Create a booking in Venue Manager

In this video, you'll learn how to create a booking, add products, and choose whether to save the booking as a draft, reserve it, or hold it tentatively.

By the end, you'll understand how each option impacts capacity so you can manage availability accurately.

A simple way to create a booking is from the bookings page.

Go to bookings and select create a booking.

This opens the booking flow, starting with the booking holder.

Start by entering the guest's email address or phone number.

If an existing guest record appears, select it from the list. If not, add their details to create a new booking holder.

A booking holder is required if you plan to send a payment link or invoice later.

You can also update the booking name. This appears across Roller, including tickets, emails, party invitations, and run sheets, and it's searchable in POS.

Next, select the order tab, then use the availabilities panel to find what the guest wants to book. Select the date, then search for the product.

The remaining filters are optional. Use them if you only want to see availability based on the amount of guests or the time of day.

Otherwise, guest quantity and start time can be modified later.

Select search. For session based products, choose a start time, then set ticket quantities. Select add items to include them in the booking. If you need to add more than one product, use the back arrow in the panel to return to the product list, then repeat the process.

You can also adjust the price of a product from the order tab before the booking is confirmed, if needed.

Now choose how to save the booking.

Save as draft stores your progress but doesn't reserve capacity.

The booking stays in draft status, and availability stays open for someone else to book.

Reserve confirms the booking immediately and allocates capacity, even if payment hasn't been taken.

The booking will show as confirmed.

Hold places the booking on a timer.

Capacity is reserved during the hold period, but if payment isn't received before the deadline, the booking is automatically canceled and capacity is released back for sale.

You can also control what happens by default when your team creates bookings in Venue Manager.

Go to settings, then account, and open venue settings.

Under default settings for new bookings, choose whether bookings are reserved automatically or held tentatively for a set time period.

If you hold bookings tentatively by default, set the hold duration here.

You can also choose to prompt staff each time so they decide whether to reserve or hold for that booking.

We recommend using tentative bookings to help automate payment follow ups and reduce manual follow-up for unpaid bookings.

When you place a booking on hold, capacity is reserved immediately for the selected products.

The booking status updates to tentative.

If payment is made within the hold period, the booking stays active.

If not, the system cancels it automatically when the hold expires.

If you select reserve, the booking is confirmed immediately, and capacity is allocated.

Verify this in the calendar or daily capacity view, where the booking appears in the selected time slot.

This confirms that availability has updated correctly across the platform.

You can also start the same booking flow from other areas in Bookings.

From calendar, select a date and open the availability panel to add items and begin the booking.

From daily capacity, hover over an available time slot and select the plus icon to start a booking from that resource. This is only possible for single booking resources.

When you start from these views, you'll filter and select the products first, then complete the booking details, but you'll complete the process in the same booking screen.

You now know how to create a booking in Venue Manager, add products, and choose between draft, reserve, or hold. You also understand how tentative holds work and how each option affects capacity.