A conference booking system is the registration flow a delegate walks through and the record it leaves behind, and the organiser's interest is almost entirely in the record. The flow has to sell a ticket against a capacity, at the right price for the date, and collect the few things the event needs to know about the person; the record has to come back out whole, because it is the badge run, the catering count and the finance reconciliation. This page is written for the organiser specifying what the booking system must do before choosing one: the capacities, the tiers, the questions, the complimentary places, and the export. It is vendor neutral; the conference booking software guide on this site covers the category, and the planner template works the capacity the system is told.
Capacity per event and per room
The event's sellable capacity, plenary seats less complimentary places, is the ceiling on tickets, and every workshop with limited seats needs its own cap so it closes when it is full rather than when the event is. The planner template on this site works the first; the programme builder's session list gives the second. A booking system that holds only the event cap oversells the popular workshop by the second week of registration.
Tiers on dates, and complimentary codes
Early bird, full and late, each with a price and the date it ends, switched by the system on the date and not by a person at midnight. Complimentary codes for speakers, sponsors' delegates and staff, so they appear on the list as what they are and not as unpaid bookings. The system should report sales by tier as it goes, because the blended price in the budget template is an assumption until the tiers say otherwise.
The questions to ask at booking, and the ones not to
Name as it should appear on the badge, organisation, ticket type, dietary requirements, access requirements, and whether the name may appear on the delegate list. That is enough for the badge order, the caterer and the accessibility plan. Job title, interests and how they heard about the event lengthen the form and lower completion; ask them in the feedback survey instead, when the delegate has a reason to answer.
The export, which is the point
The whole list, on demand, as data: every field above plus ticket type, paid or complimentary and the booking date. That export is the badge print run sized by the badge worksheet, the catering count per day, the accessibility list for the venue and the reconciliation for finance. A system that offers a report but not the data has kept the most valuable thing the event produces, and the test is to ask for the export on the demo, not after the contract.
Questions people ask about conference booking system
Can a conference booking system handle a hybrid event?
It has to hold two ticket types with two capacities, in-person against the plenary and online against the platform licence, and report them separately. Most do; check that the online ticket does not count against the room.
What about group bookings?
A sponsor or an organisation booking ten places needs one invoice and ten names, collected later. A system that forces ten separate bookings loses the group; one that never collects the names leaves the badge run short. Ask how both are handled.
Does Lanyardo take bookings?
No. Lanyardo keeps the delegate list, the sessions, the speakers and the budget and works the capacity and the badge order from them; the booking and the payment happen on your booking system. The list is imported into Pro from the export above.