How do party and private-hire enquiries work?

Take party and private-hire enquiries from your booking page, send a quote with a deposit link, and the booking is made when the deposit is paid.

Guests can ask you for a party or a private hire from your booking page, and you answer with a quote. Nothing is booked or paid when a guest asks, and nothing is held while your quote waits — the booking is made the moment the guest pays the deposit.

Switch it on

Go to Settings → Bookings → Parties and private hire (/dashboard/settings/parties-private-hire). Owners, Admins and Managers can open it. It is off until you switch it on, and it is Available on Plus plan and above.

• Take party and private-hire enquiries — adds "A party or private hire?" to your booking page.
• Bigger parties send an enquiry instead of a request — a party bigger than you take online is offered the enquiry form in place of a booking request.
• Spaces — a space is one of your rooms (or the whole venue) and how many it takes. With no spaces, guests aren't asked which space.
• Quote templates — a set menu and its price a head, a minimum spend, the deposit (a head or fixed), how many days the guest has to pay, how long the party lasts and a note. A template only fills in a quote; you can change any figure before you send it.

Switching it off works on every plan.

What the guest sends

The form asks what kind of event it is (Christmas party, Birthday, Private hire, Work do or Other), the date, the start time, about how many guests, the space (when you have spaces), anything you should know, their first and last name, email and phone. They are told "We'll reply by email, usually within a day. Nothing is booked or paid yet."

Each enquiry lands in Messages as a conversation with the guest, with the usual bell. On Plus it also comes to you by email — reply as usual. With Rezo Phone, an enquiry a caller makes by phone arrives the same way (marked as a phone call).

The Enquiries board (Pro and above)

Messages → Enquiries shows every enquiry on a board with one column per stage: New → Quoted → Deposit paid → Booked, and Lost. "Deposit paid" and "Booked" move by themselves. On a phone the columns swipe sideways. Tap a card to open it: what the guest asked, Reply in the conversation, the quote and Mark as lost. New enquiry adds one your team took by phone or in person. Running enquiries needs the Run party and private-hire enquiries permission (Managers have it by default).

An enquiry nobody has answered for 24 hours shows "Waiting" on its card and rings the bell once. The guest is never chased by itself.

Sending a quote

Choose a template (or fill it in), check the guests and figures, add a note and press Send quote. The total is the set menu × the guests, or the minimum spend if that's more; the deposit comes off the bill on the night. The guest gets an email with the quote and a link to pay the deposit; the link works until the pay-by day (never later than the day before the party). You need Stripe connected to send a quote. A new quote replaces the last one — the old link stops working.

When the deposit is paid

The deposit is paid by card on the guest's own phone, into your own Stripe account, like any deposit link. The moment it is paid:

• a party gets the tables it needs in the space it chose, for its time;
• a private hire blocks the whole space for its time (a room block, which you can see on the floor plan). A booking already in the room keeps its table — the enquiry tells you to move it;
• the booking gets the deposit as paid, the guest gets their confirmation and receipt, and the enquiry moves to Booked. If you take pre-orders for it, the pre-order link follows.

From then on it is an ordinary booking — change, cancel or refund the deposit from the booking.

If the tables have gone by the time the guest pays, the booking isn't made: the deposit is refunded automatically, the enquiry goes back to Quoted with the reason, and you get a bell — send a new quote for another time.

Related guides

• How do I take booking deposits?
• How do guests message us, and how do we reply?