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Waitlist Overview and How-To

The Waitlist feature on Understory helps you capture potential customers when your experience has no available dates or existing dates don’t fit a visitor’s schedule.

Customers can add themselves to a waitlist directly from your storefront, so you never miss out on interest, even when fully booked or between events. Each experience has its own waitlist, allowing you to track and notify guests for specific events. The waitlist is a built-in part of the system and requires no setup or activation — but it only appears under certain conditions, so see the troubleshooting section below if you cannot find it.

How to join the waitlist as a customer

  1. Go to the storefront/experience page — experience details are shown

  2. If no dates are available, enter your email in the "Notify me" field — email input is displayed

  3. Click "Notify me" — confirmation message appears

  4. If dates exist but do not fit, click "No matching dates? Get notified" — email input appears

  5. Enter your email and confirm — confirmation message appears

Customers will automatically be added to the waitlist for that specific experience.

How to view your waitlist in Understory Backoffice

  1. Log into Understory Backoffice — dashboard loads

  2. Click "Experiences" in the sidebar — experiences list is shown

  3. Select the experience you want to view — experience details appear

  4. Click on the waitlist link/indicator (e.g. "4 registration") — waitlist popup appears with email details and subscription date

Each experience has its own separate waitlist. There is no centralized waitlist across all experiences.

Note: the waitlist is designed for one-time notifications. When availability opens for a specific experience, guests receive a single notification and are then automatically marked as received and removed from the waitlist.

How waitlist notifications work for customers

  • When you add new dates to an experience, all customers on that experience's waitlist will automatically receive an email letting them know that booking is open.

  • There is a 2-hour buffer from when you add new dates before notification emails are sent. This gives you time to finalize schedule details without sending multiple notifications if you make quick changes.

  • Customers will not be spammed if you make last-minute adjustments within this buffer.

Troubleshooting: the waitlist button isn't showing

The waitlist sign-up only appears under specific conditions. Check these in order:

  1. Are there available dates? The waitlist option is designed to appear when no dates are available. If dates exist, visitors will see those instead — they can still use "No matching dates? Get notified".

  2. Is the experience published and visible in your storefront? A hidden or draft experience will not show waitlist options.

  3. Are you looking at the live storefront? Preview mode may render differently from the published page.

  4. Try a different device. If the option appears on desktop but not on mobile, let us know — that is a display issue on our side, not a setting on yours.

If none of these explains it, contact support with a screenshot and the URL of the page, and tell us which device and browser you are using. Please don't assume it is a configuration mistake on your part — we would rather investigate.

What can I do with the Waitlist?

The Waitlist enables you to keep potential guests engaged, capture demand for fully booked or upcoming experiences, and minimize lost sales. By collecting emails directly from your storefront, you always know who's interested and can fill new dates faster. Plus, notifications are managed automatically, saving you time and effort.

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