The Waiting List add-on allows your customers to register for sold-out events by joining a waiting list. When the event becomes available, a notification is sent to them, or a booking is directly made for the first customer on the waiting list. Waiting List is the ideal tool to deal with cancellations, to sell new places depending on the attractiveness of your events, or to give your customers a second opportunity to book.
Join a Waiting List
A “notification” icon appears on unavailable events. Customers can select these events and fill out the booking form as usual. The “Book” button is replaced with a “Join Waiting List” button.
Customers will then be able to enter the email address to which they wish to be notified, and the desired quantity. The number of people already on the waiting list is displayed, along with a description of how the waiting list works.
Customers will be automatically notified by email when the selected event will be available for the desired quantity.
If you have the Resource Availability add-on, the list of selected resources will also be displayed, and customers will only be notified when those resources will be available.
Three different operating modes
You can configure the action to be performed when an event becomes available:
- Notify everyone: An email will be automatically sent to all customers on the list; the first customer to make a booking on your site will get the spot.
- Temporarily book: The spot will be reserved for the first customer on the list for a set duration (configurable). The customer must confirm the booking before the deadline, otherwise, the spot will be given to the next customer on the list, and so on.
- Book: The spot will be reserved for the first customer on the list definitively.
You can set a different operating mode to each booking form.
By default, customers’ positions on the waiting list are determined by their booking date, but it is possible to randomly shuffle the waiting lists so that each participant has an equal chance of being selected.
Mode #1: Notify the entire waiting list
The Waiting List add-on allows you to send a notification to everyone on the waiting list as soon as an event becomes available, provided the quantity requested by the customer is available.
If there are several customers on the waiting list, they will all be notified at the same time and must be the first to book: first come, first served.
This notification is fully customizable, as are all other notifications related to waiting lists. Administrators can also be notified in the same way.
If you have the Notification Pack add-on, you can also send these notifications via SMS or Push.
Mode #2: Temporary booking
Alternatively, you can configure the Waiting List add-on to temporarily book a spot for the first customer on the waiting list when an event free up. In this case, the spot will be blocked for that customer for a limited time; no other customer will be able to book the event during this period.
The customer is notified by email and must confirm or decline the booking within the given timeframe. You can set this timeframe as needed. If the customer declines, or if the deadline expires, the booking is automatically rejected, and the same process applies to the next customer on the list.
If you are using WooCommerce, the customer must pay to confirm the booking. An order is automatically created, and the booking will only be confirmed once the payment is validated.
With the Prices and Credits add-on, your customers can also pay for the booking with their credits.
Mode #3: Firm booking
Finally, the Waiting List add-on allows you to make a definitive booking for the first customer on the waiting list as soon as the desired event becomes available.
In this case, the booking is confirmed right away without requiring payment, so you will need to handle the payment process manually if necessary.
Triggering waiting lists processing
Many actions can make an event available again. For example, a customer cancelling or rescheduling a booking, or an administrator modifying a booking or directly increasing an event’s availability.
It is sometimes not desirable to process waiting lists after each of your administrative tasks, which is why you can enable or disable each trigger individually from the Booking Activities’ settings.
You can also manually trigger waiting list processing from the back office for selected bookings only.
Prerequisites
Waiting List is an add-on for Booking Activities, so you must first install and activate Booking Activities. WooCommerce-related features are automatically enabled when WooCommerce is also installed and activated.
1.0.7 - 2026/08/28
- Tweak - Make sure all default notifications are registered in the notification list on plugin activation
- Dev - Compatibility with Booking Activities 1.18.7
1.0.6 - 2026/06/02
- Dev - Pass full booking object in bookacti_send_booking_status_change_notification function instead of partial data
- Dev - Compatibility with Notification Pack 1.4.2
1.0.5 - 2026/05/20
- Tweak - Keep form values after being redirected to log in page (with Booking Activities 1.18.0)
- Dev - Compatibility with Booking Activities 1.18.0
1.0.4 - 2026/03/27
- Dev - Compatibility with Resource Availability 1.3.0
1.0.3 - 2026/03/05
- Fix - Do not show (group of) events as waitlistable on calendar if they are on days off
- Dev - Compatibility with Booking Activities 1.17.0
1.0.2 - 2026/02/03
- Fix - Prevent customers from joining a waiting list if they have already booked the event and reached the "Max bookings per user" option value
1.0.1 - 2026/01/12
- When using an object cache plugin, and manually process a specific waiting list booking, if it is accepted, customer may not be able to confirm it
1.0.0 - 2025/12/09
- Feature - Enable waiting lists per booking form
- Feature - Select a waiting list action per booking form: "Notify", "Temporarily book" or "Book"
- Feature - Option to randomize waiting lists per booking form
- Feature - Allow customers to select a specific quantity before joining waiting list (and specific resources with the Resource Availability add-on)
- Feature - Allow customers to update their waiting list booking, and retain their position and acceptance if possible
- Feature - Allow customers to confirm or reject an accepted waiting list booking within the alloted time (configurable)
- Feature - Create an order to confirm an accepted waiting list booking (with WooCommerce, or pay with a booking pass with the Prices and Credits add-on)
- Feature - Automatically reject accepted bookings on the waiting list after the allotted time and give a chance to the next person on the list
- Feature - Automatically process the waiting lists when an event becomes available + option to enable or disable the specific triggers
- Feature - Automatically reject past waiting list bookings (configurable)
- Feature - Manually process the selected waiting list bookings from the backend
- Feature - Send customizable notifications when customers join or leave a waiting list, when a waitlisted event becomes available, and when a waiting list booking is accepted
- Feature - Add notification tags: {waiting_list_position}, {waiting_list_expiration}, {waiting_list_url}