Venue capacity planner: sessions per day and maximum daily visits

The formula

capacity from floor area   = floor area / area per child   (rounded down)
children at once           = the lower of your regulator's limit and the floor-area figure, whichever you entered
sessions per day           = (opening hours x 60) / (session minutes + changeover minutes)   (rounded down)
maximum child visits / day = children at once x sessions per day
planned utilisation        = expected child visits per day / maximum child visits per day
staff at a full floor      = children at once / children per staff member   (rounded up)

What question does the planner answer?

How many child visits a day your floor can possibly take, given the number of children allowed on it at once and how many times that floor turns over in an opening day. It is a ceiling, not a forecast: it tells you the most you could sell if every session were full, which is the number every price, rota and break-even calculation has to sit under. Compare it with what you actually sell and you have your utilisation, which is the single most useful number in the KPI glossary.

Where does the capacity number come from?

Not from this page. The number of children allowed on your floor at once is set by your regulator, your insurer or your fire officer, for your equipment, your age range and your exits, and it is the figure you should type into the first box. Given an area-per-child figure instead? Put in your usable play area and that figure, and the planner divides one by the other, rounding down. Fill in both and it takes the lower, which is the one binding on you.

The capacity management guide covers how to set that number per branch and manage it live with wristbands and timers, and the staff-to-child ratio guide covers where the children-per-staff figure comes from; this page states neither figure, because they are yours to obtain, not ours to suggest.

Why do sessions per day round down, and why does changeover matter?

Because a session that starts forty minutes before closing is not a session you can sell. The planner divides the opening day by the session plus its changeover and keeps only whole sessions. Changeover is the time the floor is not earning between two sessions: clearing, a clean, swapping wristband colours. Fifteen minutes of changeover on a ninety-minute session takes one session in seven out of the day, which is why venues that time their changeover carefully sell more from the same floor.

Selling open-ended time rather than fixed sessions? Work out your own average session length, total minutes sold divided by the number of sessions, and use that as the session with zero changeover. What comes back is an average turn rate rather than a timetable, and it moves as your average session moves.

How should you read the result against real occupancy?

Maximum daily visits arrives only if every session fills, and the ten o'clock session on a Tuesday will not. Add your expected visits and the planned utilisation line shows what share of the ceiling you are counting on. Then hold it against the live number: PlayAreaOS reads occupancy straight off the timer board against your capacity for that branch, so on any afternoon you can see how close to the ceiling you really run. The occupancy feature keeps that figure in front of the desk.

Parties take floor space too. If a party of fifteen children plays on the same floor, they occupy fifteen of the places in that session, so on a party-heavy Saturday the walk-in ceiling is lower than the planner shows. Run it with the party children subtracted from capacity for those sessions if you want the walk-in number. To compare a ceiling against costs rather than heads, turn both into child-hours first.