Do you currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating bookings or registrations, such as seminars, group classes, non-profit fund-raisers, corporate events, or even a big event like a rave party, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event sign-ups can be a complex process. You have to manage scheduling, date availability, attendee numbers, data collection and storage, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to attendees.
There are lots of advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower costs, help you easily replicate previous events, give event managers more control, improve customer experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite expensive.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-powered website or blog, you can set up an inexpensive and highly professional online event registration system.
Announcing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticketing Manager Software
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WordPress enables you to easily set up multiple events and start accepting online bookings in just a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and receive online event registrations)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed plugin that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can employ various event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up ticket-selling, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your participants, or integrating your event bookings with social media sites like Facebook.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Note: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is considerably different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the platform has been rebuilt using a different structure to accommodate future expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually retire EE 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and advantages of using the plugin.
More info:
Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current digital presence into an automated and fully featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by practically eliminating the need to process registrations manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for participants to complete the enrollment process themselves.
Allowing your participants to do the data entry frees up your time and lets you direct more of your resources on organizing a memorable event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will learn shortly, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management and booking process that you want your customers to experience.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin provides you with a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third-party service provider. This is made possible through a model where you pay for the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then purchase optional addons when you need new features.
- Increased Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new event bookings 24 hours a day. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing features (see below) let people interested in attending your event invite others who may be interested.
- Paperless Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, the event booking process can remain entirely online, eliminating traditional paper consumption from tasks associated with enrollment.
- Own Your Information. You own all the information you obtain from event participants.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to its users via built-in features (these come with the plugin) and optional features that customers can buy for an extra cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many features to WordPress users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to start using in no time.
- Multiple Dates and Times Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have many dates and times (called datetimes), that these can be managed from one single event.
- Customized Confirmation Email Message. Easily configure custom automated registration and payment notification email messages to communicate with your participants.
- Ticket Selector. Present multiple ticket options to prospective attendees and let them purchase the ticket(s) that best fits their needs.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is smart, fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary registrant’s information for any additional participants.
- Spam Protection. Reduce the risk of spammers and robots making fake registrations with reCAPTCHA option that authenticate human activity.
- In-App Documentation Systems. Event Espresso 4 comes with 3 built-in in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Event Check-In List. Generate an exportable list of participants and check in everyone who has attended.
- Event Manager Pre-approval. Be selective about who can and can’t attend your events.
- Private Comments On Contacts. Record comments about users on their profile. Private notes lets you keep records of when users contacted you, your internal comments, and how you have helped them.
- Keyword Rich Event Page URLs. Keyword-rich Web links leverage your WP site’s Permalinks configuration settings. “Pretty” web links that use relevant keywords enhance the context of your content and improves your search rankings, helping you bring a more targeted audience to your website.
- Your Organization Settings. Configure your profile to be used throughout Event Espresso and your WordPress themes. The organization information include: organization name, address, city, state, country, zip code, primary contact email address, telephone, tax number, your logo, Facebook profile URL, Twitter URL, LinkedIn profile URL, Pinterest URL, Google+ profile URL, Instagram URL.
- Default Tickets. If you create similar tickets for your events, you can easily set one of those tickets as your default ticket for your new events simply by checking a box.
- Multiple Participant Enrolments. EE 4 allows one person or an organization to purchase multiple tickets and different types of tickets at once. Event managers can control how many attendees are allowed to enroll in one session by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso provides users with access to an expert community of experienced event managers and other plugin users. You can interact with other members of the Event Espresso community through their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Social Sharing. Event participants and website visitors can help spread the word about your event using social media sharing buttons.
- Accurate Participant Manager. You control your attendees’ information; who has registered, which event they have booked and what amount they have paid. With the attendee manager, you can get an overview of registered participants and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export a list of event attendees to a spreadsheet for additional reports, send customizable payment reminders and receipts and send messages to your participants individually or collectively.
Extra features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This allows web developers to have more control and options over your content and how your information displays to prospective event registrants.
- Metabox Management & Reorganization. Event Espresso lets you leverage the WordPress user interface, which brings the ability to reorder the user interface to suit your workflow process. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or deleted from the page.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & Value: Event Espresso states on their website that their mission is to “empower business and organization leaders with the event registration, ticketing and management tools that maximize the success of events.” To achieve their goals, the company operates on 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 includes over 40 additional features, including:
- Email shortcodes that includes registrant data in confirmation emails and updates.
- Default surcharge (similar to applying a service fee to tickets).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listing pages.
Addons
In addition to a very large array of features, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow plugin users to significantly enhance the functionality of managing an event.
Some of these add-ons include:
- 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 an event does not have a featured image, it will use a default image.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Template Add on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes multiple datetime events into a drop-down list.
- 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 display the event thumbnail image instead of the date.
- 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 registrants to post a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after registration.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on allows you to take advantage of the WordPress user system. With the WP User Integration add-on you can give users a special incentive by offering member prices and overriding event pricing when members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered site users can have access to your special events. Members can also store personal data into their profile page allowing them fast registration for events by auto-filling in their personal information on the event booking form. Users can also view previous events and make payment for events.
- Seating Chart Add on: The seating chart addon is suitable for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is perfect for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart addon lets you promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues directly from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add on lets you control the experience for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach single pricing to every seat.
- Event Ticketing Add on: The Ticketing addon gives you the capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon gives you the capacity 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. Attendees 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.
- EE4 Events Table View Template Add on: The Events Table Template addon provides you with an easy-to-use system that allows you to change the design of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also allows developers to build their own custom templates using one of the included templates as a base template.
- MailChimp Integration Addon: The MailChimp add on allows you to auto-register participants to a specific mailing autoresponder list or group within MailChimp.
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, check out the plugin here:
User Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials that 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
”Your plugin rocks! Seriously, saved me hours on the phone setting up attendance manually. Kudos. :)” William, Petruzzo Photography
”You guys have done an AWESOME job with this system…promise me to keep up the excellent work you guys are doing, for as long as you can… Respect!” Robert Jarnroth, Jarnroth Digital Productions
Plugin Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, teacher, conference promoter, or event management consultant, there are simply unlimited possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a licensed user, visit the forums for inspiration and practical suggestions to streamline your event management workflow or improve the experience of your registrants.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso works with with other WP plugins and themes that follow standard WP development guidelines. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great technical support, as many of its clients confirm:
”By far, the customer service experience with Event Espresso has been the best of any WordPress Theme or Paid Plugin that I’ve used in the past two years!” Megan Murray, Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe
The software provides exceptional support with access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, priority 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 an established team of experienced web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can count on to manage your events.
Product Pricing
Event Espresso is available in a range of editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin options, however, you should consider using one of the paid plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This edition enables you to set up Event Espresso on one domain only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This license option lets you run Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License Edition – This lets you run Event Espresso on 5 domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin retails for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Management
Please Note: The pricing above was current when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Plugin Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the plugin’s documentation pages for answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to your particular situation, or to notify developers about issues and give feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product information pages.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event registration and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of WordPress users.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you plan to run events that involve managing dates, times and venues (offline and online), registering participants, or booking tickets, then you will probably not find a more suitable solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso – Event Manager & Ticket Registration System For WordPress
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