Drawing a seating plan
General admission or numbered seats: how to draw a seat map in cori Tickets, assign seats to a category — and why it has to be finished before the first sale.
Web only
cori Tickets runs in your browser at tickets.cori.music. There's no separate app for it — the cori app simply links there and opens the shop in your browser.
As long as you don't draw a seat map, cori Tickets sells your event as general admission: the buyer buys a number of tickets and the seats in the hall aren't numbered. Draw a seat map and it becomes reserved seating — every buyer picks a specific seat in the shop and finds the row and number on their ticket later.
The seat map is edited by whoever is allowed to manage the event. You need at least one ticket category for it — without one, cori just shows the notice "Add at least one ticket category before drawing a seat map." And most importantly: finish the map before the first ticket is sold. After that it can't be changed.
General admission or a seat map?
There's no switch to flip between the two. The mode follows from whether a seat map is saved:
- No seat map → "General admission". How many tickets there are is controlled by your ticket categories' inventory.
- A saved seat map → "Reserved seating". The moment you save for the first time, cori switches the event over. From then on the map is the capacity: however many seats you've drawn, that's how many tickets there are — the categories' inventory no longer matters.
You can see which mode currently applies as a small marker next to the event title and in the dashboard list.
cori Tickets offers no way to delete a saved seat map and return to general admission. So try the editor out on a test event rather than on the real one.
Opening the editor
Open the event in the dashboard and switch to Categories & seats on the left.
The ticket categories are at the top. Create everything you'll need on the map here — each category has its own colour, and on the map that colour is a seat's price category.
Below that, the editor opens with a blank canvas. What is what? in the toolbar brings up a short guide right inside the editor.
What you can draw
The editor knows four kinds of object, and they mean very different things for selling:
- Seats — the only thing that gets sold. You place them as a "Single seat", a "Row of seats" (drag) or a "Seat block (rows × seats)".
- Sections — dashed, enterable areas such as a tribune or a balcony. They group seats together and give them a name; a section itself is never sold. "Fill an area with seats" fills such an area in one click.
- Shapes — solid decoration such as the stage. Purely for orientation, never sold.
- Text & icons — labels and markers for entrances, exits, toilets or bars.
Draw the stage as a shape and the blocks as sections before you place seats. Then you can populate each area with "Fill an area with seats" instead of dragging rows one by one. Snapping to objects and to the grid helps with alignment — you'll find those settings in the toolbar.
Assigning seats to a category
A seat's colour is its price category. There are two ways to set it:
In the Categories panel you decide which category newly drawn seats are created in. The keys 1–9 switch between the first nine categories without opening the panel.
Select a block and set a different category under Price category. That works at any time, as long as nothing has been sold.
Double-click a block to select one of its rows, and double-click again for a single seat. You can change the price category at every level — so the front row of a block becomes the pricier category without you having to draw it separately.
If the editor finds seats with no price category, it warns you at the bottom of the Categories panel: they "have no category and won't be sold". For buyers, such seats simply aren't there in the shop. Select the block and set a price category before you publish.
Marking accessibility and sightlines
Independently of the price category, you can mark any seat — individually or a whole row at once — under Seat type as:
- Wheelchair space — space for a wheelchair user
- Companion seat — a seat for a companion next to a wheelchair space
- Restricted view — the stage is partly obstructed from this seat
This marking isn't a question of price: a wheelchair space can sit in any category. Buyers see the note in the shop when they tap the seat.
Numbering, spacing, curvature
For a selected seat block you set how it's labelled and shaped:
- Row numbering alphabetical (A, B, C…) or numeric (1, 2, 3…), plus "Row start" and "Reverse row order"
- Seat numbering likewise, with "Seat start" and reversing
- Gap between rows and Gap between seats
- Row bend for curved rows in a semicircle
Exactly these row and seat labels end up on the ticket and in the entry list later — so set them the way they're actually signposted in the hall.
Multiple levels
The Layers panel lets you add more layers, hide them or lock them — handy for stalls and balcony. If your map has several levels, the preview also shows the Buyer seat map view setting with the options 3D view and 2D view. Unlike the preview zoom, this is a real setting: it gets saved and determines how buyers see the map in the shop. The default is 3D.
Saving and previewing
The editor saves automatically about once a minute whenever something has changed; there's also a Save button in the top right. When it reads "Saved", the current state has reached the server.
Preview seatmap opens exactly the view buyers get in the shop — pan, tilt, open a section. The button is greyed out until a map is saved ("Draw and save a seat map first").
What can still be changed after the first sale
In short: nothing about the map itself. cori Tickets always stores a seat map as a whole — every save replaces the entire old map. As soon as even a single seat has been sold, the server refuses, so that no paid ticket points to a seat that no longer exists.
So you don't find out only when you try to save, the editor switches to read-only mode from the first ticket sold: you can still look at the map and check it, but not edit it. A notice at the top of the editor tells you why. If a save is ever refused anyway, you get a clear error message — the editor no longer swallows it silently.
What you can still do:
- Change prices. Prices are tied to the ticket category, not the map. A ticket already sold keeps its price.
- Take individual seats off sale — not by deleting them on the map, but by booking them to yourself with a free ticket. The seat then counts as taken.
- Look at occupancy. Under Orders & tickets, "Seat map — blocked seats" shows the hall with sold / held / free.
If a map really does have to be fundamentally changed, the route is via refunding all the affected orders — as soon as no seat is sold any more, the editor releases the map again. That's a drastic step: your buyers lose their seats and have to buy again. How to refund is covered in Refunds and free tickets.
What's next?
- Seat colours and prices: Ticket categories and prices
- Once the map is done: Publishing and sharing your event
- Occupancy and orders: Keeping an eye on orders
- Freeing up or giving away seats: Refunds and free tickets
- How the buyer sees it: Buying tickets
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