Room allocation is how you assign event participants to hotel rooms for a group booking in Perk Events. There are three ways to fill a room block: you place participants yourself, Perk Events assigns everyone automatically, or participants choose their own room once you turn that option on. This article explains all three, plus how to confirm the room block before payment.

Three ways to allocate rooms

Perk Events gives you three ways to fill a room block — the set of hotel rooms held for your group booking:

• Manual allocation (event manager): you pick a participant and place them into a specific room on a specific day yourself.
• Auto-allocation (event manager): you trigger one action and Perk Events assigns every attending participant to a room at once.
• Participant self-selection (participant): participants pick their own room or roommate, but only once an event manager turns this on for the booking.

With manual allocation, you pick a participant and place them into a specific room on a specific day. Perk Events looks for an empty room first. If there isn’t one, it uses a room that already has space, keeping roommates the same gender when that’s known. If gender data isn’t available, it uses any room with space.

With auto-allocation, Perk Events assigns all attending participants to available rooms in one action. It works out each participant’s required nights from their actual travel bookings — flights and trains — when that data is available, and falls back to the group booking’s standard event dates when it isn’t. Auto-allocation first tries rooms that cover a participant’s whole stay. Only if none are available does it use rooms that cover part of the stay, and it keeps twin rooms same-gender wherever gender data exists.

With participant self-selection, also called roommate selection, participants choose their own room or roommate instead of you placing them. This option is off by default — an event manager has to turn it on for the booking first. Once it’s on, participants can choose to room together themselves, and any participant you or auto-allocation haven’t already placed can pick their own room.

You can view the same room block in two ways:

• Calendar view: shows the room block by day, with one column per date and the number of rooms available in each.
• Participant view: shows the room block by person, so you can see each participant’s assignment status at a glance — including who was placed manually, automatically, or chose their own room.

Both views sit inside the Manage room allocation screen for the group booking, and you can switch between them at any time using the toggle at the top of the screen.

Turning on roommate selection for participants

Roommate selection lets participants choose their own room or roommate directly, instead of an event manager placing them. It’s off by default for a group booking.

1. Go to Events > Bookings > [Your booking] > View.
2. Find the roommate selection setting for the booking.
3. Turn on roommate selection.
4. Let participants know they can now choose their own room or roommate — for example, by sharing the booking’s participant link.

Assigning rooms manually

Use manual allocation when you want to place specific participants into specific rooms yourself — for example, to honor a request or fix a single unassigned participant.

1. Go to Events > Group bookings > [Your booking] > Manage room allocation.
2. Make sure Calendar view is selected.
3. Find the hotel section for the property you want to allocate rooms in, for example Sunset Villa.
4. Use the Search for name or email box to find the participant you want to place, for example "Maria Alonso".
5. Locate the day and room row where you want to place the participant in the table. Each column shows a date and the number of rooms still available on that date.
6. Select Allocate the room on the row and day you want.
7. Repeat these steps for each participant you want to allocate manually. If the room block spans more than one page, use pagination at the bottom of the table to move between days.

Running auto-allocation

Auto-allocation assigns all attending participants for a hotel to available rooms in a single action, so you don’t have to place each person manually.

1. Go to Events > Group bookings > [Your booking] > Manage room allocation.
2. Find the hotel section you want to allocate, for example Sunset Villa.
3. Select Start auto-allocation.
4. Review the result. Perk Events reports:
   • How many participants were successfully allocated.
   • How many were already assigned and skipped.
   • Any warnings, such as a participant for whom no room was available.
5. If there are warnings, allocate the affected participants manually, or add more rooms to the room block and run auto-allocation again.

Confirming the room allocation before payment

Room allocation must be confirmed within a set time window before you can continue to payment for the group booking. The Manage room allocation screen shows a countdown, such as "You have 3 days to confirm the room allocation," alongside a Continue to payment button.

Confirm the allocation once every participant you plan to include has a room assignment — whether they were placed manually, through auto-allocation, or through roommate selection. After you confirm, select Continue to payment to move ahead with the group booking.