I would be really grateful if anyone could start me off in the right direction for this. What I want to do is have a page on a web site where people can book up to a maximum of 20 spaces for a meeting of which there will be 4 or 5 held per day.No payment is required just names and a real time `stock` so that when the 20 places for each meeting have been taken it is shown as full so that it can`t be oversubscribed. thanks

You didn't mention what technology you're familiar with...This is going to be a bit of a task if you've never done a website before. The best way to do it would be to create a database (access, mySQL, etc.). You would have a table for events (event name, description, a unique id, and available number of seats), and a table for reservations(name, address, phone, event id). Then you create the website in PHP, ASP, Perl, or any other server-side scripting language. You query the database, find out if there are available seats, and allow people to add reservations if there are available seats. As I said, if you've never had any experience with any of these technologies, you either have a bit of work ahead of you (maybe 10-20 hours if you're computer savvy) to learn it, or you can hire a programmer for a couple of hundred dollars (maybe less, depending on the programmer). -SN

Wow, very good response SN. I totally agree with you but just one point. I would make it so that the process of booking a place is a little more "difficult". What I mean is, you wouldn't want annoying bots or anyone (human) going to the site and booking out all the seats. You would have to make sure that they type in a valid name, e-mail address and maybe address or telephone number if you require it. A good idea, in my opinion, would be to have a system that makes sure the user is actually human. The most common system for this is the one employed by the likes of Hotmail and Yahoo! who provide free e-mail services. To stop people making thousands of addresses, you must look at a distorted picture. You're probably farmiliar with it but I think it would make your booking system much less prone to people booking out all the places "for a laff". Another idea would be to have e-mail confirmation. This means the person must actually own the e-mail address (or have access to it) and so therefore you can almost guarantee they're serious. If it was me, I would use program the site in PHP and interface it with a MySQL database. Then you simply have exactly what SN said. I would make a page that easily allows you to add a meeting (with all the details) to the database. It would then be shown on the "main" page where you can then click on it and book a seat. James

Sorry, Instead of... To stop people making thousands of addresses, you must look at a distorted picture. ...I meant: To stop people making thousands of addresses, you must look at a distorted picture and then type the code shown in the image. James