If you're setting up a weekly kirtan class, a three-day retreat, or a workshop series that offers both drop-in nights and a full-series pass, a single ticket type won't capture how people actually plan to show up. Some attendees want one specific date. Others want everything, paid for once, so they don't have to think about it again. BrightStar's multi-session structure exists for that gap: attendees can purchase a ticket for one specific date within a series, or a ticket that grants access to every session, depending on how you configure the event. The shape you pick determines what a buyer actually sees at checkout — a single date, a list of dates to choose among, or one straightforward pass — so it's worth understanding the three shapes and how sessions are tracked before you start adding dates to a series.
Which event shape fits your gathering?
BrightStar supports three shapes, and each one matches a different kind of gathering. A multi-day event is a single event spanning several days where one ticket covers all of them — a 3-day retreat is the clearest example, since nobody expects to buy separate tickets for day one and day two of the same retreat. A session-based event instead treats each date as its own purchasable session, so a buyer picks the date or dates they want; a weekly yoga class series works this way because people often join for some weeks and not others. A pass-based event sits between the two: individual sessions remain available for purchase on their own, but there's also a single ticket that unlocks the entire series, which suits a workshop series where you want to welcome both drop-ins and people ready to commit to all of it. Picking the wrong shape shows up immediately at checkout: a multi-day retreat configured as separate sessions would ask someone to buy day one and day two individually, when what they actually want is one ticket to the whole retreat; a weekly class series configured as a single multi-day event would force people to pay for every week even if they only want to try one.
How each session is tracked
Underneath a session-based or pass-based event, every session is its own record — it has its own id, title, start and end time, and capacity, along with a list of which ticket types are allowed to unlock it. The event itself also carries a single field identifying which ticket type functions as the all-access pass. Because each session is tracked separately, two sessions in the same series can have different capacities, different attached ticket types, and different custom fields, even though they live under one event listing. That separation is what makes it possible to sell one session out while another still has room, or to let a pass ticket unlock every date without giving it a fixed date of its own. That per-session structure is also what the configuration options below actually operate on — a capacity limit, a custom field, or a waitlist toggle applies to one session's record, not to the series as a whole.
What you can configure per session
Once sessions exist as their own records, BrightStar exposes a set of settings you can apply at the session level rather than only at the event level. These let a series behave differently date to date instead of treating every session identically:
Setting up a multi-session series
The settings above come together in roughly this order when you're building a series, moving from the shape of the event down to the price of a single date:
- 1Decide which shape fits the gathering — multi-day, session-based, or pass-based — based on whether attendees move through the whole thing together or pick and choose dates.
- 2Add each session with its own date, time window, and capacity.
- 3Attach the ticket types that should unlock each session — a single-session ticket, the all-access pass ticket, or both.
- 4Turn on a waitlist for any session you expect to fill, so interest past capacity isn't simply lost.
- 5Set drop-in pricing for single sessions and decide the pass price relative to buying every session individually.