For the people who run halls
A free village hall diary that brings its own hirers.
Bookings, regular hirers, enquiries and a calendar for your own website — free, with no trial and no card. And the part booking software can’t do: 812 hirers asked HallMatch for a hall in the last 30 days.
12,874 halls are listed already. Yours is almost certainly one of them.
The slot is being held for Priya until Friday. Accepting writes the booking and emails her the details.
One · The hirers
Booking software runs the hirers you have. We send you new ones.
Hirers search HallMatch by town, date and guest count, then ask the hall. The enquiry reaches your inbox with the date, room and numbers in it — and if your diary is here, the slot is held while you decide.
Near your hall
People looked for a hall near you recently. Here is how many.
The hirers who could not find your hall never rang, so there was no way to know they were looking. We count every search hirers make here: put your postcode in and see what came past your door.
Counted from searches, not guessed. No hall’s figures are ever shown to another hall.
Within 5 miles of your hall · last 30 days
Type your postcode and the blanks fill in.
- Baby & toddlerMondays, 9:30am to 11:30amTerm timeHalf term off
- Slimming WorldTuesdays, 6:30pm to 8pmEvery week
- Coffee morningWednesdays, 10am to 12pmEvery week
- PilatesWednesdays, 6:30pm to 7:30pmTerm timeHalf term off
- Church hireFirst Sunday, 10am to 12pmMonthly
Council term dates and bank holidays come in by themselves.
Two · The diary
A village hall booking system with no price on it.
A week, a month and a list. Click a Saturday, type a name, save: the price comes off your rate card and the hall can never be let twice. Type your regular hirers in once and every Wednesday to next summer blocks itself.
Halls near Guildford, Sat 24 Oct
The third hall is not doing anything wrong. It just cannot answer until someone reads the email on Monday.
Three · Free on their date
Be the hall that can answer “are you free on the 17th?”
Most hirers have a date before they have a hall. Share your diary and HallMatch shows you as free on theirs, so they only ask for times you can take. The contact names, numbers, prices and notes on your bookings never leave it.
The calendar
For the website you already have. Copy, paste, done.
A website for the hall
Five pages, built from your listing. Your address, your colours.
Four · Your website
Got a website? Show your free dates on it. Haven’t? We’ll write one.
Paste the free calendar into the website you already have. Or let us build the hall a new one from your listing, with your rooms, prices, photos and live free dates already on it.
And the smaller things
What hirers see
Be the hall people can tell will answer.
A verified badge on your listing, and once you answer most enquiries, your usual reply time, measured by us. A hall cannot say either about itself on its own website.
For the committee
The term’s numbers, without making them.
Hours let against hours hireable, the regulars who fill it, the slots that sit empty. One sheet of A4 for the AGM.
When you hand over
You hand over a login, not a shoebox.
Add the next secretary by email. Once they have accepted, hand the hall over in one click, and they start from the week you left.
What it costs
The listing and the diary are free and stay free. The website is the one thing we charge for, and only if you want one.
The listing
Free
Show all 6Show fewer
The diary
Free
Show all 8Show fewer
The website
£120a year
Alongside what you use
Already on Hallmaster or Village Hall Hub? Keep it.
They are booking software: they run the bookings, invoices and payments a hall already has, and they do it well. HallMatch is where hirers who have never heard of you find you. You can use both, and we would rather you kept the one that works.
| What a hall needs | HallMatch | Booking software |
|---|---|---|
| Hirers find your hall in a national directory | Yes | Your own booking page |
| Enquiries arrive with the date, room and numbers | Yes | Yes |
| Diary, regular hirers, no double-booking | Free | Paid plans |
| Free and busy shown to hirers who don’t know you yet | Yes | On your own site |
| Calendar on your own website | Free | Yes |
| Invoices, card payments, deposits | Not yet | Yes |
| Accounts, minutes, grants, safeguarding files | No | Some do |
- Hirers find your hall in a national directory
- HallMatchYesSoftwareYour own booking page
- Enquiries arrive with the date, room and numbers
- HallMatchYesSoftwareYes
- Diary, regular hirers, no double-booking
- HallMatchFreeSoftwarePaid plans
- Free and busy shown to hirers who don’t know you yet
- HallMatchYesSoftwareOn your own site
- Calendar on your own website
- HallMatchFreeSoftwareYes
- Invoices, card payments, deposits
- HallMatchNot yetSoftwareYes
- Accounts, minutes, grants, safeguarding files
- HallMatchNoSoftwareSome do
If you use booking software
Claim your listing and answer enquiries from the email. You do not need our diary. If you want to show free dates here, the diary takes your regulars in an evening, and your bookings stay where they are.
If it’s a book on the kitchen table
Then the diary is easier for you than for anyone: nothing to move across and nothing to unpick, and the book can stay on the table.
The catch, in full
The listing and the diary stay free, and here is why we can afford that.
A directory that knows which halls are free on a given Saturday is worth far more than a subscription from any one hall. Every hall keeping its diary here is what makes that true, so the listing and the diary have no price and no upgrade path.
The website is the one thing we charge for, and only if a hall wants one: without it, the listing, the enquiries and the diary work exactly the same. If we ever build invoicing or online payments, you would choose them, and online payments would carry a fee for the hirer, never a cut of your hire.
Questions
Questions halls actually ask
How do we get more enquiries?
Hirers search by place, then narrow by date, guests and the kind of event. Among the halls near them, this is the order they see:
- 1Free on their date. If your diary is here and shared, you come up above halls that can’t say.
- 2You answer. Halls that reply to enquiries come up above halls that don’t.
- 3It’s yours. A hall someone has claimed comes up above one nobody has.
To be found at all, put in each room’s capacity and the events you host — hirers filter on both. To be picked, add photos, a price and a few honest lines about the place.
We’ve taken over a hall and can’t get into the account.
There’s probably no account to get into. Most halls here were listed from public information and nobody has claimed them yet. Find yours and claim it: we check each claim by hand, usually within a day or two, and may ask for something showing you run it, like a lease or a utility bill. If someone else claimed it before you, tell us and we’ll move it across.
Find your hallWe use Hallmaster. Do we have to leave?
No, and we never touch your account there. Claim your listing and enquiries reach your inbox; keep your bookings where they are. Start our diary only if you want hirers to see your free dates.
Who can see our hirers’ details?
Nobody outside the hall. If you share your diary, hirers see free or busy per room and your weekly classes by the names you gave them, day and time — never the contact name, number, price or notes on a booking. Sharing is off until you turn it on.
Our diary is a book on the kitchen table.
Keep the book. Type your regular hirers in once — an evening — and the diary holds the year, so hirers can see your open dates. If you would rather, email us and we will do it with you, on the phone if you like.
Can two of us share it?
Yes. Add the treasurer or a co-secretary by email from the People page and they sign in to the same diary. When you step down, hand the hall to whoever has accepted, and stay on as an editor for as long as you like.
Who sees our email address and phone number?
Hirers never see your email: enquiries reach you through us. Your phone number shows on your listing only if you leave it there, and you can take it off.
Can we stop the enquiries, or take the hall off?
Yes. Until you claim, every enquiry email has a link to stop them. After that, email us and we will pause the enquiries or take the listing down.
What if the committee says no?
Claiming commits the hall to nothing and costs nothing. If the committee would rather not, email us and we will take the listing down, or pass it to whoever they choose.
Can hirers pay online?
Not yet. Hirers pay you the way they always have. If we build deposits and balances paid online, any fee will be the hirer’s, never a cut of your hire.
What can I update?
Everything: your description, photos, rooms and capacities, pricing, facilities, accessibility, contact details and booking information — plus the diary, the regular hirers and the hours you are hireable.
Find your hall. It’s almost certainly here.
Two minutes to fill in, confirmed within two days, and no card at any point.
Would rather talk to someone? Tell us, and we will set it up with you.
Written for your kind of hall: church halls · community centres