Say your 10:00 behind-the-scenes tour holds 20 people, but only 4 of those spots can be the free member-guest tickets, and only 2 can be wheelchair-accessible spots because of the elevator. You set capacity to 20, add your price types, and then realize nothing stops the member-guest price from selling all 20.
That is the core issue. In Altru, capacity is managed at the event (time slot) level, and every price type on that event draws from the same pool. As far as we know there is no native setting that says “this price type may sell no more than X per event.” If you are on a newer release and want to be sure, check the event and program setup in a sandbox, or ask Blackbaud support directly before you build around the workarounds below.
You can still cover most real-world needs with some setup. The right approach depends on why you need the limit.
First, name the reason for the limit
Price-type caps usually come from one of these situations:
- A physical constraint inside the group. Accessible seating, stroller parking, car seats on a tram, child-size equipment in a workshop.
- A budget or policy constraint. A limited number of free, comp, community-access, or deeply discounted tickets per session.
- A premium tier. A small number of VIP or add-on spots within a general-admission time slot.
- A ratio rule. For example, one adult required per two children in a class.
Physical constraints need a hard stop. Budget limits can often tolerate a soft limit that staff watch. Ratio rules usually can’t be enforced by capacity at all and are better handled by policy and check-in.
Option 1: Carve the limited tier into its own event
When you need a hard stop, the most reliable pattern is to give the limited ticket its own event with its own capacity. Using the tour example: a “10:00 Tour” event with capacity 16 for regular price types, and a separate “10:00 Tour, Accessible” event with capacity 4 that only offers the accessible price types.
What you gain: Altru enforces both limits for you, at the desk and online.
What you give up:
- Unsold carve-out seats do not flow back automatically. If the accessible spots haven’t sold the day before, someone has to lower that event’s capacity and raise the main one. Put that task on a checklist with a specific time.
- Reporting gets split. Attendance for one real-world session now lives on two events. Name them consistently so queries and reports can group them, for example by a shared prefix.
- Guests see two options. On your website, label the carve-out clearly so people pick the right one, and so a family needing one accessible spot and three regular ones understands they may need two separate selections.
This works best when the carve-out is small and predictable. If you would need to split every time slot of every day, the maintenance adds up fast.
Option 2: Control where the price type is sold
Sometimes the real goal is not a number but a gate. If comp or community-access tickets should only be issued by a person who can verify eligibility, consider offering that price type only through the sales channels where staff are involved, such as daily sales or advance sales, and leaving it off your web forms. Review your program’s pricing setup to see which price types are offered through which sales methods, and test the result online before you announce it.
This doesn’t cap the count by itself, but it moves the decision to someone who can see how many have already gone out.
Option 3: A soft limit staff can see
For budget-driven limits, a monitored soft cap is often enough and avoids splitting events. Build a query of ticket sales for upcoming events that returns the event, date, price type, and quantity sold. Filter it to the limited price types, and sort by count. Share it with the desk lead or have it reviewed each morning.
Pair the query with a written rule: “When member-guest tickets for a time slot reach 4, stop issuing them and offer the next available slot.” Soft limits fail when nobody owns them, so assign one person per shift.
Online sales are the weak spot here. If the limited price type is available on the web, a query can tell you that you went over, but it cannot stop it. If going over would cause a real problem, use Option 1 or Option 2 for the web channel.
Option 4: Change the offer instead of the cap
Before building any of the above, ask whether the limit needs to be per price type at all. A few alternatives that are easier to run in Altru:
- Lower the whole event’s capacity slightly to absorb the busiest price type, rather than capping that price type alone.
- Offer the discounted or free tier on specific dates or time slots only, which turns a per-slot cap into a schedule decision.
- For ratio rules, state the requirement on the web form and the ticket, and enforce it at check-in.
Choosing between them
- Is going over the limit unsafe or physically impossible? Use a separate event for that tier.
- Does someone need to verify eligibility? Restrict the price type to staffed sales channels.
- Is it a budget target with some flexibility? Use a soft limit with a daily query and a named owner.
- Would any of these create more work than the problem is worth? Reshape the offer instead.
Whatever you choose, run it in a sandbox or on a low-traffic date first, and sell a few test tickets through every channel that offers the event. Capacity mistakes tend to show up only when the web form and the desk are both selling the same slot.
Quick answers
Can two events share one capacity pool in Altru?
Not that we are aware of. Each event keeps its own capacity, which is why carve-outs require moving seats by hand. Confirm with Blackbaud support if this is a deciding factor.
Will a split event confuse our scanning and attendance numbers?
It can, unless both events follow a clear naming pattern. Decide on the pattern before you build, so reports can roll them back together.
