Introduction
This document outlines the Peppered seat validation system for seat selection in the Halls module, emphasizing its advantages over traditional ticketing system validations.
It details four validation variants, including chain validation and strict no-single-seats validation, and explains the importance of seat order for accurate display and pricing. Proper configuration in the Dashboard is essential for optimal functionality.
Peppered Seat Validation VS Seat Validation by Ticketing System
The Peppered seat selection application retrieves the seats and availability live from the ticketing system.
The validation that decides which chairs can be selected is determined by the Peppered seat validation feature. Most ticketing systems also have chair validation rules, but we always advise switching them off. These rules will only intervene when booking the selected seats and will give an error message, which is undesirable. The visitor should receive notifications during the selection of seats (via the Peppered seat validation feature) if the selection is not allowed, instead of when all seats have been selected, and the visitor clicks on “continue” (validation by the ticketing system).
Variants of Chair Validations
The Peppered chair validation currently has four variants:
- No validation (none)
- Chain validation
- No-single seats validation (strict)
- Chain-no-single-seats validation (very strict)
You should select one of these four options for each seated venue connected to events within the "Halls" module (Dashboard > Event Metadata > Halls):
Chain Validation
The chain validation checks whether:
- selected seats are connected;
- and whether the selection connects to other already occupied seats;
- or connects to the end of a row;
- or leaves at least two empty seats next to the selection.
The validation allows leaving one chair empty, but ONLY if it is the last free chair in an empty area and all other seats are selected at that time.
This is not allowed if the corner chair is left unselected and you try to choose one or more chairs that do not connect with other occupied seats.
Examples: (cross is occupied, 0 is empty)
1. In this row xxxxxxxxx000, I can fill it up to xxxxxxxxxxx0 and even xxxxxxxxx0xx (I select all open seats in an area, except 1). 2. In this row 00000000000, I cannot select 00000000xx0. I have to keep at least two chairs side by side: 0000000xx00 is allowed.
No-Single-Seats Validation
This validation ensures your selection does not leave one empty seat next to your choice.
Strict validation (chain-no-single-seats):
No single seats may be left unselected under strict validation.
Order of Seats
The validation must know the order of the seats. Sometimes, this cannot be determined correctly with the help of the coordinates; for instance, if a side balcony seat is situated next to a hall seat but does not belong to the same row.
This is why every seat in a hall should belong to a row to be displayed in the correct order and with the right price. This can be different per hall (other versions of the same venue are possible) and, therefore, needs to be adjusted once in each hall (in the "Halls" module). The seat map is grouped by section and row, and within a row, several seat orders are possible (for instance, ascending seat numbers, ascending and then descending seat numbers).
Look at the different versions suggested in the dropdown "Sort seats" and select the right one if the option “as-is” is not working correctly.
