Venue booking software for councils & shires.
For councils and shires in Australia, and district, city and regional councils in New Zealand. Run every council asset from one council booking system — community halls, sportsgrounds, reserves, meeting rooms and market stalls. Take bookings and card payments online, raise invoices in bulk, sell event tickets, and keep a full audit trail of who did what.
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BOOK-318Sat 16 MayPendingCommunity Hall60th birthday party
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BOOK-317Fri 15 MayConfirmedTennis courtsInstant booking
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BOOK-316Fri 15 MayApprovedMeeting RoomPlanning meeting
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BOOK-315Thu 14 MayConfirmedMarket stall 4Saturday market
One platform, three kinds of asset.
Most councils manage a mix of indoor rooms, sportsgrounds and outdoor spaces. LemonBooking handles all three from one system, one customer list, one set of accounts.
Room hire
From community centres and halls to scout halls, senior citizens' centres and sports pavilions — let residents check availability and book online, with bond and approval rules per space. Running a single centre? See our community centre booking system.
- Community centres & halls
- Meeting & committee rooms
- Scout halls & sports pavilions
- Take refundable bonds
Sportsgrounds
Ovals, tennis and netball courts, multi-purpose courts and bowling greens — with peak / off-peak rates, seasonal hire for clubs and pay-and-play card payments on the spot.
- Tennis, netball & multi-purpose courts
- Ovals, cricket nets & sportsgrounds
- Bowling greens & clubrooms
- Pay-and-play with one-time pin codes
Reserves & open spaces
Sell sites for the weekly market, hire out the rotunda for a community fair, or book a reserve for an event — with capacity limits and conflict checks built in.
- Market stalls & event sites
- Rotundas & sound shells
- Reserves & community gardens
- BBQ & picnic shelters
- Capacity limits & conflict checks
9am to 9pm. Boardroom set-up included.
- Projector, screen & Wi-Fi
- Tea & coffee on arrival
- Step-free access
Auto-confirmed. Code emailed 30 min before play.
- Net & line markings included
- Floodlights from 6pm
- One-time gate access code
Mains power & lighting included. Gated load-in.
- Capacity 200 standing
- Power & lighting included
- $180 refundable bond
Card payments
LemonBooking takes card payments through Stripe, SumUp and PayPal, with the money settling straight into the council's own bank account. Square is available on Silver and Gold as an add-on.
- Auto-send a payment link with each booking approval.
- Or record a bank transfer, PayID or cheque against the invoice by hand.
- Take and return refundable bonds automatically.
Invoice all your regulars in one run.
Bowls club every Tuesday, the playgroup every weekday morning, the market traders every Saturday — generate a month's invoices for all your regular hirers in a single run, then send or download them in one go, each one a valid tax invoice with GST shown where it applies.
- Generate invoices for regular customers in bulk.
- Download as PDFs or export to CSV for your records.
- Automated reminders chase the ones that fall overdue.
| Regular hirer | Sessions | Total |
|---|---|---|
Pepperton Bowls Club Tuesdays · Community Hall |
4 | $210 |
Little Acorns Playgroup Weekday mornings |
20 | $790 |
Saturday market traders Stalls 1–12 |
4 | $630 |
Officers, councillors and a clear paper trail.
Give the bookings officer, councillors and the caretaker exactly the access each needs — admin, editor or view-only — then switch on the audit log so every approval, cancellation, invoice and refund is recorded against a named user. The accountability a public body's booking software is expected to show.
- Roles for the bookings officer, councillors and caretaker.
- Audit log of every approval, invoice and refund.
- An evidence trail for council meetings and the annual audit.
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Ticketing Access to events & ticketing only
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Assistant View-only access to customers, bookings, invoices & payments
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Editor Can update the website, add activities & post blog articles
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Manager Has full access to customers, bookings, invoices & payments
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Admin Has access to all customer data & system settings
Accessible to every resident who books.
As a public body, your council has a legal duty to make its online services usable by everyone. The website, calendar, booking form and event pages LemonBooking produces all meet WCAG 2.1 AA, a level above the WCAG 2.0 AA baseline Australian and New Zealand governments committed to, so the booking side of your Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (NZ: Human Rights Act 1993) obligations is covered out of the box — no extra plug-ins, audits or accessibility consultants.
- Keyboard-navigable calendar and booking form
- Screen-reader friendly labels, headings and ARIA states
- AA-grade colour contrast, scalable text and focus rings
- In-line, descriptive error messages on every form
- Accessibility statement template you can publish
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Pass2.1.1 KeyboardAll functionality available via keyboard
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Pass1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)Text contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1
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Pass3.3.1 Error IdentificationErrors clearly identified in text
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Pass4.1.2 Name, Role, ValueComponents exposed to assistive tech
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Pass2.4.7 Focus VisibleClear focus indicator on every control
Income & usage, in real time.
See at a glance how every council asset is performing — income and occupancy across halls, ovals (fields) and courts, meeting rooms and market stalls — ready for the next finance committee or annual report.
- Income and occupancy per facility and date range.
- Check which assets are covering their costs.
- CSV exports for the finance committee or annual report.
Trusted by councils and local authorities
More than 80 councils and public bodies run their facilities on LemonBooking, the first of them since 2021. Most are in the UK, where we started — the platform, the terms and the support are the same wherever you are.
Customer review from Trustpilot
“Our set up was fairly complex, as we have a number of venues and different spaces to hire at each location, but the team guided us through the implementation, which has gone very smoothly.”
Standards your IT department will approve of.
Councils handle residents' data and public money, so your booking system has to stand up to procurement questions and a privacy impact assessment. Ask us anything the list below does not cover.
Don't just take our word for it — read our reviews on Trustpilot.
Chase certificates of currency once, not every season.
Add a custom question to the booking form asking the hirer to upload their certificate of currency, and make it required — the booking cannot be submitted without one. The file is stored against the booking, so your bookings officer checks it at approval and can find it again months later when someone asks.
- Required file upload for public liability cover.
- Different questions on different booking forms — ask a casual hirer for more than a regular club.
- Conditional questions, so a jumping castle or catering triggers its own follow-ups.
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Certificate of currency*public-liability-2026.pdf Attached
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Are you bringing a jumping castle?Yes NoFollow-up: operator's certificate of currency required
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I have read and accept the conditions of hire
Frequently asked questions
Anything we haven't covered, drop us a line.
Can one system handle community halls, sportsgrounds, meeting rooms and market stalls?
Yes — manage all your council assets in one place: community centres and halls, indoor and outdoor sportsgrounds, meeting rooms and market stalls, each with its own calendar, pricing and booking form.
Can some facilities be booked instantly and others need approval?
Yes — set up multiple booking forms with different rules. Let residents book a tennis court instantly, while a hall hire for a party goes through to the bookings officer for approval first.
Can residents pay by card, and can we refund bonds?
Yes — connect Stripe, SumUp or PayPal to take payment from a link on the invoice. Bonds can be returned automatically once the booking is over.
Can we make hirers supply a certificate of currency before they book?
Yes — add a custom question to the booking form that asks the hirer to upload their certificate of currency for public liability insurance, and make it required so the booking cannot be submitted without one. The file is stored against the booking, so your bookings officer can check it at approval and find it again later.
Can we bulk-invoice regular hirers?
Yes — generate invoices for repeat and regular customers in one run and import them into your accounting package with a few clicks, instead of raising each one by hand.
Can we control who has access, with an audit trail?
Yes — assign different roles, and use the audit log so every approval, cancellation, invoice and refund is recorded. Straightforward controls for data-privacy compliance.
Can we have rooms or facilities that are only available for staff to book?
Yes — a space can be kept off the public booking calendar and reserved for internal use only. The council chamber or a staff-only room never appears to residents; the bookings officer and staff book it from the back office instead. You decide which spaces are public and which are internal.
Can the bookings officer and councillors manage bookings on the move?
Yes — LemonBooking runs in any web browser, so the bookings officer and councillors can approve bookings, raise invoices and check the calendar from a phone, tablet or laptop, in the office or out and about. There's no app to download and nothing for the council's IT to install, patch or roll out across devices — everyone simply signs in.
Ready to bring your council's bookings online?
30 days free. No card required. We help you set up your facilities, booking rules and payment provider so you're not starting from a blank page. We have templates for importing calendar data too.
Related pages
Councils running halls, reserves and ovals (fields) across multiple sites — one system, one dashboard.
Library meeting rooms, study pods and equipment — same booking platform.
Calendar, booking forms, invoices and payments — in one place.