Creative workshop booking software should support the way you sell the studio's time and prepare each session. Public bookings reserve individual places; private groups need an agreed scope, headcount and payment schedule for the whole booking. Both affect the space available to your team.
A studio selling Tuesday's class by the place and Thursday's workshop to a company needs those differences to reach the people preparing the room. Compare how booking details become a usable staff brief.
What a workshop studio needs
Public classes. A fixed number of seats, a price, a waitlist when it sells out, and a way to collect a choice at booking when the choice changes preparation: which scent, which glaze, which vessel.
Multi-week courses. Six or eight sessions sold as one enrollment, with a payment plan and a cap per cohort.
Private buyouts. A date held while the buyer decides, a price for the headcount, a deposit to confirm, add-ons like drinks or extra materials, a final headcount a few days before, and the balance charged before the event.
Retail. The candles you teach are also for sale. People who took the class buy them.
Where studios lose time
The public class lives on a ticketing tool, the buyout lives in email with a PDF invoice, the course lives on a third platform, and the material list for Saturday gets typed by hand from all three. The studio owner does the reconciliation on Sunday.
Set up the public session and the group separately
Gomry separates the buyer from individual ticket holders and collects participant details and registration answers per ticket. That helps a workshop prepare for a group purchase without treating the buyer as every attendee.
For a fixed course, distinguish buying visits from reserving every date. Gomry Experiences support recurring sessions that customers can book separately. A Bundle supplies credit for eligible bookings. State which dates a course purchase reserves rather than treating prepaid visits as the enrollment record. A single Event can represent admission to an entire program, with the dates and attendance arrangements stated clearly.
Private groups need an agreed date, scope and price before checkout. Retain those terms and any payment schedule with the Event and participant records used to prepare the workshop.
Keep materials and production stock in the appropriate tool. For a separate retail sale, staff can collect an agreed custom amount through Gomry Tap to Pay; that records the payment in the ledger. It does not establish a product inventory, gift-voucher balance or automatic member discount for that sale. The candle workshop guide shows how participant choices affect preparation.
Questions workshop studios ask
Should private events be bookable instantly? Use instant booking when availability, price and scope are fixed. Otherwise review the request and demonstrate the payment sequence.
Can guest choices feed the prep list? Collect choices as individual registration answers, including when one buyer pays for several guests. This keeps each preparation choice associated with the right ticket holder rather than applying the buyer’s answer to the whole group.
Can members get a discount on retail? Class credit pays for eligible Experience bookings. For a separate retail promotion, agree the price through your retail workflow; staff can take the resulting custom amount through Gomry Tap to Pay. Keep any inventory, voucher balance and member-pricing rule in that retail record, rather than treating the class plan as the payment for the goods.
Use a public class and a private group sharing the same room. Check availability, guest choices and the final preparation list before making both bookable.