The Frustrating Court Booking Experience That Inspired Us

I wanted to play beach volleyball with my friends. Simple enough, right? Finding an available court turned out to be anything but.

After work one day, my friends and I decided we wanted to play some beach volleyball. We just needed a court available after 4 PM — nothing complicated. The venue had 16 courts, and any one of them would have been fine.

The problem: checking one court at a time

That's when the frustration began. The booking system required me to select a specific court and then view its availability. There was no way to see all courts at once. I had to click into Court 1, check the calendar, go back, click into Court 2, check again, go back…

Sixteen times.

We didn't care which court we got — they were all identical. We just wanted to play. But the system was designed as if every user already knew exactly which resource they wanted, when in reality, we just wanted to see: "Is anything available after 4 PM?"

I almost gave up and just called the venue instead. And I bet I'm not the only one.

Mobile? Forget about it.

To make matters worse, the booking system was clearly designed for desktop. On my phone, the calendar was cut off and barely usable. I actually had to put my phone away and open my laptop just to see the full weekly view.

Most people book things from their phones. A booking system that doesn't work on mobile isn't just inconvenient — it's broken.

The final hurdle: forced registration

After finally finding an available slot, the system required me to create a full account before I could complete the booking. Name, email, password, email verification — the works.

The whole experience felt like it was actively working against me. And I'm someone who builds software for a living — I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for everyone else.

The insight: aggregated availability

This experience stuck with me. I realized this wasn't just a volleyball problem. It's a problem everywhere — tennis courts, squash courts, meeting rooms, studios — any situation where a venue has multiple similar resources and the person booking doesn't care which specific one they get. They just want to book something.

We call this the "multi-resource" or "aggregated" view, and it became a core design principle of Is Open At. Instead of forcing you to check each resource one by one, we show you all available slots across all resources at a glance. Pick a time, and the system handles the rest.

But not everything is interchangeable

We also recognized that the aggregated view isn't always the right approach. Take a hair salon, for example — you probably have a preferred stylist, and you want to book specifically with them. Or a music studio where different rooms have different equipment.

That's why Is Open At supports both modes. Venue owners can configure their resources for either individual selection or aggregated booking, depending on what makes sense for their business.

Less friction, more bookings

At the end of the day, our goal is simple: make booking so easy that no one ever considers picking up the phone instead. Less frustration for the people booking, fewer missed opportunities for the businesses.

Better for everyone.