Progressive pacing

Progressive pacing lets a service start with tighter arrival limits and move to higher limits closer to the service date.

This can be useful when you want to avoid filling the best arrival times too aggressively weeks in advance, while still giving the venue more freedom to trade close to the day.

How it works

When enabled, the service has:

• protected limits — the normal maximum bookings and covers per interval;
• release lead time — how close to service the higher limits begin;
• released limits — the higher booking and cover limits used after that point.

Example: a venue may initially allow 4 bookings or 10 covers per 15-minute interval, then allow 6 bookings or 16 covers inside the final 12 hours.

What progressive pacing does not change

It is not an overbooking switch. TablePace still checks:

• service opening and closing times;
• total service cover limit;
• maximum party size;
• table time and turn buffer;
• blackouts and one-off closures;
• the published floorplan and suitable table availability.

Higher pacing limits only matter when the rest of the booking can still fit.

Test both sides of the release point

Use the Capacity test workspace to test an evaluation time before and after the release lead time. This is the easiest way to confirm that the protected and released limits behave as intended.