Email lists are a great way to build a guest list based on past events registrants or email lists. If you have a really good email list in your last years event and want to copy it to the new event, navigate to Message Center and then Email Lists.
Click Add New Email List
Give the list a meaningful name
This will be referenced later when importing into a message.
Click the Import Items dropdown and select Email List.
Find the event that the email list is in and select that list.
Once selected click Import.
Click Add List to save.