What is a session waitlist?

A waitlist is what happens after a session fills. Attendees who wanted a place join a queue, and when somebody drops out the next person moves in.

In practice at an event

The reason it earns its place is drop-out. Attendees pre-book workshops enthusiastically weeks out and then find something else on the day at a rate high enough to leave visible empty seats. A waitlist converts those into attendance, which is better for the room, better for the facilitator and better for the people who wanted in.

The mechanism has to be automatic. A waitlist that requires an organizer to notice a cancellation, find the next name and email them is a list rather than a waitlist, and in practice it does not get worked during an event.

The promoted attendee also has to be told, promptly and in a way that reaches them — which in practice means a notification rather than an email.

What to look for

Ask three things: is promotion automatic, is the promoted person notified, and what happens on the day of the session when somebody who booked simply does not turn up.

The last one is a policy question rather than a software one. Many events release unclaimed places five minutes after a workshop starts, which needs somebody at the door.

How event67 handles it

Workshop RSVPs carry a server-enforced capacity with automatic waitlist promotion when a place is released. The promoted attendee is notified through the same deep-linked notification path used for schedule changes, so the message opens the session rather than the app’s home screen.