Stall Booking
Runs on our server, not on your device.
One link, on your own site or sent — vendors pick their own stall
- Say what the market is called, when it is, and how big the hall is.
- Choose how many stalls and how big each one is — the plan is drawn as you type.
- Press make the booking page, then link it, embed it or send it.
Your booking page is ready
Put this link on your own website, share it, or send it — vendors pick a stall on the plan, and no account is needed to book.
Put it on your own website
Paste this where you want the plan to appear. It updates itself as stalls are booked.
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Keep Stall Booking handy
Use your browser's Share menu, then “Add to Home Screen”.
About this tool
A booking page for a market, a car boot sale, a craft fair or a school hall — the sort of thing usually run on a spreadsheet and forty emails. Say how big the room is and how many stalls you need, and you get a link. Vendors open it, see a plan of the hall, and click the stall they want. The plan is the point. A list of stall numbers means nothing to somebody deciding whether to come: they want to know if they are by the door, next to the coffee, or behind the pillar. A drawing answers that in a second, and it is drawn to scale from the measurements you give — twenty metres by fifteen is twenty metres by fifteen, and a 180 cm table is 180 cm on the plan. No money passes through this site. You write your own payment details in your own words — a bank account, a MobilePay number, cash on the day — and a booking holds the stall for as long as you choose while the vendor pays. When the money arrives you mark it received and the stall is theirs. If it does not arrive, the hold lapses on its own and the stall goes back on the plan without you doing anything. Vendors need no account, which is the difference between a poster people act on and one they mean to get round to. They give a name and an email, and get a link back to change or cancel. The page is thrown away shortly after the market, and their details go with it. You do not have to email anybody. The link is an ordinary web address: put it on your market's own page, post it in a Facebook group, print it as a QR code on the poster, or send it round — whichever suits. You can also embed the plan directly in your own site, so visitors see the live hall and which stalls are still free without leaving your page.
Frequently asked questions
Do vendors pay through the site?
No, and that is deliberate. You write your own payment details — a bank account, a MobilePay number, or cash on the day — and they are shown to a vendor the moment they book. The booking holds the stall while they pay, and you mark it as received when the money arrives. Nothing goes through us, there is nothing to pay out, and your money stays between you and your vendors.
What happens if somebody books and never pays?
The hold lapses and the stall goes back on the plan by itself. You choose how long that takes when you set the market up — two days, a week or two weeks — and until you mark a booking as paid, that clock is running. You do not have to chase anybody to free up a stall, and a stall whose deadline has passed is free the instant it passes, not whenever a nightly job gets round to it.
Do the vendors need an account?
No. They give a name and an email address, and get a link back that lets them change or cancel. Asking a stallholder to make an account before they can book is how a market ends up with half the stalls empty and a list of people who meant to get round to it.
Is the plan actually to scale?
Yes. The hall is drawn from the measurements you give and the stalls from theirs, so a 180 cm table takes 180 cm of a 20 m wall. That is what makes the drawing worth looking at: a vendor can see they are the third stall from the door rather than reading it in a list.
Can I put the stalls exactly where I want them?
Not in this version. Right now it lays them out in rows for you, which is the right answer when the positions do not matter and you just need the stalls bookable. Placing each one by hand, drawing an L-shaped room, and importing a floor plan you already have are what comes next.
How long does the booking page last?
Until a couple of weeks after the market, then it is deleted along with every vendor's name and email address. A booking page kept for ever is a mailing list nobody agreed to, and there is no reason to hold somebody's details once the day has been and gone.
What if two people click the same stall at once?
One of them gets it and the other is told, in words, on the page they are already looking at. That is decided by the database rather than by a check beforehand, because a check-and-then-book leaves a gap between the two — and the last good stall at a busy market is exactly where two people press at the same instant.
Can I put the plan on my own website?
Yes. As well as the link, you get an embed snippet — a couple of lines of HTML that show the live plan inside your own page, with the stalls that are still free updating as people book. Clicking a stall takes the visitor to the booking form. The embed carries a small line saying it was built with HelpySelf, which is how the tool pays for itself given nothing else about it does.
Is it free?
Up to 50 stalls, yes — which covers very nearly every community market: a village hall, a school fair, a car boot sale. You need a free account, because a market outlives the session by weeks and somebody has to be able to find it again, mark a payment received and take it down. Above 50 stalls it is part of Pro, which has no limit at all — at that size the stalls are paying for themselves.
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