The booking platform with booking for several, priorities and waiting lists

Please take your time to read this page as well as the ones linked from here pages to ensure you get what you want (available seats permitting certainly).

The booking phases

The exact dates for the phases are stated on the respective booking page of the event (the one you found this link on).

1. Wishing phase

In the first few weeks after booking started you can indicate the events you'd like to have – even if the events are colliding, and you might want to do that in order to increase your chances to get a slot! No worries, the algorithm allocating the events ensures that you do not have be at two different places at the same time.

During this phase the organisation committee will see which events are highly demanded and try to get more seats for existing ones or offer additional dates and tell you about them.

If you indicate your wishes early or late has no impact on your chances of getting them fulfilled – so it does not matter if you book on the first, second, ... or last day. Well nearly, since if you book early the organisation committee gets more time to organise additional seats which will increase your chances for attending those events.

For IBD+ 2025 there is one exception: IBD delegates will be prioritized.

2. Allocation

After the wishing phase an algorithm will allocate the events. It certainly tries to be fair and to fulfil your wishes. The algorithm will ensure that you will not get any colliding events.

Just a note: For most events a guide will start at the main hotel and the time the guide will start is stated for each event. If you book two events where the travel time if you join the guide overlaps in your booking you will get a warning that the time to get from one event to the next could be too short ... if using our guide service. This potential travel time overlapping is not blocking the booking of the two events since it can well be that if you go from the first to the next directly the time needed is much shorter opposed to the time to get back to the main venue and start from there with the guide.

After this you will see which of your wishes have been fulfilled. Those that collide with an event you won will be removed from your list. For all others you are on the waiting list with a certain chance of getting a seat if someone cancels, or additional places can be allocated.

3. Early booking

The next weeks are the early booking phase. During this time, you can adjust your booking at your discretion. You may book additional events, cancel the odd one, or put your name on the waiting list for fully booked events.

Please accept that you can't book or put yourself on the waiting list for events colliding with events you have booked (exception: evening events like nightly city tours are bookable even when overlapping with the long dine arounds in the evening).

At the end of the early booking phase all bookings you made will be invoiced. Cancellation of these events is no longer possible as of then.

4. Regular booking

The regular booking phase is similar to the early one with two important differences: the base fee to join is higher (only important if you book for the first time in this phase) and cancellations can only be made for bookings made on the same day.

5. During the event

During the event we'll sell the odd ticket in the organisation office – please do accept that the offer is limited since in quite a few cases we can't adjust the number of guests so late.

Priorities - Groups - Waiting Lists

By default, all wishes you enter are considered equally important (indicated by **) – and usually you do not want to change that, unless there is something you really want but an alternative you'd be ok with. We urge you to read the page on Priorities carefully before adjusting the priority to avoid mishap (and mishap due to not reading the guideline is possible!)

You can even book most events for more than one person to ensure that all of you get that one together (or not at all). The main use for this is certainly families with children, but couples etc. are certainly welcome to use this feature too. How to book for a group is described in detail on Group Bookings.

If you didn't get an event you wished, you'll be on the Waiting List... unless you were allocated an event that collides (this could happen if you wished several colliding events); in addition, during the early and normal booking phase you can put yourself on the waiting list for additional events. If a seat gets available, the first one on the waiting list will get the offer to take that place by email and has three days to accept.

How to book

On this page you can find the guideline for the Whishing Phase and here is the (similar) guideline for adjusting your booking during the Early/Normal Phase.

Collision rules

Please note that you may not book any overlapping events – with the one exception that you may book the long evening dine arounds as well as a partially overlapping nightly tour etc.

Furthermore, you may not book the same event more than once so that more guests have a fair chance to get a slot too.

No worries...

During the whishing phase you can select many, many events – usually if several dine arounds are on offer on one evening you might want to pick them all to increase your chances to get a seat in any one of them – no worries, the allocation algorithm will resolve this for you so that you will not have colliding dine arounds. The same applies for factory visits etc. that are available several times.

When you register your wishes the price tag indicated is the sum of all your wishes – since collisions are resolved by the algorithm this figure will usually drop.

In addition, after the allocation of the seats you can amend your booking during the early booking phase at no cost.

Navigation

The Booking System (Main page)
The Time for Wishes – Booking after Seat Allocation
Group booking – Single booking only
Amend Booking – Cancellations
Priorities – Waiting List – Representation
Options – Children's prices
Common Errors – Frequently asked Questions (and Answers)
The Algorithm allocating the Seats – Contact