# What to do when a workshop is full

> Capacity is used up and people keep signing up. How to spot it early, what to offer those who missed out, and why waiting for a wait list will not help.

- Canonical article (Help Center): https://help.happenee.com/en/articles/91-what-to-do-when-a-workshop-is-full
- Česká verze: https://aidocs.happenee.com/cs/co-delat-kdyz-je-workshop-plny.md
- Collection: Troubleshooting
- Updated: 2026-08-07

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> **Overview**
> A workshop has filled up and further people cannot sign up. **There is no wait list in Happenee**, so the situation is not handled by the system but by you — either you raise the capacity, add a second run, or offer people an alternative. What matters is reacting before the people who missed out start asking.

## Getting started

Look at workshop occupancy in the agenda while registration is still open, not a week before the event. A workshop that fills up three weeks ahead is information you can act on; one that fills up the day before is just a problem.

## Details

### Three realistic options

- **Raise the capacity.** The simplest route if the room and the facilitator can take it. You edit the capacity in the session settings; the new places are offered to the next people immediately.
- **Add a second run.** For a popular workshop this usually beats an overcrowded room. You create the new session by copying the original, so you do not have to rebuild the settings.
- **Offer an alternative.** When neither of those works, tell people which workshops still have space. Without that they stop at "it was full" and never sign up for anything else.

### Communicating with the people who missed out

The system does not tell anyone that capacity ran out — that is on you. The fastest route is a **notification in the attendee app**: it arrives as a push notification and suits a short message such as "workshop A is full, B and C still have space".

When the change is substantial (a second run, a time shift), send an e-mail campaign targeted at the affected group.

### There is no wait list

No setting will do this for you. If you need a queue, you keep it outside Happenee and assign people to freed-up places manually — you can add them to the session's registered list. People added that way are marked as **Assigned by organizer**.

## Common pitfalls

### Raising the capacity but not the room

A number in the admin does not make the room bigger. Before you raise capacity, confirm the room's real capacity and check with the facilitator whether the format survives a larger group — for a workshop with group work, that is the difference between a good and a bad experience.

### Telling the people who missed out nothing

An attendee who hits a full workshop and hears nothing usually does not sign up for another one. A short notification saying where space is left saves more attendance than anything else.

### Setting capacity after registration opens

If somebody signs up for a session before you set its capacity, you can end up with more registrations than the limit. So set capacity when you create the session, not afterwards.

## Related articles
- [Setting up workshops and session registration](https://aidocs.happenee.com/en/setting-up-workshops-and-session-registration.md)
- [How time slots work](https://aidocs.happenee.com/en/how-time-slots-work.md)
- [Using Notifications in the attendee app](https://aidocs.happenee.com/en/using-notifications-in-the-attendee-app.md)