Does your business currently run or plan to run events that require bookings or registrations, such as seminars, training classes, charity fund raisers, corporate events, or even a large-scale event like an exhibition, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Co-ordinating event registrations can be a complex process. You may have to co-ordinate calendar schedules, dates, participant numbers, data administration, collecting payments and invoicing, confirmations, reminders and alerts, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to attendees.
There are a number of advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce costs, help you easily reproduce recurring events, give event managers more control, improve user experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting up a web-based event registration system can be quite expensive.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-based site, you can easily install an inexpensive and professional web-based event booking solution.
Announcing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin enables you to easily create an event and start processing online registrations in just a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and take online event bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a feature-packed application that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
Customize registration forms
You can use a range of event registration strategies, from simple online enrollments and straight up selling tickets, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your attendees, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing notifications.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Note: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is considerably different than the older EE 3, as the platform has been revamped using a different structure to allow for future expansion. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The developers aim to eventually migrate completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website:
Automated Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current online presence into a fully-featured and automated event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by literally eliminating the chore of processing registrations and sign-ups manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for event participants to enrol on their own.
Letting your attendees to do the data entry frees up your time and lets you focus more of your attention on delivering a more enjoyable event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will learn shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and booking process that you want your participants to experience.
Additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Significantly Lower Costs: Event Espresso gives you an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third-party service. This is made possible by using a model where Event Espresso users start with the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and buy add ons when you need extra features.
- More Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new event bookings outside traditional business hours. In addition, Event Espresso social and marketing add-ons (see below) let people interested in attending your event share your information with others who may be interested in attending.
- Paperless Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign-up process remains wholly in digital form, reducing typical paper waste from tasks related to admin and record-keeping.
- All Data Belongs To You. You control all the data you acquire from event participants.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to its users through built-in features (these are included with the software) and optional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many features to WP users. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso allows you to create as many different types of tickets as you need and specify separate prices, limits on ticket quantities, etc.
- Custom Notification Emails. Easily configure automated registration and payment notification emails to communicate with event attendees.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso seamlessly integrates with payment gateways, allowing you to collect booking payments prior to running your events.
- Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your WordPress theme and display contact information throughout other areas of your site.
- Spam Protection. Eliminate the chance of spammers and bot software programs creating fake registrations on your website by using reCAPTCHA tools to provide human validation.
- Discount Codes. You can leverage promotional and discount codes to encourage prospects to take action now, or make your offers more affordable for price-sensitive customers. This is also practical for helping to increase sales of events close to timelines.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. Event Espresso 4 lets you gain a better understanding of who your clients are and how they’ve done business with you.
- Waiting Lists. Prospective participants can subscribe to a waiting list if your event has reached maximum capacity. You can also make it a requirement waiting list attendees pre-pay if you plan to add more capacity for the event.
- Public Commenting. Add social engagement to your event page by allowing potential customers to ask questions about your event and past attendees to post comments that can help others decide whether or not to enroll. Moderation settings for comments are configured via the WordPress default commenting system.
- Search Engine Friendly URLs. Keyword-rich Web links leverage your WP Permalinks configuration settings. Search engine friendly permalinks with relevant keywords enhance the context of your events and is favored by search engines, helping you bring more traffic to your site.
- Country-specific Settings. You can configure the country and currency settings to be used throughout Event Espresso, such as currency name, currency signs, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, regions, etc.
- Default Tickets. If you create identical tickets for many of your events, you can automatically set one of those tickets as your default ticket for the next event simply by ticking a checkbox.
- Register Multiple Participants. Event Espresso 4 allows a single person or people to book multiple attendees simultaneously. You decide how many attendees are able to enrol in a single registration by specifying either limits on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Registrant Records. You can manage each attendee’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their data organized and easily within reach.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential participants who have not paid yet for their admission with a standard but personalized PDF invoice with just one click of a button. Your invoices will address pre-registered customers who have not paid their registration yet by name, give them the amount owing, and include links to the event information, a payment link and a url to download a PDF invoice.
- Accurate Event Participant Management. You control your participants’ records; who has enrolled, which event they have booked and how much they have paid. With the attendee manager, you can get an overview of registered attendees and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export an attendee list to Excel for additional reports, send customizable payment reminders and receipts and send messages to your customers on a person-by-person basis or as a group.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions And Filters. These features allow web developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso software that are completely compatible with the WordPress development platform.
- Control Box Management & Reorganization. Event Espresso leverages the WordPress user interface, which gives you the ability to reorganize the user interface to suit your workflow process. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or deleted from the page.
- Autonomy, Flexibility And Value For Money: According to the philosophy stated on their website, Event Espresso’s objective is to “empower business and organization leaders with the event registration, ticketing and management tools that maximize the success of events.” To achieve their mission, the software has been built using a model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also provides you with over 40 additional features, including:
- Duplicating events – eliminates the work of re-entering event data when adding new events.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing the same group of questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow plugin users to further expand the capabilities of your event management process.
Some of these addons include:
- EE4 Events Grid Template Add on: Displays events in a pure CSS grid-like structure using the featured image. Hovering over the image will display further information. If the event does not have a featured image available, it will use a default image.
- Recurring Events Manager Add on: The Recurring Events manager add-on enables you to put your events on autopilot by scheduling repeated events weeks or months … even years ahead. You can create as many future events as you need. Event Espresso will automatically open and close registrations for all of these recurring events.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add on: The Category Accordion template shows categories in a simple list. Clicking on a category name displays the events associated with that category and closes previously open categories.
- EE4 Events Social Sharing Add on: This add-on adds social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that allows your attendees to post a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after registration.
- Custom Files Addon: The Custom Files addon allows you to override certain aspects of the plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Add on Versions: This add on lets you include others in your organization to help manage your events and give new users the ability to create events or regional managers the ability 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, so your staff can help you manage your events or events that other people create. You can customize roles so that users do not have access to certain areas of your WP dashboard and/or certain areas of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to allow users to control factors geographically for events and users, use the Roles and Permissions Pro addon.
- Multi-Event Registration Add-on: The Multi-Event registration addon gives potential customers the ability to register for multiple events at once. In each event listing attendees will be given the option to either register for a single event or add multiple events to their shopping cart. With the Multiple Event Registration add-on, attendees can register for several events at once and even add additional attendees to any of the same events in the same checkout process.
- EE4 Events Calendar Addon: This WordPress events calendar displays events and event categories via an attractive graphical calendar.
- JSON API Addon: The Event Espresso JSON API add-on permits other applications, web sites, mobile apps, etc… to access your Event Espresso content through an Application Programming Interface (API).
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin, including new add-ons.
To learn more about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website:
Users – Testimonials
Here are a few of the many testimonials that customers have written about Event Espresso:
”It’s been very comprehensive and covers exactly the aspects of event registration that we needed for our site plus some features that we didn’t even need but could still use in the future. Very Excellent Plugin!” Tristan Hall, Area 12:2 Youth Group
”…it really does blow everything else that’s out there out of the water.” Chris Reynolds, Arcane Palette Creative Design
”I can’t even imagine what I would want the plugin to do that it doesn’t already do. I’m really happy with the features.” Jim Harmer, Improve Photography
Plugin Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, teacher, event promoter, or event management professional, there are just endless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a registered owner, visit the user forum for useful ideas and practical suggestions to improve your event management workflow and enhance the experience of your event customers.
Product Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with most WP plugins and themes that follow standard WP coding rules. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive support, as many of its plugin users confirm:
”These guys are right on any problem or issue or even general questions. You can’t really put a value high enough on the kind of support these guys offer.” Mark Wigston, Muskoka Graphics
The plugin provides exceptional support with access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, email support and even a monthly VIP member pass that gives you access to community of developers, designers, event managers, publishers and webmasters that use Event Espresso tools, plus faster support response times.
Additionally, Event Espresso boasts a well-staffed team of experienced web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can count on to run and manage your events.
Product Cost
Event Espresso is available in a range of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin features, however, you may want to consider purchasing one of the premium plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This edition lets you set up Event Espresso on 1 site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This allows you to configure Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This enables you to run Event Espresso on five domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin retails for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The pricing above was current at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Additional Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Look up the plugin’s online documentation pages for answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to your particular situation, or to notify developers about bugs and share feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WP event booking and ticketing manager plugin, used by thousands.
If you are a WordPress user and you currently run any event that involves scheduling dates, times and venues, registering participants, and/or reserving seating, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticketing Management
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