Do you currently run or plan to run events that need handling bookings or registrations, such as workshops, group courses, charity fund raisers, networking events, or even a large-scale event such as a food fair, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Managing event registrations can be a complex process. You may have to manage scheduling, date availability, attendee numbers, data processing, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and alerts, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to attendees.
There are a number of advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily replicate repeat events, give you more control, create a more enjoyable customer experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be very expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-powered site, you can set up a very inexpensive and highly professional online event booking system.
Announcing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WP plugin allows you to easily schedule an event and begin accepting online registrations in just a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and process online event registrations)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed application that gives you complete control over your event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize registration forms
You can use multiple event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up selling tickets, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your participants, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and email marketing applications.
View detailed information about event attendees
Note: Currently, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is considerably different than the older EE 3, as the software has been revamped using a different structure to enable future growth and expansion. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually phase out EE 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current digital presence into a fully-featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to attendee limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by practically doing away with the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.
Basically, you are facilitating participants to register on their own.
Letting your participants to do all of the data entry frees up your time and lets you focus more time on planning a memorable event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and registration process that you want your participants to experience.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Significantly Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin provides you with a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to developing your own solution or using a 3rd-party service provider. This is made possible by using a model where you buy the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy add-ons only when you need additional functionality.
- Increased Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept new sign-ups 24 hrs a day. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing features (see below) let people interested in registering for your event share your information with friends who may be interested.
- Green & Paperless Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event signup process can remain wholly online, reducing traditional paper waste from tasks related to administration.
- Own Your Data. You own all the information acquired from event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
The Event Espresso plugin provides functionality to users through built-in features (these are included with the plugin) and optional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many built-in to site owners. Here are just some of these:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to start using in no time.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso lets you create multiple ticket types and specify different pricing options, limits on ticket quantities, and more.
- Customizable Event Page Designs. Create the look and feel you want for your events and registrations page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and elements, as well as HTML or CSS.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso provides integration with leading payment gateways, allowing you to collect payments before running events.
- Smart Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary attendee’s registration information for any additional participants.
- Default Price Types. Price types let event managers create new prices that adjust the base ticket price of the system-default ticket.
- In-App Documentation Systems. Event Espresso 4 provides three built-in in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Contact Profiles & Contact List. Event Espresso 4 provides you with the tools to know who your customers are and how you have previously done business with them. Your Contact Profile section stores the name, biography, contact details, event registration history, comments, and more about each attendee.
- Waiting Lists. Latecomers can subscribe to a waiting list if your event has reached capacity. You can also make it a requirement waiting list attendees pre-pay if you plan to add more capacity for your event.
- Public Commenting. Add social a new level of social sharing to your event page by allowing potential registrants to ask questions about your event and previous attendees to post comments that can help others decide whether or not to register. Moderation settings for commenting are set up using the WP built-in commenting system.
- Works With The Most Up-To-Date WordPress Version. The EE 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you create highly aesthetic event pages that are easier to use and mobile-friendly.
- Country Settings. You can configure the country and currency settings that will be used throughout Event Espresso, including currency, currency symbols, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, states or provinces, etc.
- Default Tickets. If you create similar tickets for many of your events, you can automatically set up as your default ticket for the next time you create an event simply by checking a box.
- Venue Profiles. The venue manager feature in Event Espresso 4 allows details about a venue to appear throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front end of your website to inform registrants of your event’s location. The venue record displays many of the standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also lets you republish venue information such as venue capacity, venue web address, venue phone number, physical and virtual location, map, etc. You can also list venues throughout different locations on your WP theme and on a venue listing page on your website where you can set up and reuse venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have booked for a given venue.
- One-Click Upgrades. Event Espresso offers easy one-click upgrading to ensure that you have the newest features and to keep your plugin installation up-to-date with the latest version of WordPress.
- Social Sharing. Event attendees and your site visitors can help spread the word about your events using social sharing buttons.
- Transaction Reporting. Event reports gives you information of all the registrations and transactions, enabling you to measure the performance of your events with the aggregate number of registrations and amount of revenue you have collected.
Additional features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for most WordPress users, and also robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, Event Espresso 4 permits more complex developments and customizations to the software.
- Maintenance Mode. You can pause registrations for normal site visitors whenever you need to carry out maintenance on your site. You can still work on the back-end of your site during maintenance mode.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & Value: According to the mission statement on their site, Event Espresso’s goal is to “empower business and organization leaders with the event registration, ticketing and management tools that maximize the success of events.” To achieve their objectives, the company operates on a modular and effective model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes 40+ additional features, including:
- Duplicating events – simplifies the need to re-enter event details when creating new events.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing the same questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
In addition to an incredible number of features, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow users to significantly enhance the functionality of events.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display all scheduled events by location. There are 4 maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Management Addon: The Recurring Events manager add-on allows you to put events on autopilot by scheduling repeated events weeks or months ahead. You can create as many future events as you want. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all recurring events.
- Events Calendar Table Template Addon: The Calendar Table template is a list template with a bold date and customizable “register now” button. The template can be customized to show an event thumbnail instead of the date.
- EE4 Events Social Sharing Add-on: Add social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that allows your registrants to share a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after registration.
- Custom Files Add-on: The Custom Files add-on allows you to bypass certain aspects of the plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Addon Versions: This add-on lets you involve other staff in your organization to help manage your events and give new users the capacity to create events or regional managers permission to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WordPress users roles and give them different permissions with different capabilities, allowing staff to help you manage your events or events that others create. You can customize roles so that a user does not have access to certain sections of your WP dashboard and/or certain parts of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to allow users to have geographic responsibilities for events and users, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add on.
- EE4 Event Ticketing And Bar Scanning Add-on: The Ticketing add on gives you the capacity to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add-on gives you the ability to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing add-on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for managing check-in scans at the venue door. Registrants can either print out their tickets or display them on their mobile devices. The mobile app can be used for checking in or checking out registrants and to validate tickets.
- Events Calendar Add on: This add on uses the WP calendar to display events and event categories in an attractive graphical calendar.
- JSON API Add on: The new Event Espresso JSON API add on lets other applications, web sites, mobile apps, etc… to access your Event Espresso information through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin, including new addons.
For more information about the latest Event Espreso features and add ons, visit the plugin website:
Testimonials
Below are some of the many great testimonials that satisfied customers have written about Event Espresso:
”My clients have used Event Espresso for Transportation (Cadet Bus for leave), Parties (tailgates and brewery tours), and Horse-back riding lessons and camps. What a terrific plug-in and fantastic support from Seth!” Nina, Blue Iris Web Design
”I have to say that it has been the right choice for me…I’ve been extremely pleased with the way my site is working.” Robin, RobinTime
”Loving the functions and support from Event Espresso. One of the best plugins I’ve ever bought!” Nathan
Useful Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, presenter, show planner, or event management professional, there are simply endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a registered owner, search the support forum for inspiration and practical ways to improve your event management process or improve the experience of your customers.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso is compatible with other WordPress plugins and WordPress themes that follow standard WP coding guidelines. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive customer support, as so many of its end-users confirm:
”Thank you Seth for being so responsive and going above and beyond the call of duty with your app! I highly recommend Event Espresso for its functionality and for the stellar support. Seth has a deep knowledge and understanding of WordPress and has built a tool that is seamless to use for both organizer and attendee alike! After looking at a bunch of alternatives, Event Espresso far surpasses the other apps that are available.” Wendy Troupe, ICS North Pole Express
The plugin provides amazing support that includes access to a support forum, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, email support and even a monthly VIP member pass giving you access to community of developers, designers, event managers, publishers and webmasters that use Event Espresso tools, plus faster support response times.
In addition, Event Espresso boasts a well-staffed team of experienced WordPress developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can depend on to manage your events.
Event Espresso Cost
Event Espresso is available in a number of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin features, however, you will want to consider purchasing one of the premium plugin versions below:
- Personal License Edition – This license option allows you to set up Event Espresso on one domain only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This lets you set up Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This allows you to run Event Espresso on five sites. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
The cost of purchasing the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the plugin is being retailed for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The above reflects the pricing when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site.
Event Espresso – Additional Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the software’s documentation pages for answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to your specific use-case, or to report issues and share feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product site.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event booking and ticketing manager plugin, used by thousands of companies.
If you own a WordPress-powered web site and you currently run any event that requires scheduling dates and venues, registering participants, and/or reserving seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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