Seating chart software that starts with your roster, not a blank canvas

Every ensemble has a version of the same seating chart story: someone builds a beautiful diagram in PowerPoint, Excel, or a generic drawing tool. It's perfect for exactly one rehearsal.

Then a violinist switches to the second stand, two clarinets swap parts, and the percussion section adds a player. Now the diagram is wrong in three places, it lives on one person's laptop, and nobody else can fix it — or even see which version is current.

Why seating charts keep breaking

The problem isn't the drawing. It's that the drawing is disconnected from everything else: the roster, the concert, the people who need to know where they sit.

See availability on the chart, not next to it

Charts can be linked to a concert, and the payoff comes in the week before the performance: open the seating view from the event and the availability responses overlay the seats. Instead of cross-referencing a poll against a diagram, you see directly which chairs are at risk, and you can message the assigned musicians from the same screen.

Start from a template instead of a blank canvas

Create a chart in EnsembleBase and you land in the stage-map builder with a starting template already on the canvas, so you're adjusting rather than drawing chairs one by one. Shape it into how your ensemble sits: add curved or straight rows, drag them into place, set the seat count, bend and rotate each row until the map matches your stage. Undo and redo cover your experiments.

Seat players straight from the roster

The builder shows your roster in a side panel: filter by instrument, search by name, see who is seated and who is not. Drag a player onto a seat, or click a name and then a chair. Drop a player on an occupied seat and the builder asks whether to swap the two or replace the player already there. Stand order and principal chairs stay decisions you make; the tool records them, it doesn't guess.

Members see their seat when you decide

Charts stay in draft while you work; drafts are visible only to admins. When you publish, every member sees their own assignment — instrument, section, and seat — in their member portal, next to their schedule, music, and dues. No more photographing the whiteboard or forwarding a PDF five versions old. Change your mind and you can unpublish just as easily.

Two cellists out on Tuesday

Tuesday: the availability poll shows two cellists out for the May concert. Wednesday: you open the concert's seating view, see exactly which two chairs are affected, and rearrange the section with a couple of drags — the builder prompts the swap. Thursday: you publish, and the cello section sees the change in their portal before anyone emails you about it.