How capacity and "sold out" work
Eventually calculates Sold out status from two settings: Total Event Capacity and per-ticket Ticket Limit. An incomplete checkout can also temporarily block a seat for the hold period your team has set (5–60 minutes) when seat holds are enabled. When a seat is available, visitors can register; when it is not, they see a sold-out message or a waitlist option.
Event-level sold out
Event is at capacity appears when the total number of registered attendees across all ticket types reaches the Total Event Capacity you set. No further registrations are accepted through the public widget unless you add an attendee manually from the dashboard.
Ticket-type sold out
This ticket type is sold out appears when a specific tier reaches its individual Ticket Limit, even if other tiers and the overall event still have space. Visitors can still register for the remaining available tiers.
Incomplete checkout holds
Seat holds are a per-team setting you control from the Checkout card in Settings → Payments. When holds are off, an in-progress checkout does not reserve a spot: availability is first come, first served, and two buyers can pay for the last spot at the same time. You can turn holds on or off and set the hold period in Set seat holds during checkout.
For finite-capacity events, the dashboard shows how many spots are held beneath Spots left, such as 1 spot held in checkout or N spots held in checkout.
A visitor who starts checkout but does not finish creates an Incomplete registration. When seat holds are enabled, that registration holds a seat for the hold period your team has set (5–60 minutes). The event or ticket tier may show as sold out during that window. Once the period passes, the seat returns to inventory automatically. A host can also remove the Incomplete record from the Guests tab immediately to free the seat sooner.
If the buyer completes checkout after the hold expires, they still receive their paid ticket. The order sync creates a fresh registration. The seat was available during the gap, so other visitors may have registered in the meantime.
Squarespace stock vs Eventually availability
Incomplete holds reduce availability inside Eventually, but they do not lower the product stock Eventually pushes to Squarespace. Squarespace stock counts active registrations only and, for Standard seat tiers, shared room capacity from Total Event Capacity.
That means a tier with no individual ticket limit can still show finite stock in the Squarespace cart when the event has a room cap. The cart blocks over-buys against that shared remaining count. Pending holds stay enforced on the widget and host capacity checks so the holder’s own Squarespace checkout is not blocked as out of stock. See How Squarespace sync works for the full stock rules.
Paid Squarespace orders over capacity
A paid Squarespace order can complete after an event or ticket type fills. Instead of rejecting the order, Eventually registers the seat and marks it Over capacity. The buyer keeps their paid ticket, and the seat stays in your sold count. This is the one exception to sold-out enforcement: capacity remains a hard stop for unpaid checkouts and the public widget. Resolve the flagged seat by refunding, cancelling, or moving it. See When a paid Squarespace order exceeds capacity.
What visitors see
Event is at capacity — the entire event is sold out.
This ticket type is sold out — one tier is full, but others may still be open.
[ticket name] does not have enough availability — the visitor tried to add more tickets than are currently available, sometimes because incomplete checkouts are holding seats.
Freeing up a seat
To open a spot manually:
Remove an Incomplete registration from the guest list. This returns the seat immediately.
Cancel an active Registered attendee. This frees the seat and changes the status to Cancelled.
Wait for an incomplete checkout hold to expire after the hold period.