Party Booking Software

Birthday party booking software has to get that Saturday right before it gets anything else right. VenueChief sells your party packages online, takes a deposit, collects waivers before the guests arrive and keeps the room blocked while it is being reset. It runs on the same schedule as your karts, rigs, lanes and bays, so a party that includes a race and a room is one booking and not three phone calls.

Booking plan from $279 a month, published. It covers up to eight bookable units, and a party room counts as one. Five rooms and nothing else is $307.

A party package is more than a price

Most party tools sell one thing: a time slot in a room with a flat fee. Real packages have parts. A room for two hours, pizza for the table, a pack of kart heats that start after the food, a few extra guests at a per-head price.

In VenueChief a package is built from those parts. You set:

• A base price, with a peak price, an off-peak price and a member price.
• How many guests are included, the minimum and maximum, and the price for each extra guest.
• The days and dates it applies, so the summer package stops being offered in September.
• Components: a party room, a number of simulators or karts, heats, food and drink, or a plain add-on, each with its own length and its own start time inside the visit. The kart heats can start an hour after the room does.
• Whether a deposit is required, and which waiver the package needs.

When a guest picks a package and a date, the booking page looks for times where every component fits at once. A start time at which the room is free but the heat is full is not offered, and you do not find out at the counter.

Deposits, in one setting

Online deposits are a venue setting: a percentage of the booking the guest can pay now instead of the full amount, with a minimum. The defaults are 25 percent and $50, and you can change both or switch deposits off. The balance shows as due when the party arrives. Deposits apply to bookings and packages, never to retail goods.

For a corporate or large private event, the organizer gets a separate pay-balance link and pays the rest once, online, and can print the invoice.

Waivers for ten kids, signed before the cake

The booking confirmation carries a signing link the parent can forward to the other families. If you turn on per-participant links, every child on the roster gets their own, and a minor's link goes to a parent or guardian. A guardian does not need an account to sign. At check-in the desk sees who still owes what, so the person at the counter is not holding a clipboard.

You choose how strict to be about the grown-up: a signature alone, a signature plus the guardian present at check-in, or a linked account. You set the rule once and the desk applies it to every party.

Rooms that reset between parties

Each room type has a buffer, fifteen minutes by default, that nobody can book into. Put the cleanup time there and the calendar stops double-selling it. A room that is out of service gets marked unavailable with a reason and a return date, and online booking stops offering it at once.

If a company wants the whole place for a team-building afternoon, you can hold a room, a number of rooms or the whole venue for the window, online booking and counter walk-ins read separately. A held room does not need to appear on your website.

Private events for bigger groups

For a larger party or a company event, staff create a private event in one screen: who is booking, when, how many guests, which package (or build one from karts, sim time, a room and a food credit per guest), and who pays. Company-pays sends the organizer one bill. Each-guest-pays gives every guest a join link: they add their name and date of birth, sign their waiver and get an event pass by email. The link stops taking guests when every seat is taken, and the host can import the guest list from a sheet.

Private events are made by your staff today. A guest cannot buy one as a self-serve product.

What it looks like at 11:40

You opened the party's booking at 10:30 and saw four waivers outstanding. Two more signed from the parking lot. The room was blocked until 11:45 by the buffer from the previous party, so there was no argument. The package put the kart heats at 12:45, an hour after the room opens, so the kids eat first. The parent paid a deposit when she booked and owes the balance at the desk.

What VenueChief does not do for parties

• No custom booking questions. The checkout has a free-text special requests box. It does not ask for the birthday child's name and age, allergies or a theme as separate fields you can report on.
• Priced package extras are not offered at online checkout. Staff can add an optional priced extra when they book a party by phone. A guest booking online does not see them yet.
• No invitation or RSVP page for parents. Guests of a staff-made private event get a join link. An ordinary online party booking relies on the organizer sharing the waiver link.
• No arcade card or game card integration.
• No listing on Reserve with Google or on marketplaces. Parties are booked on your website and kiosk.
• Karts and sim time inside a package need the Platform plan and that activity's pack. A party room on its own runs on the Booking plan. The pricing page has the bands.
• Online booking lengths are 1, 1.5, 2, 3 and 4 hours.

What it costs

Annual prepay is 12 percent less. The pricing page shows every line, including the karting and sim racing bands if parties include them.