Creating a seating chart

The step-by-step guide to building your first seating chart — venue layout, sections, seats, labels, ticket-type assignments. The visual editor handles theatres, cinemas, stadiums, banquet halls, conference rooms — any layout you can draw, you can sell seats from.

If you’ve reached this part of the documentation, you’re probably ready to turn your event space into something your attendees can actually see and choose from — a proper seating chart. Whether it’s a cozy theater, a festival lawn, or a full-blown stadium, the Seating Charts add-on lets you visually design your venue and connect every seat (or standing area) to its corresponding ticket type.

Before diving into details, we strongly recommend watching the short video above — it walks you through the basics and gives you a feel for how the editor works.

Getting started

To begin, head to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to the Seating Charts area of Tickera.
Here you’ll find a list of all your existing seating charts (or an empty list if you’re starting fresh). Click Create New to open the editor — this will load what we call the seating chart canvas, your creative workspace for building the layout.

The canvas is an open grid where you can freely place, move, and resize different elements such as seating groups, standing areas, tables, icons, and labels. Think of it as your virtual venue map, where every section of your event is represented visually.

The seating chart editor layout

When the canvas opens, you’ll notice several interface areas:

1. Toolbox (top right corner) – This is where all the action happens. Each icon represents a different type of object you can add: settings, seating group, standing area, tables, elements (icons like exits, bars, restrooms), and text.
2. Zoom controls (bottom left) – Use the “+” and “–” buttons to zoom in or out, or simply scroll with your mouse wheel.
3. View Chart button (bottom right) – Lets you preview how your chart will appear to ticket buyers.
4. Save button (bottom right) – Don’t forget to click this regularly to save your progress!

Everything on this canvas can be clicked, dragged, and adjusted freely. It’s designed to behave more like a lightweight design tool than a strict configuration form, so you can visualize your layout exactly as you imagine it.

What each section does

Now that you know where everything is, let’s quickly overview what each pane does. These are covered in detail on their own pages, but here’s the short version:

• Settings – Gives your chart a name and connects it to an event. It’s where everything begins.
• Seating group – The heart of your layout. Here you define rows and columns of seats, assign ticket types, and label them properly so each attendee knows exactly where to sit.
• Standing area – For events that don’t have individual seats. You can define a zone (like “Fan Pit” or “General Admission”) and link it to a ticket type.
• Tables – Perfect for banquets, weddings, and conferences. Add circular or rectangular tables, set how many seats they have, and even define “end seats” for rectangular shapes.
• Elements – Non-seating visual cues that help map your venue: exits, bars, stages, restrooms, and more. They’re purely informational but help attendees instantly understand your layout.
• Text element – For titles, labels, or naming sections (like “VIP Zone” or “East Entrance”).

Each of these tools plays a part in shaping your venue, and you can combine them freely. For example, you might add three seating groups for front, middle, and balcony sections, a standing area for general admission, and then sprinkle a few icons for entrances and bars for orientation.

Next steps

You’ve now seen the basics. The real fun starts when you start shaping your layout using the different panes available in the toolbox. Continue with:

• Settings
• Seating group
• Standing area
• Tables
• Elements
• Text element

Pro tips

Having a large venue?
If your venue is very large (for example, a stadium or festival with multiple zones), it’s usually better to create several smaller seating charts instead of one giant one.
This approach makes chart creation faster, loads more smoothly for your customers, and keeps everything easier to manage.
For step-by-step instructions, see Creating a large and elaborate seating chart layout

Switching mid-sale?
If your event is already live and you’ve sold a few general admission tickets but now want to enable assigned seating, check out our detailed guide — it explains exactly how to transition smoothly without losing your existing sales data.

Related

• Seating Charts add-on
• Creating large, elaborate seating chart layouts
• Can I duplicate a seating chart?