Halls, enquiries and confirming a function
How a hall is held, why booking one can block another, and how the pax is billed.
A hall is a room that sells by the hour. The banquet diary works the way the room chart does, with two differences worth knowing before your first booking.
Halls inside halls
If your ballroom divides into sections, say so once when the venues are set up. After that the system will not let you double-book either way round: book Hall A and the whole ballroom becomes unavailable for that time; book the ballroom and both halls go with it.
This is enforced underneath, not by a warning somebody can click past.
Enquiry, tentative, confirmed
- An enquiry holds nothing. Two enquiries for the same evening can both exist — that is the point of an enquiry.
- Tentative holds the hall and expires.
- Confirmed holds it and bills it.
The pax, and what you are actually charging for
You bill on the guaranteed number or the actual number, whichever is higher. Guarantee 300 and 260 turn up, you bill 300. Guarantee 300 and 340 turn up, you bill 340. That is how banquets are sold everywhere and it is what the system does without being asked.
The bill
Banquet charges go onto a folio like anything else, and that folio does not need a room booking behind it — a wedding party that is not staying still gets a proper tax invoice.
Per-plate catering is marked as such, so the covers are counted once. If you have ever seen a banquet bill with the food on it twice, that is the flag that prevents it.