More people than places

Text A: an original contemporary practice extract.

The community centre planned one Saturday juggling workshop with twelve places. The previous beginners’ session had attracted only seven people, so the organiser expected some spaces to remain empty. Instead, all twelve were booked on the first morning and eighteen further requests arrived before the notice could be removed.

The organiser did not add extra people to the original group, as the room had been arranged for twelve participants. She asked the tutor to repeat the same workshop later that day and offered the new places to applicants in the order in which their requests had arrived. Those already booked kept their original time. For future workshops, the centre introduced an online register of interest before fixing the number of sessions.

Text B: an original contemporary practice extract.

A local walking group announced a guided tour with fifteen places. Its earlier tours had usually filled slowly, but the new route attracted forty requests within two days. The group closed the booking list once the stated limit was reached rather than allowing the size of the group to increase without warning.

The guide agreed to lead the route again on the following weekend. The organisers first contacted the unsuccessful applicants, keeping their requests in the order received, and only advertised any places left after those replies. The original tour went ahead as announced. When planning later walks, the group collected expressions of interest before choosing how many dates to offer.

Both texts describe responses to a higher number of requests than the organisers expected.

What similarities do the responses to the high number of requests share in these extracts? Use evidence from both texts to support your answer.