Ballots

Allocate your busiest periods by random draw instead of first-in-first-served.

Guests register their interest during an entry window, a draw puts everyone in a random order, and winners receive timed invitations to book - automatically, one wave after another, until the period is full. No refresh races, no midnight sell-outs, and no manual juggling of who gets the next spot.

Ballots are ideal for long weekends, school holidays, and other peak periods where demand far outstrips your sites.

Finding Ballots

Open Ballots from the Operations section of the left sidebar. Team members need the Ballots permission to view them, and the manage permission to create, edit, or draw them.

How a Ballot Works

You create a ballot covering a stay period and one or more areas, and make it Live.
From the moment it is live, the covered areas and dates are closed to direct booking - the period is reserved for the ballot.
Guests enter through your booking page during the registration window. Entry is free and takes under a minute.
When registration closes, the draw shuffles every entry into a random order.
The first wave of winners is invited to book by email. Each invitation is held for a set time.
If a winner books, declines, or lets their invitation lapse, the next person in the drawn order is invited automatically.
When there is nothing left to hand out, the ballot completes itself. Everyone still waiting is told they were not selected, and any remaining availability reopens to direct booking.

Creating a Ballot

Go to Ballots and click Create Ballot.
Give it a name guests will recognise, for example "Easter Long Weekend Ballot".
Set the details below, accept the ballot terms, and save it as a Draft or make it Live.

The Settings

Ballot period - the stay dates being allocated: the busy period guests are entering the draw for. This is separate from the registration window.
Areas - which of your areas the ballot covers. Use Select all to cover everything.
Registration opens / closes - when guests can enter. Both are optional: with no open time, entries start as soon as the ballot is live; with no close time, entries stay open until you run the draw. Times use your campground's time zone.
Live invites - how many invitations are out at once. Winners are invited in waves of this size, so the whole period is not handed to more people than it can hold.
Invite expires after (hours) - how many hours each winner has to book before their invitation is offered to the next person in line.
Sites per invite - how many sites a single winner may book under one invitation. Leave it at 1 unless you want groups to book multiple sites.
Auto draw - run the draw automatically when registration closes. This option appears once you have set a registration close time, and the draw runs within about 15 minutes of it.
Internal notes - only your team sees these.

Ballot Terms

When you create a ballot you accept the ballot terms on behalf of your campground as the promoter. The terms are automatically filled in with your details that we have on file - your legal entity, the ballot name, period, covered areas, registration window, and invitation hold window. Every entrant accepts that exact same version, and a snapshot is stored with the ballot and with each entry, so there is never any doubt about what was agreed.

Ballot Statuses

Draft - being set up. Not visible to guests and not blocking any bookings. Drafts can be deleted.
Live - published. The covered period is reserved for the ballot. While live, the badge shows where registration is up to, driven entirely by your dates: Upcoming (registration has not opened yet), Open (accepting entries), or Closed (entries have closed, ready to draw). You never need to flip these by hand.
Drawn - the draw has run and invitations are going out.
Completed - finished. Any leftover availability is open to direct booking again.
Cancelled - stopped early. Remaining entrants are notified and availability reopens.

Only one ballot can be active (live or drawn) per campground at a time. If you try to publish a second one, you will be pointed to the ballot you need to finish first.

What Guests See

On your booking page calendar, every night covered by a live ballot is marked in orange with a B, so guests can see at a glance which dates are allocated by draw.
If a guest selects dates that overlap the ballot period, the booking button becomes an orange Available via ballot button that takes them to the entry page, carrying their dates and party size across.
The entry form asks for their name, email, phone (optional), party size, and optional preferred check-in and check-out dates. They confirm they are 18 or over and accept the ballot terms, which they can read in full before entering.
One entry per email address per ballot - entering twice does not improve anyone's odds. Someone whose earlier entry ended (declined, expired, removed, or not selected) may enter again while registration is open.
Guests receive a confirmation email when they enter, an invitation email if they are drawn, and a "not selected" email when the ballot finishes without them.

Running the Draw

Automatically - turn on Auto draw and the draw runs itself shortly after registration closes.
Manually - open the ballot's entries page and click Run Draw at any time while the ballot is live. If registration has not closed yet, you will see a note reminding you that entries are still open before you confirm.

The draw places every registered entry into a random order, records each entry's draw position so the order is transparent and permanent, and immediately sends the first wave of invitations.

Invitations

Each invitation email tells the winner the ballot period, gives them a Choose Dates & Book button, and states exactly when their invitation expires, in your campground's time zone.
Winners choose their own dates within the ballot period from real availability - preferred dates from their entry are pre-filled but not binding. They book and pay through your normal checkout.
An invitation is only used up when a booking is confirmed and paid. An abandoned checkout does not cost the winner their spot.
If a winner no longer wants their spot, the email includes a decline link so it can pass to the next person straight away.
Expired invitations are swept up every 15 minutes, and the pool automatically tops back up with the next entrants in draw order - around the clock, without you doing anything.

Managing Entries

Open a ballot to see its entries page:

Summary tiles - totals for entered, in the running, invited, booked, and closed entries at a glance.
Search and filter - find entries by name, email, or phone, or filter by status.
Export CSV - download the full entry list, including draw positions, whenever you need it.
Remove entry - withdraw an entry, for example a duplicate or a request to be removed. If they held a live invitation, the next person is invited automatically.
Resend - send a winner their invitation email again while it is still live.
Send Next Invites - once the ballot is drawn, manually top the invitation pool back up if you want to push things along.

Finishing Up

A drawn ballot completes itself when there is nothing left to give away - either the period is fully booked, or everyone has had their chance. On completion:

Everyone still waiting receives a "not selected" email, so nobody is left wondering.
Any nights that were not taken reopen to direct public booking automatically.

You can also Cancel a live or drawn ballot at any time. Remaining entrants are notified and the covered period reopens to direct booking.