Capacity
Events supports capacity limits at three levels: ticket type, session, and event. Each limit is optional, and a blank capacity means that level does not add a limit.
When a ticket is checked for availability, Events uses the most restrictive remaining limit:
min(ticket type remaining, session remaining if set, event remaining if set)For example, if a ticket type has 12 seats remaining, its session has 8 seats remaining, and the event has 5 seats remaining, the ticket has 5 seats available.
For tickets that admit more than one person, ticket.stock reports the number of whole tickets available to purchase. ticket.remainingSeats reports the remaining seats. For example, nine remaining seats allow two tickets that each admit four people. The control panel’s Available column continues to show seats.
Purchased counts only include active purchased tickets. Cancelled reservations are kept for reporting, but no longer consume capacity.
Ticket Type Capacity
Ticket type capacity limits the seats sold for that type. If the capacity is blank, that ticket type is treated as unlimited unless a session or event capacity also applies.
Purchased counts for this limit are scoped to the generated ticket, which represents a specific session and ticket type combination.
Session Capacity
Session capacity is a shared pool across all ticket types for a single session. Use this when each class, course date, performance, or session has its own attendee limit.
If the session capacity is blank, the session does not add a capacity limit and availability falls back to ticket type capacity, plus event capacity if set.
Event Capacity
Event capacity is a shared pool across the whole event. This includes all sessions and all ticket types.
For multi-session events, leave event capacity blank unless every session should draw from the same event-wide pool. For example, an event capacity of 20 means 20 seats total across the event, not 20 seats per session.
Auto and Zero Values
Blank capacity values are treated as auto/no limit for that level.
A value of 0 is an explicit zero-capacity limit. Leave a capacity blank to omit that level from the availability calculation.
Checkout and Fulfillment
Events checks the combined seat requirements of the cart before payment. Adding tickets to a cart does not reserve seats.
When an order completes, Events allocates its event tickets together. If capacity changes while an external payment is pending, the completed order is retained and no partial set of event tickets is issued. An order notice identifies the fulfillment problem so staff can review availability and arrange fulfillment or a refund before confirming attendance. Commerce 5.7 and later show this as an admin notice; earlier supported versions use an ordinary order notice.
Releasing Capacity
When an order is cancelled or refunded, its purchased tickets should be cancelled so they no longer count toward capacity.
Cancelling Purchased Tickets
Use the Cancel tickets action in Events → Purchased Tickets. Cancelled tickets:
- Stop counting toward ticket type, session, and event capacity
- Remain visible for reporting and audit history
- Cannot be checked in
Use Restore tickets to make a cancelled reservation active again, as long as the related order has not been moved to a release-capacity status.
Restoring a ticket also requires enough remaining capacity. If another order has used the released seats, the reservation stays cancelled.
Order Status Changes
When a Commerce order moves to one of the configured Release Capacity Order Statuses (Settings → Events → Tickets), Events automatically cancels all active purchased tickets for that order.
The default handles are cancelled, canceled, and refunded. Update these to match your store’s order statuses.
Refunds
When Cancel Purchased Tickets on Refund is enabled (Settings → Events → Tickets), Events cancels purchased tickets automatically when Commerce refunds are processed.
For orders with a single ticket line item, Events cancels tickets based on the refunded amount. For full transaction refunds on orders with multiple ticket line items, all active purchased tickets are cancelled.
Deleting Purchased Tickets
Deleting a purchased ticket is separate from cancellation. Use deletion only to remove mistaken records or for GDPR cleanup. Cancelled tickets can be permanently deleted from the trash, or with:
./craft events/purchased-tickets/purge-trashed --dry-run=0Trashed records can also be purged automatically after a retention period via Trashed Purchased Ticket Retention in plugin settings.