Venue minimum and capacity planning.

Room capacity vs usable capacity

What the fire marshal allows is a ceiling. The number on the venue's licence is the most people allowed in the room, including staff, performers and guest list. Paid spots are what is left after you subtract comps, guest list, industry and artist holds, and any crew counted in the headcount. Check how your venue counts staff; this tool takes your word for it.

Reading a venue minimum. A minimum is a spend or rental commitment you owe regardless of attendance. It belongs in fixed costs. The useful question is what share of usable capacity you must sell to clear it and the rest of the bill, which the break-even calculator answers; this page shows the whole range at once.

Scenario table. You type four sell-through percentages and the tool shows tickets, and profit after costs for each. Pick values that stretch your thinking, such as a poor night and a full room, rather than a single hopeful number. The table does not say which is likely.

Worked example

Room 250, 25 comps and holds, 225 usable. Fixed costs $2,600.00, $20.00 tickets, fees absorbed, $1.50 per guest.

Methodology

Usable capacity = room capacity - comps and holds (never below zero). Tickets for a scenario = usable capacity x percentage, rounded to the nearest whole ticket. Profit = tickets x (net per ticket - per-guest cost) - (fixed costs - contracted sponsorship), where net per ticket follows the same fee model as the other pages (fees absorbed come out of the price; buyer-paid fees do not touch your net). Percentages above 100 are capped at 100 so you cannot sell more tickets than the room has.

What this page does not cover

• Local fire-code or licence rules; the capacity figure is whatever you enter, and the venue or local authority sets the real limit.
• Walk-up sales, standing-room versus seated counts, and any tiered pricing within the same event.
• Sales tax or VAT added to tickets, local amusement or entertainment taxes, and any tax on your own profit. For US self-employment tax see IRS Topic 554; this is general information, not tax advice.
• Prices in other currencies, currency conversion, and any platform fee schedule that is not typed into the rate boxes. Rates change, so check the platform before you publish tickets.
• Chargebacks, no-shows, door sales, bar or merchandise income, and unsold comps. Add them to costs or sponsorship yourself if you want them in the answer.

Sources

• Eventbrite organizer pricing page: 3.7% + $1.79 service fee per paid ticket, 2.9% payment processing per order, no fees for free events, fees paid by buyers by default, retrieved 19 October 2026.

Break-even and reverse-price arithmetic is standard cost-volume-profit maths worked from first principles, not copied from any single write-up.