Event capacity sets one shared limit that every ticket type on the event draws from together. Sell General Admission, VIP, Child, and Senior tickets against a single venue cap instead of giving each type its own inventory number. When you enable capacity, the per-ticket Inventory field is turned off — the shared Capacity value controls the whole pool.
Requirements: The Event Ticketing app installed. Use this when an event has two or more ticket types that all count toward the same total. For a single ticket type, set its Inventory instead — capacity adds nothing.
Enable capacity
-
Create or edit an event in the Event Ticketing app.
-
Find Event capacity and check Set total capacity?.
-
Enter the total in the Capacity field — the maximum number of tickets to sell across all types combined.
-
Add your ticket types under Tickets. With capacity on, each ticket type’s Inventory field shows
-and is disabled — you set the price per type, but the shared capacity governs how many sell. -
Click Save.
Sales across all ticket types now stop once the combined total reaches your capacity.
How the shared pool works
Shopify tracks inventory per variant, with no native shared pool. Event Ticketing simulates one: each ticket type’s Shopify variant is stocked at the full capacity, and selling any one type decrements every other type by the same amount. Sell 5 VIP and the available General, Child, and Senior counts each drop by 5 too — so the combined total can’t exceed the cap.
A side effect: the inventory shown in Shopify is larger than your capacity. It’s multiplied by the number of ticket types. Capacity 100 with two ticket types shows 200 total in Shopify (100 per variant); three types show 300. This is expected — the pool is enforced by the synchronized decrement, not by the displayed number.
Don’t create a ticket type to represent a date or arrival slot. For multiple dates, add Dates to the event instead — otherwise the shared pool won’t behave as expected.
Per-date capacity
On a multi-date or recurring event, capacity applies to each date. Set capacity to 100 across five dates and you’re selling 100 per date — 500 total. To override a single date, edit that date and set its own Capacity value; left blank, the date uses the event-level capacity.
Related articles
- One-time event — create the event capacity sits on.
- Multi-date event — how per-date capacity applies.
- Adjusting inventory and prices — change stock on a live event.
- Purchase limits — cap how many one customer can buy.
FAQ
Why is the Inventory field greyed out?
Capacity is on. The shared Capacity value replaces per-type inventory, so each ticket type’s Inventory field shows - and can’t be edited. Uncheck Set total capacity? to set per-type inventory again.
Can the event oversell?
Yes — the app warns that overselling is possible and that the feature is not bulletproof. The synchronized decrement across the other ticket types happens as each order is processed, so a single cart can momentarily exceed the cap (for example, adding the full capacity of two different types at once). Lower the risk with purchase limits.
Should I use capacity with only one ticket type?
No. With one ticket type the Shopify inventory just equals the capacity and there’s no pool to share — set the ticket’s Inventory instead.
Why does Shopify show more inventory than my capacity?
Each ticket type’s variant is stocked at the full capacity, so the displayed total is your capacity times the number of ticket types. The pool is still enforced by the synchronized decrement across variants.
Is there a limit on ticket types and dates?
A variant is the combination of ticket type and date, and the app caps an event at 250 variants. Above 100 variants, the event is split across multiple Shopify products (a single Shopify product holds up to 100), so a large multi-date event becomes several linked products. The Shopify preview checks this before you save and flags an event that would exceed the limit.
