How to Set Operating Hours and Booking Rules

Set Operating Hours and Booking Rules

Opening hours, minimum and maximum durations, time increments, buffers, and overlapping bookings — the settings that prevent bad bookings automatically.

Jordan EllisFacility Operations LeadLast updated October 17, 2026

Most of the bookings you do not want are prevented by two things: when a venue is open, and what shape a booking on it is allowed to be. Both live on the venue, so they can differ per space — the show court and the back courts rarely sell the same way.

Operating hours

Set hours for each day of the week. For each day you can mark the venue closed, open all day, or open between a specific start and end time.

Mark closed days explicitly rather than leaving them blank. A day marked closed is a day nobody can book, on your public page as well as in the dashboard.

Booking constraints

Under Booking Constraints on the venue you control the shape of a booking.

Minimum duration — stops fifteen-minute bookings on a pitch you rent by the hour
Maximum duration — stops one group taking the whole evening
Time increment — bookings must start and end on 15, 30, or 60 minute boundaries
Buffer — dead minutes held after each booking for changeover, cleaning, or turf recovery
Maximum simultaneous bookings — how many reservations may overlap on this venue

The time increment is the one people underestimate. Setting it to 60 on a venue you sell by the hour keeps your calendar tidy and stops the orphaned twenty-minute gaps that never sell.

Overlapping bookings

Maximum simultaneous bookings defaults to one, which is what you want for a court that one group uses at a time. Raise it for a space that genuinely takes concurrent groups — a large hall running two sessions, or a pool with lane bookings.

If you split a field into halves or quarters, model each part as its own venue rather than raising this number. Separate venues is what lets the calendar show which half is free.

Ordering and hiding venues

Sort order controls the sequence venues appear in, on the dashboard and on your public booking page — put your most-booked space first
Turning a venue inactive takes it off the public page without deleting its booking history, which is what you want for a court that is resurfacing

Settings that live in Settings, not the venue

A few rules are organisation-wide rather than per venue: your timezone, the default booking duration, whether bookings need approval, and your cancellation deadline in hours. Those are in Settings under Booking Settings.

FAQs

Can different courts have different opening hours?

Yes. Operating hours are set per venue, so an outdoor court can close earlier than an indoor one, and each can have its own closed days.

How do I stop back-to-back bookings with no changeover time?

Set a buffer in minutes on the venue’s booking constraints. Those minutes are held after each booking so the next one cannot start immediately.

How do I take a court out of service temporarily?

Set the venue to inactive. It disappears from the public booking page and from new bookings, and its existing booking history is kept.

Should I split a field into separate venues?

Yes, if the halves or quarters are sold separately. Each bookable part becomes its own venue so the calendar can show exactly which part is free.

Next steps

Set Up Your Public Booking Page
Turn on the page your customers book through, brand it with your logo and a welcome message, and decide whether bookers need an account.
Create and Manage Bookings
Take a booking from the calendar, across more than one space at once, with pricing worked out as you go — then edit or cancel it later.