What is session capacity?

Session capacity is the number of people a session can take. It matters most for workshops, roundtables and anything with materials or equipment, where turning up and finding no chair is a real failure.

In practice at an event

The organizer sets a limit against the room. Attendees sign up in advance through the app. When the limit is reached, further sign-ups go on a waitlist and are promoted automatically as places are released.

The failure mode is specific and worth naming: if the limit is checked in the app rather than on the server, two attendees tapping at the same moment on two phones will both be told they have the last place. Fixing that after the fact is a conversation with a room of forty people and eight chairs.

What to look for

Ask whether capacity is enforced server-side. It is a yes-or-no question with a real consequence and vendors answer it directly when asked directly.

Then ask about the waitlist: does it exist, does promotion happen automatically when somebody drops out, and is the promoted attendee notified. A waitlist that requires the organizer to notice a cancellation is not a waitlist.

Set the limit slightly below the room’s true capacity rather than at it. A workshop booked to the last chair has no room for a late arrival, a facilitator’s guest, or the attendee whose record could not be found at the desk, and all three happen.

How event67 handles it

Workshop RSVPs carry a capacity limit that is enforced on the server, so the race condition above cannot occur. Automatic waitlist promotion moves the next person in when a place is released. The organizer sets the limit per session in the console, and the count is visible while sign-ups are running rather than only at the end.