Import a seating plan with Cue
Give Cue the venue's existing seating plan, as a PDF or a picture, or a seat list exported from another ticketing system, and it drafts the seats in Backstage. Check the draft over the source section by section, fix it in the editor, then publish.
Most venues already have their seating plan: a PDF from the architects, the picture on the box office wall, or a seat list in the ticketing system they used before. Import with Cue turns it into a draft in Backstage, so you check and correct seats rather than draw them all. Cue writes a draft and nothing else: publishing it, and marking it live, wait for you.
Before you start#
- A venue in Venues, and permission to update it.
- The plan as one file of up to 10 MB: a PDF, a picture (PNG, JPEG or WebP, up to 5 MB), or a CSV seat list. Export a large picture as a JPEG or a PDF to bring it under the limit.
- The number of seats the layout holds, if you know it. Cue checks its count against it.
What to upload#
- A PDF or a picture of the plan. Cue reads the stage, the levels, every section and every row, counts the seats in each row one by one, and notes where numbering starts and which way it runs, the aisles, any wheelchair, companion or restricted view seats, and a key of price zones if the plan has one. The sharper the file, the better: a vector PDF exported from the drawing is best, then a scan or screenshot at full size.
- A seat list. A CSV exported from another ticketing system, one seat per line, with columns for the section, the row and the seat, and optionally x and y, a zone and attributes; separated by commas, semicolons or tabs, with a header line. Cue imports it as it is rather than drawing the plan, so sections and rows keep the order they appear in, and rows without x and y are laid out straight, a section at a time.
What Cue reads well, and where it needs help#
Cue reads dense plans well when the picture is sharp and the seat numbers are legible: where a row's first and last numbers are printed, it checks its own count against them. A low resolution picture, or one whose numbers cannot be read, still gives a draft, but one to check row by row: Cue counts what it can make out and says which counts it is unsure of. It reports the counts by section and its doubts every time, and it never publishes without asking.
Some things it does not draw, and says so: pillars, which you add in the editor, and boxes whose seats the plan does not show, which it leaves out rather than guess.
Upload the plan#
- Open Venues, choose the venue and open its Seating plans tab.
- Select Import with Cue.
- Choose or drop the file.
- In Into, choose A new plan and give it a Plan name, such as End stage; or choose one of the venue's plans to import into a new draft of it.
- Type the Capacity, the seats in this layout, if you know it. Cue checks its count against it, and so does the editor.
- Under Anything Cue should know, say what the plan does not, such as "Only the stalls and the circle; the boxes are not sold".
- Select Upload and ask Cue.
Cue opens beside the page and reads the plan. It says what it is drawing before it writes it.
Read what Cue reports#
When the draft is written, Cue tells you:
- The sections, each with its rows and seats, and the total against the capacity you gave. Where the two disagree after a second look, Cue writes what it counted and reports the difference rather than change rows to match the total: a total that matches can hide the rows that are wrong.
- Its doubts: faint rows, edges cut off the picture, a row it could not count with confidence.
- What it left out, such as pillars or boxes.
- A link to open the draft in the editor.
The Seating plans tab shows the new draft as soon as Cue has written it.
Cue runs on AI credits. The balance is at the foot of Cue's panel, and Billing tops it up.
Check the draft over the source#
A draft drawn from a PDF or a picture opens in the editor with the source under the seats, in the Seat map source panel on the canvas:
- Line it up. Select Line up and drag on the plan to move the source; the seats stay put. Set its Width and Turn, or nudge it Smaller and Larger, and Fit to frame it round the seats again. Fade sets how strongly it shows; Hide and Show take it away and bring it back.
- Go section by section. Under Section by section, step through the sections with the arrows. Each is selected on the plan with its seat count beside the capacity the source gives for it, where it gives one: Matches, Short or Over. The line for all seats checks the whole plan against the capacity you gave.
- Look at every row of a section Cue had doubts about, against the picture underneath: the row letters, the first and last seat numbers and the aisles.
Fix it in the editor#
The draft is an ordinary draft, so everything in Make a basic seating map applies:
- A row with the wrong number of seats: select the row and change it in Properties, or mark a seat Removed where the plan has a gap.
- Numbers the wrong way round, or a row letter skipped: the row labels and Seat numbers in Properties.
- A section in the wrong place: drag it over the source, or shape its outline.
- Pillars: draw them with Pillar (P) where the source shows them, named as the venue names them.
- Then paint the zones, check the rake, and clear the Checks tab.
Save the draft as you go. Where the source is lined up is saved with it.
Publish with Cue, or in the editor#
When the draft is right, publish it in the editor as usual, or ask Cue in the same conversation to publish it. Cue never publishes on its own: it shows a confirm card first.
- Select Approve to publish, or Not now to leave the draft as it is.
- To sell from it, mark the version live: in the editor, on the venue's Seating plans tab, or by asking Cue, which shows the same card ("New events at this venue pin it. Events that pinned another version keep theirs."). Marking a version live takes permission to manage the venue.