Event Seats and the Waitlist
Hajime lets you cap how many athletes an event accepts overall and, independently, how many can enter each speciality. When a cap is reached, new entrants join a FIFO waitlist that promotes automatically until brackets are generated.
Applies to: Event organisers
Hajime lets you cap how many athletes an event will accept, and independently cap how many can enter each individual speciality (e.g. Gi Adults, No-Gi Juveniles). When a cap is reached, new entrants join a FIFO waitlist and are automatically promoted as slots free up, right up until brackets are generated.
Two independent caps, not one
An event has two separate, optional limits:
- Event capacity: the event's own capacity field caps how many athletes can hold an active registration for the event as a whole.
- Speciality capacity: each speciality has its own capacity field, capping how many athletes can hold an active registration for that one speciality.
Both are optional. Leave either blank and that level is unlimited.
These two caps are enforced completely independently. They don't share a pool, and one has no awareness of the other. A speciality can be sold out while the event still has plenty of room, and vice versa.
The part organisers most often get wrong: one registration ≠ one seat per speciality
An athlete's event registration is a single row that represents "this athlete is registered for this event." Each speciality they enter is a separate, linked record.
This means:
- Against the event cap, an athlete registering for 3 specialities still consumes exactly 1 seat. The event cap only ever counts registrations, not specialities entered.
- Against each speciality's cap, that same athlete consumes 1 seat in each speciality they entered: 3 specialities means 3 separate seats, each checked against that speciality's own limit.
Example
Your event has a capacity of 50. Gi Adults has a capacity of 16, and No-Gi Adults has a capacity of 16.
An athlete registers for the event and enters both Gi Adults and No-Gi Adults.
- Event count: +1 (49 seats remain)
- Gi Adults count: +1 (15 seats remain)
- No-Gi Adults count: +1 (15 seats remain)
If that athlete had entered a third speciality with no room left, only that speciality would waitlist them. Their event-level registration and their other two specialities are unaffected, because the caps don't talk to each other.
This asymmetry is why you can see an athlete's event registration reading normally while one of their specialities shows as waitlisted, or vice versa: an event-level waitlisted athlete can still land a "pending" spot in a speciality that has room. Check each speciality's own status rather than assuming the event-level status tells the whole story.
The waitlist and automatic promotion
When a new registration (or a new speciality entry) would exceed the relevant cap, Hajime places the entry on that cap's own waitlist, in strict first-in-first-out order.
- The event has its own waitlist queue.
- Each speciality has its own, separate waitlist queue.
Dequeuing: what triggers a promotion
Before brackets are generated, freeing a slot automatically promotes the next athlete in line:
| Action | Promotes the event waitlist? | Promotes the speciality waitlist? |
|---|---|---|
| Athlete withdraws (event-level) | Yes | Yes, for every speciality they were in |
| Athlete withdraws from one speciality only | No | Yes, for that speciality |
| Marked as no-show | Yes | Yes |
| Bulk withdrawal (organiser tool) | Yes, once per freed slot | n/a (no bulk speciality-withdraw tool) |
| Disqualify | No: disqualify only happens once an event is live, and live events never auto-promote (see below) | No |
| Hard delete of a speciality registration | n/a | Yes |
Example: event-level withdrawal cascades down. An athlete withdraws entirely from an event where they were registered for Gi Adults and No-Gi Adults. Hajime withdraws both speciality entries for them too, then runs promotion for the event queue and for each of those two speciality queues. Up to three different athletes could be promoted from one withdrawal: one for the event slot, and one for each freed speciality slot.
Example: a speciality-only withdrawal doesn't touch the event. An athlete registered for two specialities decides to drop just one (e.g. cutting weight didn't work out). Only that speciality's waitlist is checked for a promotion; the athlete's event-level registration, and their other speciality, are untouched.
Enqueuing: what a waitlisted entry looks like
A waitlisted registration is a fully valid entry sitting in line, not a rejection. Athletes see their position as "waitlisted" rather than "confirmed," and they're notified. Organisers can see waitlist counts and length on the event dashboard.
If your event requires online payment, a promoted event-level registration gets a 24-hour payment window before it's automatically bumped back off and the next athlete in line is promoted instead. Speciality-level promotions don't carry a payment window; they're confirmed immediately regardless of your event's payment settings. Keep this in mind if you rely on payment-required mode to filter out no-shows: it only filters at the event level, not per speciality.
Manual promotion
You can promote the next waitlisted athlete yourself at any time from the registration screen, for example to cover an expected no-show ahead of time. This is a deliberate override: it can push you past your configured cap on purpose, and Hajime will warn you before you confirm it.
Once brackets are generated, the waitlist behaviour changes
Before brackets exist, the waitlist is a promotion queue: free a slot, and the next athlete in line gets it. That stops the moment you generate brackets.
Here's why. Promoting someone into a bracket that's already been drawn means dropping a name into a competition they were never seeded into: an athlete who skipped straight to the semifinal with no matches fought. So once brackets exist, Hajime never silently promotes anyone into them.
| Phase | What happens to a freed slot |
|---|---|
| Before brackets are generated | Automatic promotion, as described above. |
| After brackets are generated, before the event starts | Depends on your self-regenerating roster setting (below). |
| Once the event is live | Never automatic. Vacancies are surfaced to you; filling one is a deliberate action via late registration. |
When brackets are generated, the waitlist becomes a standby pool, kept in the same FIFO order, rather than simply vanishing. Waitlisted athletes are notified they weren't admitted to the bracket but remain on standby.
Filling a post-bracket vacancy (default behaviour)
By default, a freed slot after brackets exist is surfaced to you, not auto-filled: you'll see how many standby candidates are available for that division. Filling it is your call, via the late-registration tool, which is pre-populated with the standby list in FIFO order (each candidate's fairness score shown), though you can also add any other eligible athlete, not just those on standby.
Self-regenerating roster (optional)
If you turn on the self-regenerating roster option for your event, withdrawals and promotions between bracket generation and event start automatically regenerate the affected division's bracket to absorb the change, with no manual late-registration step needed. This only applies pre-start; once the event goes live it has no further effect, since live brackets can't safely be regenerated once results exist.
To avoid flooding athletes with a notification every time a division regenerates, bracket-affected athletes get a single once-daily digest of the day's changes rather than one email per change.
Disqualification never triggers a promotion
Disqualification only happens once an event is live, and live events never auto-promote or auto-backfill by design. A disqualified athlete's slot is a vacancy for you to fill via late registration, same as any other live-event vacancy, rather than something Hajime fills on its own.
Lowering a cap after registrations exist
You can lower an event's or a speciality's cap at any time, even below the number of athletes currently registered. Hajime won't remove, disqualify, or waitlist anyone already in; the lower cap only affects new registrations going forward. You'll see a warning banner if your new value is below the current count, but it won't block you from saving.
Frequently Asked Questions
If an athlete's event registration is waitlisted, can they still be "pending" in a speciality? Yes. The two caps are independent, so a speciality with room will accept the athlete even if the event overall is full. Their event-level status still reads as waitlisted until the event slot itself frees up.
Does withdrawing from one speciality free up their event-level seat? No. The event-level seat is tied to the registration as a whole, not to any single speciality. It's only freed when the athlete withdraws from the entire event (or is marked no-show, etc.).
Why didn't disqualifying an athlete promote anyone from the waitlist? Disqualification is a live-event action, and live events never auto-promote by design. The freed slot is yours to fill deliberately through late registration, not something the system fills automatically.
Does the payment window apply to speciality-level promotions too? No. The 24-hour payment window only applies to event-level promotions on events with required payment. Speciality-level promotions are always immediate.
Can I still promote someone manually once brackets exist? Manual promotion promotes into the registration, not into a bracket, so once brackets exist, use the post-bracket vacancy / late-registration flow instead, which is bracket-aware. The standby pool from the frozen waitlist feeds directly into that picker.
Last updated: July 2026