--- title: "Timed-Entry Capacity Calculator | Ticket Fairy Free Tools" description: "Enter your hours, visit length and capacity to see tickets per time slot, daily and season capacity and expected revenue for your attraction." canonical: "https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/timed-entry-capacity-calculator" --- # Timed-Entry Capacity Calculator | Ticket Fairy Free Tools 1. [Home](https://www.ticketfairy.com/) 2. [Free Tools](https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools) 3. Timed-Entry Capacity Calculator Attractions · No signup required # Timed-Entry Capacity Calculator Enter your hours, slot length, visit length and safe capacity to see how many tickets you can sell per time slot, per day and per season, with a last entry time that fits your closing. ## Your experience and hours Pick the type of experience to load typical starting values, then enter your own hours, slot length and capacity. Currency Type of experience Changing this replaces the values below with typical ones for that type. How visitors go through Slot length min The time between one entry time and the next. Opening time Your first entry time. Closing time When the last visitors must be out. A time earlier than opening counts as after midnight. Average visit length min How long a typical visitor stays inside, from entry to exit. Safe capacity inside at once The most people allowed inside at the same time, from your fire or safety assessment. Spare capacity to keep free % Room for visitors who arrive late or stay longer. 10% is a common starting point. Last entry time (optional) Leave empty and the calculator uses closing time minus the visit length. ## Your season and sales Enter your price, the days you open and how full you expect each day to be. Average ticket price $ The average face price across adult, child, family and concession tickets. How you count your open days Days open each week Peak days each week Usually Saturday and Sunday. Weeks in the season Enter 50 or 52 for a year-round attraction. Expected fill on peak days % Share of the day's tickets you expect to sell. Expected fill on other days % ### Email me this result Get new tools and planning guides for attraction operators by email. ### Run this with live data Connect this calculation to your event sales, add-ons and check-ins in Ticket Fairy, then follow the results in a live dashboard instead of a one-off snapshot. 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Links back with an attribution line. TL;DR Tickets per time slot = safe capacity ÷ the number of slots whose visitors are inside at the same time, which is the visit length ÷ the slot length, rounded up. A 200-person attraction with 60-minute visits and 15-minute slots has 4 slots inside at once, so after keeping 10% spare it sells 45 tickets per slot. With a 5:00 pm last entry for a 6:00 pm close, that is 29 entry times and 1,305 tickets a day. ## How to calculate timed-entry capacity Timed-entry capacity is how many tickets you can sell for each entry time without going over your safe limit inside. 1. **Count the slots inside at once.** Divide the visit length by the slot length and round up. With 60-minute visits and 15-minute slots, visitors from 4 entry times are inside together. 2. **Take off your spare capacity.** Multiply your safe capacity by 1 minus your spare share. 200 people with 10% spare leaves 180. 3. **Divide and round down.** Tickets per slot = 180 ÷ 4 = **45**. Always round down, because rounding up puts you over your limit. 4. **Count your entry times.** Last entry = closing time − visit length; if that falls between entry times, use the entry time just before it. Entry times = (last entry − opening) ÷ slot length + 1. 5. **Multiply.** Tickets per day = tickets per slot × entry times. Season capacity = tickets per day × days open. For escape rooms and other fixed sessions, the visit length is the session plus the reset time. Each room takes one group per session, so the calculator staggers your rooms across the start times and each entry time sells the rooms that start then. ## How long should time slots be? Your slot length decides how many people arrive together, not how many you can hold. Short slots spread arrivals out, so your entrance queue stays small and the space fills evenly. Long slots bring bigger waves: at 30-minute slots, the worked example below sends 90 people to the door at once instead of 45. Daily capacity changes only a little: 1,290, 1,305 and 1,350 tickets a day at 10, 15 and 30 minutes in the worked example. Pick the slot length your entrance and your team can handle. If visitors stay for less time than one slot, or a room waits between games, part of your capacity sits empty. The calculator warns you about both. ### Typical starting values by type of experience These are directional starting points, not industry statistics. Time your own visitors and use your real numbers. | Type of experience | Typical visit length | Typical slot length | What to watch | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Escape room or fixed-session game | 60 minutes plus 10–20 minutes reset | The full session and reset, or staggered starts across rooms | Idle rooms when the slot length does not fit the reset | | Haunted house or scare maze | 15–40 minutes | 5–15 minutes | Groups catching up with the group ahead | | Walk-through or immersive attraction | 45–90 minutes | 15–30 minutes | Crowding in the first room | | Museum or exhibition | 60–120 minutes | 15–30 minutes | Visitors who stay much longer than average | | Seasonal light trail or Christmas experience | 60–90 minutes | 15–30 minutes | Sold-out weekends and late arrivals from traffic | ## When should last entry be? Set last entry at closing time minus your average visit length: for a 6:00 pm close and 60-minute visits, 5:00 pm. A later last entry sells a few more tickets, but those visitors rush the ending or keep your team on after closing. ## How much spare capacity to keep for early and late arrivals Visitors do not arrive exactly on time. Someone who arrives 20 minutes late for a 2:00 pm slot is inside with the 2:15 pm group. Visitors who stay longer than average overlap with the next group too. A spare share of about 10% of your safe capacity absorbs this. Keep more if traffic, parking or a shuttle makes arrival times unpredictable, and less if you hold late arrivals at the entrance until the next slot. Some buyers will know in advance that they cannot make their time. On Ticket Fairy, time slot changes after purchase are managed from the buyer's account. ## How to plan walk-up tickets Walk-up tickets come out of the same tickets per slot, so decide how many to sell in advance before you open. On Ticket Fairy, box office, walk-up and door sales use the same live availability as online sales, so tickets sold online and tickets sold at your card reader draw on the same places. See [timed-entry ticketing](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing/timed-entry-ticketing) for how buyers pick a date and time slot. ## Peak and off-peak pricing by time slot Weekend afternoons usually sell first and weekday mornings stay quiet. To charge more at busy times, set up separate ticket types, such as weekend entry and weekday entry, each with its own price. The ticket page can list a day by entry time or group it by ticket type. Test your price levels with the [tier allocation optimizer](https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/tier-allocation-optimizer). ## Group bookings and large parties A school trip of 40 in a 45-ticket slot leaves 5 places for everyone else. Give groups their own quieter entry times. On Ticket Fairy, set an order cap so a single order cannot take a whole slot. For escape rooms, the group is the room: a pair who book a 6-person room use all 6 places, so enter a lower expected fill if many of your groups are small. ## Seasonal peaks Halloween and Christmas experiences often sell most of their tickets in the final weeks. Enter a short season and count its weekends and final days as peak days. When tickets sell out, a Ticket Fairy waiting list lets buyers be notified if tickets come back through resale, released holds or cancellations. Track sales week by week with the [ticket sales pacing tool](https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/ticket-sales-pacing). ## How the answer changes with size The formula is the same for every size, but the pressure point moves. A single 6-person escape room open from 12:00 pm to 10:00 pm with a 60-minute game and 15-minute reset runs 8 games and sells at most 48 places a day. Here every idle minute between games is lost income. A large attraction with a safe capacity of 7,000, 3-hour visits and 15-minute slots from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm sells 525 tickets per slot, 37 entry times and 19,425 tickets a day. Here the entrance is the limit: 525 people every 15 minutes is 35 people a minute at your scanners. Ticket Fairy's real-time check-in dashboard shows arrivals, capacity counts and entry rates per gate. Plan your door team with the [event staffing calculator](https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/event-staffing-calculator). Worked example #### Walk-through attraction, 200 people inside, 60-minute visits Open 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, 15-minute slots, 10% spare capacity, $25 average ticket. Open 6 days a week for 50 weeks, with 2 peak days a week. Expected fill 90% on peak days and 55% on other days. - Slots inside at once: 60 ÷ 15 = **4**. - Capacity after spare: 200 × 90% = 180. Tickets per slot: 180 ÷ 4 = **45**. - Last entry: 6:00 pm − 60 minutes = **5:00 pm**. Entry times: 420 minutes ÷ 15 + 1 = **29**. - Tickets per day at capacity: 45 × 29 = **1,305**. Most people inside at once: 180 of 200. - Days open: 6 × 50 = 300, of which 100 are peak days. Season capacity: 1,305 × 300 = **391,500**. - Expected tickets: about 1,175 on each peak day and 718 on each other day, so 1,305 × 90% × 100 + 1,305 × 55% × 200 = **261,000**. - Expected ticket revenue: 261,000 × $25 = **$6,525,000**, before fees, tax and refunds. - With 10-minute slots: 30 tickets per slot, 43 entry times, 1,290 a day. With 30-minute slots: 90 per slot, 15 entry times, 1,350 a day. On average, 82% of your capacity is in use across opening hours, because you keep 10% spare and the space is still filling up in the first hour. The 30-minute option sells 45 more tickets a day, but it doubles the group at your entrance every half hour. ## What this calculation leaves out - **Costs and fees.** Revenue is face value only. Compare fee options with the [ticket fee calculator](https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/ticket-fee-calculator) and check your costs with the [event break-even calculator](https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/event-break-even-calculator). - **No-shows.** Paid tickets that are not used free up space inside but not income. Estimate them with the [no-show rate estimator](https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/no-show-rate-estimator). - **Food, drink, retail and photos.** Secondary spend is not included. - **Several zones.** If one room or ride holds fewer people than the rest, that room sets your limit. Enter its capacity and visit length. ## Common timed-entry mistakes 1. **Selling your full safe capacity in every slot.** Visitors from earlier slots are still inside. Divide by the number of slots inside at once. 2. **Using the visit length you designed, not the one visitors take.** Time real visitors on a busy day. If they stay 75 minutes instead of 60, you need 5 slots inside at once, not 4. 3. **Setting last entry too close to closing.** Your last visitors rush the ending or your team works late. Use closing time minus the visit length. 4. **Keeping no spare capacity.** Late arrivals and slow visitors push you over your limit on the busiest days. 5. **Planning revenue from full capacity.** Weekday mornings rarely sell out. Use separate fill figures for peak and other days. ### Further reading - [Attraction ticketing software](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing/attraction-ticketing-software) - [Escape room ticketing system](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing/escape-room-ticketing-system) - [Haunted attraction ticketing platform](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing/haunted-attraction-ticketing-platform) - [Exhibition ticketing system](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing/exhibition-ticketing-system) - [Festival capacity calculator](https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/festival-capacity-calculator) - [Ticket Fairy pricing](https://www.ticketfairy.com/pricing) - [IAAPA](https://www.iaapa.org) - [Themed Entertainment Association](https://www.teaconnect.org) ## Frequently asked questions How do you calculate capacity per time slot? Divide your visit length by your slot length and round up to find how many slots are inside at once. Then divide your safe capacity, minus any spare you keep, by that number and round down. With 200 people, 10% spare, 60-minute visits and 15-minute slots, 4 slots are inside at once, so you can sell 180 divided by 4, which is 45 tickets per slot. How long should time slots be for a timed-entry attraction? Most walk-through attractions, museums and light trails use 15 to 30 minute slots, and haunted houses use 5 to 15 minutes. Shorter slots spread arrivals and keep your entrance queue small. Longer slots bring bigger groups to the door at once. Daily capacity changes only a little: the worked example sells 1,290, 1,305 and 1,350 tickets a day at 10, 15 and 30 minute slots. What time should last entry be? Set last entry at your closing time minus your average visit length. If you close at 6:00 pm and a visit takes 60 minutes, last entry is 5:00 pm. A later last entry sells a few more tickets, but those visitors rush the ending or keep your team on after closing. How many people can an escape room take per day? Divide the minutes from opening to the last game start by the session length plus reset time, round down, add 1 and multiply by the group size. The last game starts one session length before closing. One 6-person room open from 12:00 pm to 10:00 pm with a 60-minute game and a 15-minute reset runs 8 games, so it can take at most 48 players a day. More rooms with staggered start times multiply that. Should I oversell timed-entry slots to cover no-shows? Keep spare capacity instead of overselling. Late arrivals from one slot are inside with the next, and visitors who stay longer overlap too. Keeping about 10% of your safe capacity spare is a common starting point, with more if traffic or parking makes arrival times hard to predict. Paid no-shows free up space inside but add no income. How do I work out how many visitors my attraction can handle per day? Multiply the tickets you can sell per time slot by the number of entry times in a day. Entry times run from opening to last entry, every slot length. A 200-person attraction with 60-minute visits, 15-minute slots and 10% spare sells 45 tickets per slot across 29 entry times from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, which is 1,305 tickets a day. Reviewed and updated September 2026 by the [Ticket Fairy](https://www.ticketfairy.com/about) events data team. Benchmarks in this tool are directional — for real-time analytics against your own event history, use [Ticket Fairy Intelligence](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing/). --- This page is on Ticket Fairy, a ticketing, marketing and operations platform for live events and the venues that host them: festivals, club nights, concerts, conferences and tours, and night clubs, beach clubs and concert venues. It grows revenue with fan rewards that turn an audience into a sales channel, and runs the money side with payments and payouts, Vault business banking, and working capital advanced against ticket sales. 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