An event layout is a drawing of the event: where each tent, table, stage, bar, generator and restroom goes, at real size, in feet. Draw it on the customer's own satellite photo, on a grid, or indoors on the venue's own floor plan, right from the quote, the job or a lead. The crew sees exactly what goes where, and you can check the plan before anyone loads a truck.
Event layouts are part of the Growth plan and are off until you turn them on. Draw on a computer or a tablet; phones open layouts read-only, which is how drivers see them.
Turn it on
Go to Settings → Event Layouts and switch on Use event layouts. The same page sets two planning guides the drawing checks against:
Give your products a size
Only products with a size on file can go on a drawing. Open a tent, table, stage or other item in Inventory and edit its Layout section:
When a product has no size yet, the form opens filled in from its name (a "20x40 Frame Tent" opens at 20 × 40 ft, a 60" Round Table at 5 ft round seating 8). Check it and press Save; nothing is saved until you do.
Each tent size is its own product, so a 20 × 40 and a 30 × 60 each have their own size. A tent from a tent system is the exception: it is one item you stretch to any size its sections build. Drag the square handle on its far end and the length snaps to the lengths the sections can build.
Draw a layout
Open a quote or a job and find Layout. Press Draw a layout. When the event's site has a map location, the drawing opens on its satellite photo, and for an indoor event you switch it to Grid and upload the venue's floor plan (Indoor Floor Plans). When the site has no map location, the drawing opens on a grid, and you can upload the venue's floor plan under it right away. To draw for a prospect before there's a quote, start from the lead's Quote tab (Share Links and Pinned Comments).
The panel beside the drawing has the Details, Check, Order, Customer, Guests and Comments tabs (on a tablet, Add too).
Under Details with nothing selected you set the layout's name, the guest count, the seating style, the size of the drawing (Drawing width (ft) and Drawing length (ft)) and Notes for the crew. On a satellite photo, Map turned (°) sets which way the top of the drawing faces (0 is north): slide it until the drawing lines up with the yard, and the photo turns with it. Despite their name, the Notes for the crew also show to the customer wherever you show them the layout (the quote page, the share link, the portal and the layout PDF), so keep gate codes and other crew-only details out of a layout you share.
The drawing saves itself as you work. If someone else changes the same layout in another window, it stops saving and asks you to reload, so nobody overwrites anyone.
Check the plan
The Check tab shows:
These are planning guides, not a fire-code or engineering check. Keep exits and aisles clear.
Match the drawing to the order
The drawing never changes what's booked. The Order tab compares what's drawn against what's on the quote or job, item by item, and shows where they differ ("2 more drawn", "3 not drawn"). Items inside a kit are counted too, and tents from a tent system are compared by size.
When a quote becomes a job, its layouts stay with it and show on the job.
Draw faster
Plan for guests
With nothing selected, Details → Plan for guests asks for the guest count, the seating style and whether there's a dance floor, then suggests a plan from your own products (only ones with a size on file):
Add to drawing places the tent in the middle of the drawing (several tents side by side, a stake zone apart), the dance floor in the middle of the tent and the tables around it, and makes the drawing bigger if it needs to. Everything it adds is ordinary and editable, and Undo takes it all back in one step. Nothing is booked.
Fill a tent or an area
Select a tent or a drawn area and use Fill in Details:
Templates
For setups you sell again and again, save the drawing as a template: with nothing selected, Details → Save as template, give it a name (like *40×60 wedding, 200 banquet*) and an optional description. Reference marks belong to one site and aren't saved.
When you press New layout on a quote or job and you have templates, choose Blank layout or pick a template and press Use template. The layout copies the template's drawing, size, guests, seating style and notes, centred on this event's site. Changing the layout never changes the template.
Manage templates in Settings → Event Layouts → Templates: New template starts an empty one, click a template to edit it in the same editor, and the bin deletes it (layouts already started from it keep their drawings).
Share it, seat it, set it up
Each of these has its own article: