Do you currently run or plan to run events that require bookings, such as seminars, training courses, not-for-profit fundraisers, networking events, or even a large-scale event like an exhibition, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event registrations is a complicated and time-consuming process. You will most likely be required to manage scheduling, available dates and spaces, participant numbers, data entry, payments and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and providing tickets to event registrants.
There are many advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower expenses, help you easily copy settings for previous events, give event managers more control, create a more enjoyable user experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be very expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-based site, you can download and install a very inexpensive and professional online event registration solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin lets you easily schedule an event and begin accepting registrations in a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and take online bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich application that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
Customize registration forms
You can use a number of event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up selling tickets, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event participants, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing notifications.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is significantly different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the platform has been redeveloped using a different structure to accommodate future growth and expansion. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually move completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and features of using the plugin.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:
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 capacity limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by virtually eliminating the need to process registrations and bookings manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for event participants to enroll by themselves.
Allowing your attendees to do all of the data entry frees up your time and lets you spend more time on organizing a memorable event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management process that you want your participants to experience.
Some additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Reduced Costs: The Event Espresso plugin provides you with a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third-party service provider. The cost is kept low by using a model where you start with the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and purchase addons when you need additional functionality.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online signups 24/7. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event invite their friends who may be interested in attending.
- Green And Paperless Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, the event booking process remains wholly in digital form, reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks related to administration.
- All Information Belongs To You. You own all the data acquired from event participants.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to users via built-in features (these are included with the software) and additional features that customers can buy for an added cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many features to website owners. Here are just some of these:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have multiple dates and times (called datetimes), that these can be managed from a single event.
- Customizable Event Designs. Customize your events and enrollments page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and parts, and HTML or CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present a number of ticket options to prospective registrants and let them choose the ticket(s) that best fits their needs.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration enables you to configure the look and control settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details sections.
- Default Price Types. Price types let event managers create new prices that adjust the base ticket price of your system-default ticket.
- In-App Documentation Systems. Event Espresso 4 comes with 3 detailed in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Event Check-In List. Generate a list of event attendees and check in everyone who has attended.
- No Ticket Events. List events without requiring attendees to select tickets. Use Event Espresso for all types of events, not just those that require tickets.
- Event RSS Feeds. Provide automatic updates to users, bring in more visitors and widen your content reach with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Optimized For The Latest Version Of WP. The EE 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you create highly aesthetic event pages that are easier to use and mobile-friendly.
- 15+ Languages. Event Espresso can be run in more than 15 languages, and more are being added all the time.
- Bulk Upload Event Data. EE 4 provides a CSV-based importing feature that lets you quickly upload bulk event data all at one time. You can export, edit and import details about events, datetimes, ticketing information, pricing, registration questions, venue info, terminology, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Event Venue Management. The venue manager in Event Espresso 4 lets information about venues to be published throughout the Event Espresso admin and the public areas of your site to inform site visitors of your event’s location. The venue record displays many of the standard WordPress settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also displays details like venue seating capacity, venue site URL, phone number, physical, Google map, etc. You can also display all of your event venues on different locations of your theme and on a venue archive page on your site where you can set up and display venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have booked for a given venue.
- Attendee Records. You can manage your registrant’s profiles and payment history and keep all of their records organized and easily accessible.
- Social Sharing. Event participants and site visitors can help increase exposure for your event using social media sharing buttons.
- Categorize Events. If you have multiple types of events such as free and paid, conference speakers and mastermind sessions, different kinds of programs and program modules, etc. you can categorize them to help event registrants to locate what they’re looking for. You can list all the events in a category on an event category page, make events searchable by category, and colour-code events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make these easier to find, in addition to suggesting new events in the categories that appeal to your existing customers.
Additional features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This feature allows web developers to have more control and options over your events and how the information displays to prospective customers.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 allows you to create a log file with debugging data which can be helpful for web developers when potential software errors.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & Value: According to the mission statement on their site, 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 objectives, the company operates on a modular and highly 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+ added features, including:
- Duplicating events – limits the work of re-entering event data when adding new events.
- Default surcharge (the same as adding a service tax to all tickets).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow you to further enhance the capabilities of the event management process.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display scheduled events by location. Four maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Template Add-on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize the events with multiple datetimes into a dropdown list.
- Events Calendar Table Template Add on: The Calendar Table template is a list template with a bold date and customizable “register now” button. The template can be customized to show the event thumbnail image instead of a date.
- EE4 Events Social Sharing Add on: Add social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that allows your attendees to share a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after booking.
- Custom Files Add-on: The Custom Files addon allows you to bypass certain aspects of the plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Add on Editions: This add on lets you involve other users in your organization to help manage your events and give new users the capacity 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 allow them different permissions with different capabilities, so your staff can help you manage your events or events that others create. You can customize roles so that users do not have access to certain parts of your WP dashboard and/or certain areas 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.
- Multi-Event Registration Addon: The Multi-Event registration add-on gives your potential attendees 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.
- Events Table Template Add on: The Events Table Template add on gives you a simple and easy-to-use system that lets you change the look and feel of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also enables developers to build their own custom templates using one of the templates included as a base template.
- JSON API Add-on: The new Event Espresso JSON API add-on gives permission for other applications, web sites, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso information through an Application Programming Interface (API).
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software, including new add-ons.
For full details about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website here:
User Testimonials
Here are some of the many testimonials that satisfied customers have posted about Event Espresso:
”My hope with this whole integration is to be able to show other school districts an affordable and easy solution to these registrations. I cannot believe how much money they are charged for less by other companies. This has the potential to save schools tens of thousands, which is huge right now.” Kelly, College Station Independent School District
”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
”Just bought an Event Espresso license for an upcoming conference website we are working on. The custom registration forms functionality rocks!” Eric Sopp, Inside Design
Useful Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, trainer, show planner, or event management professional, there are just endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a registered user, search the support forum for inspiration and practical suggestions to streamline your event management and registration workflow and improve the experience of your attendees.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso is compatible with most WP plugins and themes that follow standard WordPress coding guidelines. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive user support, as many of its plugin customers confirm:
”No complaints here. Satisfied customer. You can teach us all few things about customer service. Thanks!” Charles
Event Espresso provides amazing support with access to a support forum, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, priority 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 web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely software you can rely on to manage your events.
Plugin Pricing
Event Espresso is available in a number of editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced software options, however, you will want to consider purchasing one of the paid plugin versions below:
- Personal License – This lets you install Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License – This edition enables you to run Event Espresso on 5 sites. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
The price of the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the software sells for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Event Espresso – Event Manager & Registration Plugin For WordPress
Please Note: The pricing above was current at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the software’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to a specific situation, or to report problems and give feedback.
For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product website.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the preferred WP event booking and ticketing manager software, used by thousands.
If you are a WordPress user and you currently run events that involve scheduling dates, times and venues (offline and online), enrolling attendees, and selling tickets, then you will probably not find a better WP plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso
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