There are several reasons to create manual bookings for guests:
A. Personal invitation for guests
Guests won't have to go through the standard booking process. Instead you can add a manual booking for them and they will simply receive a payment link to complete the booking. For a free event, they will receive a booking confirmation right away.
B. Add a booking, even if your event is sold out
If you are the main organizer or a collaborator (with the correct permissions) of the event, you are able to add manual bookings even if all your tickets have been sold. To have full control over your sales, you could technically set your event as sold out (explained in this help article) and add manually the guests you would like to attend the event.
C. Manually add discounts to a specific guest booking
You may have friends or VIPs attending the event who you would like to have a discount. You could either add discount codes (see this help article) or manually add a booking and adjust the price accordingly.
For either option,
1. Go to Bookings tabs in your event dashboard
2. Click the Add Booking button
3. A dialogue box will appear. Fill in all required guest info. Select the number of tickets you are allocating to the booking. The system will automatically calculate the total price and the corresponding fees. If you wish offer a different price, you have the option to manually adjust the total price.
Make sure to check the box "Send Confirmation Email" if you wish for the guest to receive the confirmation.
Important: If the guest needs to pay for the ticket/s, sending the confirmation email is necessary.
4. Click "Add Booking" and the manually added booking will appear in the booking tab in the relevant seating.
In case you forgot to check the box, you can always use the "Send Unconfirmed Reminder" action once the booking is added. Find the reference in this help article.