Event Capacity and Availability

Cognivox manages event availability at two levels:

1. Overall Event Capacity — the maximum number of people who can attend the event.
2. Option Capacity — the available quantity of a particular booking option, such as rooms, tickets or other units.

Both capacity checks must succeed before Cognivox can create a reservation.

This prevents the event from being overbooked while also preventing individual packages or options from being oversold.

Overall Event Capacity

Event Capacity represents the maximum number of attendees the event can accommodate.

For example:

Event Capacity: 100

means that no more than 100 attendee places can be allocated to the event.

The overall capacity applies regardless of which package or option the attendees choose.

How Overall Capacity Is Used

Cognivox divides occupied event capacity into three categories:

• Reserved
• Confirmed
• External

The remaining capacity is shown as Available.

The calculation is:

Available = Capacity - Reserved - Confirmed - External

For example:

In this example, 40 attendee places are already occupied and 60 remain available.

Reserved Attendees

Reserved Attendees are people associated with Cognivox reservations that are currently awaiting payment.

For example:

Reserved: 4

means that four attendee places are temporarily being held.

These places count against the event capacity immediately.

This is important because a customer who has just made a reservation must not lose their places simply because payment has not yet been recorded.

Confirmed Attendees

Confirmed Attendees are people associated with confirmed Cognivox bookings.

For example:

Confirmed: 35

means that 35 attendee places have been allocated to confirmed bookings.

When an Awaiting Payment reservation becomes confirmed, its attendee places move from Reserved to Confirmed.

They are not counted twice.

For example, before payment:

After the two-person reservation is confirmed:

The total occupied capacity remains 37.

External Attendees

External Attendees represent attendee places allocated outside Cognivox.

This allows Cognivox to work alongside other booking methods.

External bookings may include:

• Telephone bookings entered elsewhere
• Bookings from another website
• Bookings from another booking system
• Manual registrations
• Places allocated directly by the organiser
• Offline bookings

For example, if an event has:

Capacity: 100
Confirmed: 30
External: 20

then only 50 attendee places remain before considering any current reservations.

Why External Attendees Are Important

If bookings are being accepted elsewhere but are not recorded as External Attendees, Cognivox could believe that more places are available than actually exist.

For example:

Event Capacity: 100
Cognivox Confirmed: 40
External bookings not recorded: 30

Without the external figure, Cognivox could incorrectly believe that 60 places remain.

The real availability is only:

100 - 40 - 30 = 30

External Attendees should therefore be kept up to date whenever another booking source is being used.

Occupied Capacity

Occupied represents all attendee places currently allocated.

It is calculated as:

Occupied = Reserved + Confirmed + External

For example:

This means 60 of the event's attendee places are currently occupied.

Available Capacity

Available is the number of attendee places that remain.

For an event with:

Capacity: 100
Reserved: 5
Confirmed: 45
External: 10

the available capacity is:

40

Cognivox uses this availability when determining whether a requested booking can be accepted.

Checking a New Reservation

Suppose an event currently has:

Capacity: 100
Reserved: 5
Confirmed: 70
External: 15
Available: 10

A customer asks to book for six attendees.

There is sufficient overall capacity because:

6 requested <= 10 available

If the customer instead asks for 12 attendees, there is insufficient overall event capacity.

Cognivox must not create that reservation.

Option Capacity

Overall Event Capacity controls the number of people attending.

Individual options can separately control the amount of a particular item or booking choice available.

For example:

Event Capacity: 100
Single Room Capacity: 10

The event may still have attendee places available after all ten Single Rooms have been allocated.

Cognivox therefore cannot rely on overall Event Capacity alone.

Option Occupancy

Each option tracks:

• Reserved Occupancy
• Confirmed Occupancy

Available option capacity is determined from:

Option Capacity - Reserved Occupancy - Confirmed Occupancy

For example:

Only one additional Single Room can currently be reserved.

Attendees and Units

Overall event capacity and option capacity do not necessarily use the same quantity.

This is particularly important for PerUnit options.

For example, consider:

2 attendees sharing 1 Double Room

The reservation consumes:

2 attendee places

from the overall event capacity, but:

1 unit

from the Double Room option capacity.

Therefore:

• Attendee Count controls consumption of overall Event Capacity.
• Unit Count controls consumption of a unit-based option.

Cognivox keeps these two quantities separate.

Example — Accommodation Booking

Suppose an event has:

Event Capacity: 100
Available Event Places: 20

The Double Room option has:

Capacity: 10 rooms
Available: 3 rooms

A customer wants to book:

2 attendees
1 Double Room

Cognivox checks:

1. Are at least 2 attendee places available?
2. Is at least 1 Double Room available?

Both conditions are true, so the reservation can proceed.

Example — Event Capacity Prevents Booking

Suppose:

Available Event Places: 1
Available Double Rooms: 3

A customer asks for:

2 attendees
1 Double Room

Although a Double Room is available, there is only one overall attendee place remaining.

The reservation cannot proceed because there is insufficient overall event capacity.

Example — Option Capacity Prevents Booking

Now suppose:

Available Event Places: 20
Available Single Rooms: 0

A customer asks for:

1 attendee
1 Single Room

There is sufficient overall attendee capacity, but there are no Single Rooms available.

The requested option therefore cannot be booked.

Where another suitable option remains available, Cognivox may offer that alternative.

Reservations Consume Capacity Immediately

When a reservation is successfully created, Cognivox immediately reserves the required capacity.

For example, before a two-person reservation:

Reserved: 3
Confirmed: 40

After creating the reservation:

Reserved: 5
Confirmed: 40

The corresponding option Reserved Occupancy is also increased by the required amount.

This prevents another customer from taking capacity that is already being held.

Payment Does Not Consume Capacity Again

When the reservation is fully paid, Cognivox moves the occupancy from Reserved to Confirmed.

For example:

Before payment

Reserved: 2
Confirmed: 40
Occupied: 42

After payment

Reserved: 0
Confirmed: 42
Occupied: 42

The total occupied capacity remains unchanged.

The booking has changed status, but no additional capacity has been consumed.

Expired Reservations

An unpaid reservation does not hold capacity indefinitely.

When a reservation reaches its configured expiry time without being confirmed, Cognivox can expire the reservation.

The capacity held by that reservation is then released.

For example:

Before expiry

Reserved: 2
Confirmed: 40
Available: 58

After expiry

Reserved: 0
Confirmed: 40
Available: 60

The relevant option capacity is also released.

Changing Event Capacity

Administrators can change the maximum Event Capacity when circumstances change.

For example, if a larger venue becomes available:

Capacity: 100 → 120

the additional attendee places become available for booking.

However, capacity must not be reduced below the number of places already occupied.

For example, if:

Reserved: 5
Confirmed: 70
External: 15

then:

Occupied: 90

The event capacity cannot safely be reduced below 90 while those allocations remain.

Changing External Attendees

External Attendees can be adjusted as bookings are received or cancelled outside Cognivox.

For example:

Before receiving five external bookings

External: 10

After receiving five additional external bookings

External: 15

Available Event Capacity is immediately reduced by five places.

If external bookings are cancelled, the figure can be reduced accordingly.

Preventing Concurrent Overbooking

Availability can change while bookings are being processed.

For example, two customers might attempt to reserve the last available places at almost the same time.

Cognivox performs capacity checks when acquiring the reservation capacity so that a reservation cannot simply rely on an earlier availability result.

If the required capacity is no longer available when the reservation is being created, the reservation must not consume capacity beyond the configured limit.

Recalculate Occupancy

Cognivox normally maintains Reserved and Confirmed occupancy automatically.

The Recalculate Occupancy function provides a way to rebuild Cognivox-managed occupancy from the underlying booking records.

Recalculation updates:

• Event Reserved Attendees
• Event Confirmed Attendees
• Option Reserved Occupancy
• Option Confirmed Occupancy

It does not change:

• Event Capacity
• External Attendees

When To Recalculate Occupancy

You do not need to recalculate occupancy after every booking.

Normal reservations, confirmations and expiries maintain the occupancy figures automatically.

Use Recalculate Occupancy when:

• Historical bookings existed before occupancy tracking
• Booking data has been imported
• Occupancy figures need to be checked
• Booking counters need to be synchronised with the booking records

Capacity Summary

When reviewing availability, remember that Cognivox protects two separate resources.

Overall Event Capacity

Controls:

How many people can attend?

It uses:

Reserved Attendees + Confirmed Attendees + External Attendees

Option Capacity

Controls:

How many of this particular option are available?

It uses:

Reserved Occupancy + Confirmed Occupancy

A booking must have sufficient capacity at both levels.

Next Step

Once availability has been established, the next stage is the actual customer reservation.

The next help article explains Event Bookings and Reservations, including attendee details, booking references, Awaiting Payment status, reservation expiry and how a booking progresses towards confirmation.