Venue capacity normalization protocol

Status and interpretation

Live Index Performance Estimate — not reported box office. This version 1.0.0 protocol defines what Live Index will accept before publishing an estimate; it is not a claim that observations have already been collected or that the protocol has been validated against actual settlements. No estimate rows are released with this document. A method can establish a reproducible decision rule without establishing any particular show’s attendance, gross, sellout status or promoter profit.

Three denominators

Maximum capacity is the largest published building figure. Concert configuration is the layout for a specific performance format. Sellable inventory is the inventory actually offered after that layout’s kills, holds and other exclusions. Preserve all three when documented and leave a field absent when it is not. A building described as an arena can host standing floor, seated floor, end-stage or in-the-round events with materially different denominators.

Acceptable evidence

• Use an official venue capacity or configuration document, event-specific seating plan or promoter-supplied manifest. Record the source, wording, configuration, measurement scope and retrieval date.
• A municipal fire limit is a safety constraint, not proof that every event sells that many tickets. An official seated capacity is not necessarily total attendance with a standing floor.
• An interactive seat map supports the displayed layout at observation time. It does not by itself explain which sections are hidden, withheld or reserved for production.
• Conflicting official counts remain separate attributed observations until the configuration basis is resolved. Do not average them or select the larger figure to maximize gross potential.

Normalizing a performance

Bind the selected configuration to the event date and layout, then identify documented inventory exclusions. A production kill removes inventory from sale; a hold can later be released. Complimentary allocations and accessible seating require their own scope and must not be assumed sold or available. If only maximum capacity is known, publish that contextual fact with its basis and withhold a normalized sell-through denominator.

Comparisons and changes

Compare events only with an explicitly matching denominator. A smaller room’s sold-out show and an arena’s partial configuration are not comparable simply because both are described as full. If a stage or floor plan changes, create a new configuration observation and retain the prior one. Record whether attendance means tickets sold, paid admissions, scans, unique people or cumulative entries. The protocol does not infer attendance from configuration, and a configuration source is not evidence of venue ownership, operator authority or a ticketing contract.

Release gate

Publication requires a dated primary ticket-inventory observation, a venue configuration source, primary price-band evidence, promoter and ticketing evidence, a confidence classification and a record-specific limitations statement. A later reading is a new observation, not an overwrite of the previous state. The pilot remains withheld from search and the sitemap until ten observations individually pass these requirements. Downloads are offered only for real released rows, never for an empty demonstration or synthetic sample. Inventory protocol, capacity protocol and price-band protocol describe different inputs; none substitutes for the others.