Edit the row, not every seat.
Row count, spacing, direction, curve and one-off exceptions stay editable after the house is built, so a changed seating plan takes minutes rather than a redraw.
Ticketing software for theaters and performing arts centers
SeatLayer is ticketing software for theaters and performing arts centers: reserved seating charts, box office and online sales running on one live inventory. Run it hosted, or embed the same seating layer in the ticketing system you already have — either way you pay per sold seat, with no subscription. Build your auditorium once, then sell every performance online and at the box office from one live seating chart, with tickets, refunds and door check-in included. Community theatres, concert halls and opera houses run it as their theatre ticketing software; if you already have a ticketing system, add the seat map to it by SDK instead.
First 200 confirmed Hosted Tickets free once per organization; then $0.50 USD or ₹25 INR each. The wallet is separate from Platform/SDK credits. Managed Ticketing requires a request, staff approval, and Hosted Checkout (hosted_checkout) enablement. The venue's connected provider controls processing fees, applicable taxes, and payout timing; SeatLayer bills Hosted Ticket usage separately.
Draw the auditorium the way the audience sees it.
Curved stalls, a raked circle, boxes and a choir belong to one plan you edit as rules — not as thousands of loose seat dots. Every performance reuses it.
Levels and rake are real height.
Stalls, circle and balcony sit at the heights you give them. The elevation is part of the plan, not a visual effect painted on afterwards.
Each part of the house faces the stage.
Sections point at the stage you place, which is what makes best-available ranking and the view from a seat come out right for a side box or a rear balcony.
Tell the buyer what the seat actually is.
A seat map is only useful if the exceptions travel with it — the wheelchair space, the pillar, the side box that only sees three quarters of the stage.
Access needs are on the seat.
Wheelchair spaces, companion seats, semi-ambulatory seats, hearing and sign-language provision, plus-size seats and lift-up armrests can be filtered for and appear on the confirmation.
Empty wheelchair spaces stay sellable inventory — not skipped positions.
Restricted view is said before the sale.
Restricted-view and obstructed-view seats carry their own label in the seat detail, and a buyer can choose to hide them entirely.
A label passes on what your venue recorded; it is not a sightline guarantee.
Access is not a price band.
Price categories group the house commercially; access labels sit apart from them, so providing a wheelchair space never quietly implies a discount you did not intend.
Prices are re-checked on our server before payment is taken.
Optional 3D, never a requirement. A buyer who wants it can open the house in 3D and look from the seat they are considering; it loads only when asked, and older browsers keep the full 2D map and the same checkout.
Photos when you have them, a preview when you don't. SeatLayer uses the closest view you have uploaded — seat, row, section, level or house — and otherwise draws one from the geometry. Buyers can tell an authored photo from a generated preview. Treat 3D as orientation, not a sightline or accessible-route guarantee.
See the 3D seat map in full →On sale, at the window, at the door.
Sell
Online checkout on your own page or ours, and a box-office counter for walk-ups — both working on the same live seat map for that performance.
Fulfil
Per-seat tickets go out by email, get reprinted or resent, and refunds are recorded against the order that made them.
Open the house
Hold back production and press seats, release them late, scan tickets at the door, and read the totals for the night.
The box office records how the money was taken — cash, a card already taken on your own terminal, or a complimentary seat. It does not charge the card itself; online checkout does that through your own payment account.
See how the box office software works →Ticketing software for performing arts centers: hosted, or embedded in your own
Pick one per event. The two paths never share a sale.
SeatLayer covers reserved-seat ticketing and Fixed Renewable Seasons, not the rest of a theatre-management suite: it is not a patron CRM, membership, donor or fundraising, email-marketing, concessions, merchandise, accounting, volunteer, production-scheduling, or general-admission product.
Theater ticketing software questions
How much does theater ticketing software cost?
There is no subscription. Managed Ticketing includes the first 200 confirmed Hosted Tickets free once per organization, then costs $0.50 USD or ₹25 INR per confirmed Hosted Ticket. Its wallet is separate from Platform/SDK credits, and access requires a request, staff approval, and Hosted Checkout (hosted_checkout) enablement. The venue's connected provider controls processing fees, applicable taxes, and payout timing; SeatLayer bills Hosted Ticket usage separately. If you instead add the seat map to a system you already run, every Platform/SDK organization gets 100 free SDK seat credits every month, then prepaid credits from 10¢ down to 5¢ per confirmed sold seat; purchased credits never expire.
Can we sell the same seats online and at the box office?
Yes. Online checkout and the box-office counter act on one live seat map for that performance, so a seat sold at the window disappears online within moments and there is no separate counter allocation to reconcile. The box office records how the money was taken — cash, a card already taken on your own terminal, or a complimentary seat — and it does not charge the card itself.
Does it work for a community theater with one auditorium and many shows?
That is the normal case. You draw the auditorium once and reuse it. Every performance gets its own seat map, its own prices and its own sales. Performance Groups handle one fixed multi-date purchase. Fixed Renewable Seasons add immutable 2–20-event Plans, same-seat booking, incumbent Seat Rights, and renewal offers. In both SDK paths, the host keeps checkout and ticket delivery.
Can we add seat selection to our existing website or ticketing system?
Yes, through the SDK path. SeatLayer supplies the seat map, the live seat state and the temporary hold; your ticketing system keeps payment, orders, tickets, refunds and patron records. That path is billed in sold-seat credits rather than per hosted ticket, and the two are never mixed on one event.
Does SeatLayer handle season subscriptions, memberships or donors?
SeatLayer handles the reserved-seat part of a fixed renewable Season through its SDK: immutable 2–20-event Plans, same-seat booking, incumbent Seat Rights, renewal offers, amendments, and reports. The host still owns pricing, checkout, orders, tickets, refunds, and patron identity. SeatLayer is not a patron CRM, membership, donor, fundraising, email-marketing, concessions, accounting, volunteer, or production-scheduling suite.
How are wheelchair and restricted-view seats shown to buyers?
Wheelchair spaces, companion seats, hearing and sign-language provision, plus-size seats and lift-up armrests are labelled on the seat itself, so a buyer can filter for them and see the label on the confirmation. Empty wheelchair spaces stay sellable inventory — not skipped positions. Restricted-view and obstructed-view seats carry their own label and buyers can hide them. A label passes on what your venue recorded; it is not a sightline or accessible-route guarantee.
What should theater ticketing software include?
A reserved seating chart that stays a reusable venue document rather than a flat picture; holds that expire on the server, so two buyers cannot take the same seat during a rush; one live inventory behind both the online sale and the box-office counter, so neither oversells the other; per-seat categories and prices, with accessibility and restricted-view labels carried on the seat itself; and tickets that survive to door check-in. SeatLayer does all of that; judge any candidate on whether its chart is structured data and whether one inventory really drives every counter.
Does SeatLayer work as performing arts center software?
For the reserved-seating and ticketing layer, yes: it builds the auditorium once, sells online and at the window from one live inventory, supports Fixed Renewable Seasons, issues per-seat tickets, and scans them at the door. It is not donor or development software, a patron CRM, or a venue-rental and room-booking system. Performing arts centers keep those systems where they are.
Is SeatLayer a complete theater ticketing system?
It depends which path you take, and both are real. On the hosted path SeatLayer runs the whole sale: the event page, checkout on your own connected payment account, per-seat tickets, the box office, the control room and door check-in. On the SDK path it is deliberately not a complete system — it supplies the seating chart, live seat state, holds and booking underneath the ticketing system you already run, and your product keeps checkout, payments, orders and customer records.
Put the next performance on sale.
Open the Grand Theatre demo to inspect the buyer flow, or build your own auditorium. The same model also covers table-led comedy club rooms and tiered arena and stadium bowls.