Bookings and events both help visitors plan something through your website, but they're designed for different situations.
Use a booking when the customer needs to choose when something happens. Use an event when you decide when something happens and visitors need to see the dates or reserve a place.
A simple way to choose: Does the customer choose the time or dates? Use a booking. Have you already decided when it happens? Create an event.Appointment bookings
Appointment bookings let customers choose one of the dates and times you make available.
They're useful for anything that takes place at a particular time, such as:
Consultations
Treatments
Lessons
Meetings
Personal services
Scheduled sessions
Appointments
You control when appointments are available and customers choose from those available times.
Set your schedule
Create availability that repeats daily, weekly, monthly or on a custom cycle, or add availability for a specific date.
Control availability
Set the times customers can choose and control how many bookings can be accepted.
Add booking options
Offer optional or required extras and adjust the amount charged where necessary.
Arrival & departure bookings
Date-range bookings are designed for something a customer reserves for a continuous period of time.
Instead of choosing a single appointment, the customer selects an arrival date and departure date.
They're useful for:
Holiday accommodation
Room or property hire
Equipment rental
Vehicle rental
Venue hire
Other multi-day reservations
You can set the period that's available to book, minimum and maximum booking lengths, and arrival and departure times.
The booking amount can be charged per night or once for the complete booking, and online payment can be optional.
Example
A holiday property might allow stays between 2 and 14 nights, with arrival from 3pm and departure by 10am.
Unavailable periods can then be blocked for existing reservations, maintenance, private use or other times when the property can't be booked.
Events
Events work the other way around: you choose when they happen.
Create the event, add its date and time, then let visitors see what's coming up. If required, you can also allow visitors to reserve a place.
Events are useful for:
Workshops
Classes
Talks
Exhibitions
Open days
Demonstrations
Community activities
Performances
Regular groups or sessions
An event can have individual dates or follow a repeating schedule.
For example, you could create a one-off workshop, add several separate dates for the same activity, or create something that takes place every Wednesday.
One-off events
Add an individual date for something happening once.
Multiple dates
Add each date on which the same event takes place.
Repeating events
Generate dates from a daily, weekly, monthly or custom repeating schedule.
Events don't have to take reservations
An event page can simply tell visitors what's happening and when.
If you do want people to reserve a place, enable reservations and set a capacity where required.
This makes events useful for both informal listings and activities where you need to know who's attending.
Choose an event when the important question for the visitor is: “When is this happening?”Which should I use?
Appointment
The customer chooses an available time.
Useful for services, consultations, treatments and scheduled sessions.
Date range
The customer chooses a start and end date.
Useful for accommodation, rentals, hire and other multi-day bookings.
Event
You decide when it happens.
Useful for workshops, classes, exhibitions, activities and other scheduled occasions.
A few examples
“I'd like customers to choose a time for a consultation.”
Create an appointment booking.
“I'd like guests to choose when they stay at my holiday property.”
Create a date-range booking.
“We're holding a workshop next Saturday and have 20 places available.”
Create an event and allow reservations.
“We run a class every Wednesday at 6pm.”
Create an event with a repeating schedule.
“Customers can hire our equipment for several days.”
Create a date-range booking.
“Customers can book a one-hour session from the times we're available.”
Create an appointment booking.
Booking or event?
Appointments: your customer chooses an available time.
Date ranges: your customer chooses how long they need something.
Events: you choose when something happens.
Once you know who needs to choose the date or time, deciding which type to use is usually straightforward.
