Getting started

Your first fifteen minutes: sign in, learn where everything lives, and get your venue live with something real guests can book.

This page is written for a venue selling tables against a published event, which is the Nights plan. If you run a restaurant or a concert hall, the same first four steps apply — read Restaurants and the Dining plan or Concerts and the Live plan for what changes after that.

What you need before you start

• The email address your venue signed up with.
• A logo or a good photo of your room.
• One date you want to sell — a door time, and a price.

If your venue was created moments ago, check that inbox first. You get a link to set your password. If a colleague set the venue up, ask them to invite you from the Staff screen — that also sends you a link.

1. Sign in for the first time

1. Open the link from your welcome email and choose a password. It has to be a reasonable length, and very common passwords are refused. Keep it somewhere safe.
2. You land on the sign-in screen — Welcome back.
3. Enter your Work email and Password, then choose Sign in.
4. You arrive on your Dashboard.

To get back here later, go to your venue's own web address — the one you chose when you signed up — and add /admin to the end. Bookmark it.

Forgot your password? Choose Forgot password? on the sign-in screen, enter your email, and you get a link to set a new one. If you try the wrong password too many times, the screen asks you to wait a few minutes. That is normal.

2. Look around

Give yourself two minutes with these five screens. The sidebar is on the left on a computer, and behind the menu button at the top on a phone.

1. Dashboard. Your venue at a glance. While anything is missing, a Finish setting up card lists what is left: Venue settings + branding, Reservation notification email, At least one table, At least one published event, and At least one staff admin. Work down that list and you are live.
2. Events. Everything you have ever put on. Filter by Draft, Published and the rest. New event is the button top right.
3. Reservations. Every booking in one list — guest, party, table, status. This is the screen you live on during the week.
4. Floor plan. Your room. Pick what is on, at the top, and you see which tables are free and who is sitting where.
5. Venue settings, in the account menu behind your initials. Your look, your words, your address.

The search box in the top bar (Search or jump to…) jumps to any screen without hunting for it. It also offers quick actions like New event and View reservations.

3. Fill in your venue details

1. Open the account menu (your initials, top right) and choose Venue settings.
2. On the Branding tab, set your venue's name, your Accent colour, your Display font, your Body font, your Logo and your Favicon (browser-tab icon). The phone preview beside the form updates as you type. Choose Save branding — it goes live straight away.
3. On the Site content tab, fill in the Home and Info pages: your tagline, your hero image, your address, your opening hours, your phone and email, and your age and door policy. Choose Save content.
4. On the Languages tab, pick which languages your public site offers, then set your Default language — the one a first-time visitor sees. English is there by default.
5. Further down the same screen, fill in Venue location — your City and Country. This is what puts you on the map for guests browsing by city. Save it.

One thing on this screen you cannot change yourself: under Operational settings you will see Notification recipients, Privacy version and Timezone. These are shown for reference only and are managed by the Noctessa team. Notification recipients is the address that gets an email when a guest books — it is set from the address you signed up with. If it is wrong, ask the Noctessa team to change it.

4. Draw your room

You need at least one table before anyone can book one.

1. Open Floor plan.
2. Choose Edit layout.
3. Drag a table from the palette on the left onto the floor, or click it to drop it in the middle. Drag it where it belongs, and use the handles to resize or rotate it. (Start from a template gives you a whole room to adjust instead.)
4. With the table selected, set its Label (what your staff call it — "12", "Booth A"), its Seats, its Type (Standard or VIP) and its Section (the part of the room it stands in). Its Shape is under Appearance.
5. Optionally open Advanced and set Stage band. 1 means closest to the stage. If you sell tiered tables later, this is what decides who sits nearest.
6. Repeat until your room is on the screen. The palette also has the Stage, DJ booth, Bar, Dance floor, Entry, Wall and more, so your staff recognise the room at a glance.
7. Choose Save. If you leave with unsaved changes the screen warns you first.

If you do not see Edit layout, layout editing has been switched off for your venue — ask the Noctessa team.

Full detail is in Floor plan; working the room while it is open is The service floor.

5. Put your first event up

1. Open Events and choose New event.
2. Fill in Event title, Event type, Date, Door time and, if you want it, End time.
3. Add Genre / sound, Lineup / performers and a Description. This is what sells it — write it the way you would say it.
4. Add a Featured image. Events with a picture do much better, and you need one to share it to Instagram later.
5. Set your Door (entry) price.
6. Leave the tiers alone for your first event. When you are ready to sell tables at different prices, Table voucher tiers and VIP voucher tiers are where you do it — see Events.
7. Under Status, choose Publish. (Save draft keeps it hidden until you are ready.)
8. Choose the Publish button at the bottom of the form.

Your event is now on your public site. Status only appears while you are creating an event — afterwards you change it from the row menu on the Events list.

6. Share the link

1. On the Events list, open the menu at the end of your event's row.
2. Choose View on site. Your event page opens in a new tab, exactly as a guest sees it.
3. Copy the address from your browser. That is the link to put in your Instagram bio, your stories, your WhatsApp broadcast and your posters.
4. Check the page on your phone before you send it anywhere.

Guests who follow that link can read the details and book a table. Their bookings appear on your Reservations screen, and the address you saw under Notification recipients gets an email each time.

If Instagram and Facebook are connected for your venue, you can skip the copy-paste: use Publish to social from the same row menu. See Publishing to social.

7. Bring your team in

1. Open the account menu and choose Staff.
2. Under Invite a member, enter their Email and optionally their Name, choose their Role, and choose Invite.
3. Admin gives full access to the panel. Door gives only the door screen — the scanner and the guest list for tonight.
4. The sign-in link is emailed to the address you entered. The link is also shown on screen so you can copy it and pass it on yourself if it does not arrive.

More in Staff and the activity log.

What to do next

• Watch the Reservations screen and confirm bookings as they come in — Reservations.
• Learn the routine for working the room while it is open — The service floor.
• Set up your door staff before your first busy service — Tickets and the door.
• Check where your trial stands — Your Noctessa subscription.
• Let guests pay when they book — Taking payments from your guests.

If something looks wrong

• The sign-in screen refuses your password. Use Forgot password?. If you have just changed your email, sign in with the new one — the change takes effect at your next sign-in.
• Your invite link says it is invalid. Links expire and can only be used once. Ask whoever invited you for a fresh one.
• Your event is not on your site. Its Status is probably still draft. Open the row menu on the Events list and choose Publish.
• The floor plan says there are no events. Publish an event first — the live map shows one event at a time.
• You cannot delete or rename a table. A table with a live booking on it is locked. Move or cancel that reservation first.
• The dashboard checklist still shows an item you think you did. Reload the screen. If it stays, open the screen it links to and check the change actually saved.