exclusive and remains part of
the regular table-booking journey.
Normal reservations and private hires use the same table inventory. A regular
booking cannot take a table already held by an exclusive room, and a private
hire cannot claim a footprint that overlaps an active regular booking. On a
special day, the room must also accept an offering enabled for that date. See
Special Days & Paid Experiences.
Set seated and standing capacity
The venue's Maximum guests for regular bookings applies only to ordinary
table reservations. Every exclusive hire has its own capacity:
- Maximum seated guests is the approved maximum when guests have seats and
tables.
- Standing reception is optional. Enable it only when the approved standing
capacity differs from the seated layout, then enter its own maximum.
- A minimum can be set for each layout when the commercial or operating model
requires one.
TablePort shows the number of seats currently assigned to the footprint as a
planning reference and warns when the stated seated maximum is higher. It does
not calculate a legal capacity from table seats. Use the event capacity approved
through the venue's authorised process. The software seat count is not a
capacity approval or a substitute for that review.
Guests choose Seated event or Standing reception before party size. The
party selector then uses that layout's real range; it does not inherit the
regular booking maximum.
Shared or dedicated service capacity
Choose Share normal service limits when the event is served by the same
kitchen, bar, host team, and floor operation as regular bookings. Its guests
count toward shift cover limits, concurrent-cover limits, and rolling arrival
pacing.
Choose Dedicated event — use space capacity only when the event has a
genuinely separate operating plan. The hire still blocks every table in its
footprint and still respects opening hours, overlaps, setup, and clear-down, but
normal restaurant cover and arrival-pacing limits do not reject it.
Large-group routing
Large groups use the dedicated private-hire page to choose an eligible active
space and layout. The result follows that space's direct, request, or enquiry
flow. An enquiry-only flow can collect event details without promising a table
or holding inventory.
This lets a venue support normal dining, group requests, and private hire
without raising its general maximum guest setting to an unsafe number.
Recommended setup order
In Settings → Location settings → Reservations → Offerings & Spaces:
- Create or edit a Private hire offering. Set its party range, event
duration, visibility, and commercial terms.
- Open Payment & cancellation terms only when private hire should differ
from ordinary dining. Configure both policies intentionally; custom terms
replace the inherited terms for this offering.
- Add each real guest proposition as a space—such as Inside, Outside, or Whole
venue—and choose its direct, request, or enquiry flow. Avoid duplicating a
space merely to express a different price or policy; those belong to the
offering.
- Choose seated and optional standing ranges from approved operational
capacities.
- Select every area and table in the footprint, or choose Whole venue.
- Use Hold entire footprint for exclusive hire and set realistic setup and
clear-down buffers.
- Choose shared or dedicated service capacity honestly.
- Save, then test the public
/private-hire journey at each capacity boundary
and against an overlapping regular booking.
If the event is too bespoke to promise inventory online, use Enquiry only.
If staff can judge a standard request from the configured information, use
Booking request so the footprint is protected while the decision is pending.
Configuration examples
Private dining room
- Seated range: 8–16
- Standing reception: not offered
- Flow: Booking request
- Footprint: all private-room tables
- Allocation: Hold entire footprint
- Service pacing: Share normal service limits
- Buffers: include room setup and reset
Shared terrace
- Party range: venue-appropriate
- Flow: Direct reservation
- Footprint: terrace area
- Allocation: Best-fit tables
- Offerings: drinks only and food & drinks, if both are served there
Whole-venue hire
- Seated maximum: venue-approved event capacity
- Standing maximum: add only when that layout is approved
- Flow: Booking request or Enquiry only
- Whole venue: enabled
- Service pacing: Dedicated event only when staffed and operated separately
- Description: state what information the events team needs
- Enquiry inbox: verify it under General reservation settings
Before publishing a space
Test the minimum and maximum of every enabled layout, every allowed offering,
the first and last slot, overlapping normal reservations, shared and dedicated
pacing behavior, buffers, the guest message, and the manager action required.
For table behavior, see
Tables & Allocation.
Save and recovery
Refresh unavailable table inventory before selecting a footprint. Whole-venue
setup uses active bookable tables; review the physical event footprint rather
than assuming every decorative floor-plan layer is included. Existing or later
changes to areas/tables require checking the resulting saved footprint.
After saving, reopen the space and offering, then use an agreed safe guest test
for the enabled direct, request, or enquiry path. Inspect booking/financial and
notification outcomes separately. Enquiry-only does not hold inventory; a
request acknowledgement is not acceptance. For uncertainty, preserve the same
record and use Booking recovery, not a
duplicate request or an invented table link.