Do you currently run or plan to run events that need managing bookings or registrations, such as seminars, group courses, non-profit fund raisers, networking functions, or even a big event such as a dance party, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Managing event sign-ups can be a complex process. You may have to co-ordinate event schedules, available dates and spaces, attendee numbers, data administration, payments and invoicing, confirmations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to event participants.
There are many advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily duplicate previously-run events, give you more control, create a better client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-based digital presence, you can easily set up an inexpensive and professional web-based event booking system.
Announcing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software allows you to easily schedule an event and begin receiving online bookings in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online event bookings)
Event Espresso is a feature-rich application that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
Create custom event registration forms
You can use a number of event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your attendees, or integrating your event bookings with social media and email marketing tools.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is completely different than the older EE 3, as it is being redeveloped using a different structure to enable future growth. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually retire Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and features of this plugin.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Plugin 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 Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing digital presence into a feature-rich and professional event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by practically doing away with the chore of processing registrations manually.
Basically, you are facilitating participants to register by themselves.
Allowing your customers to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you direct more of your energy on organizing a memorable event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon see, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management process that you want your attendees to experience.
Some additional benefits include:
- Reduced Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third party service. This is made possible through a model where Event Espresso users purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then purchase optional add-ons only when you need added functionality.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept online event registrations outside traditional business hours. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing add-ons (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event invite friends who may also be interested in attending.
- Paperless Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event signup process can be kept entirely online, significantly reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks related to administration.
- All Information Belongs To You. You control all the information obtained from your event attendees.
Features
The Event Espresso software delivers functionality to end-users via built-in features (these are included with the software) and optional features that users can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many features to WordPress users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have many dates and times (called datetimes), which these can be managed from one single event.
- Customized Confirmation Emails. Set up automated booking and payment confirmation emails to communicate with your customers.
- Tax Administration. Event Espresso 4 provides a number of options to administer taxes for your event and provide reports of tax fees to customers who purchase tickets. You can administer taxes globally or on a ticket-by-ticket basis.
- Smart 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 added registrants.
- Default Prices. Set up events quickly and easily with pre-configured default pricing.
- In-App Documentation Systems. Event Espresso 4 includes 3 detailed in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of registering event attendees at the door, or sending in paper-based forms for manual submission later.
- No Ticket Events. Set up events without the requirement for attendees to get tickets. Event Espresso can be used for any form of event, not only when tickets are for sale.
- Public Commenting. Add social interactivity to your event by encouraging potential attendees to ask questions about your event and previous participants to post comments that can help others choose whether or not to sign up. Moderation settings for public comments are configured via the WP commenting admin area.
- Keyword-Rich Page URLs. Keyword-rich event page Web links take advantage of your WP site’s Permalinks configuration settings. SEO-friendly permalinks that include relevant keywords enhance the context of your pages and is favored by search engines, helping you drive a more targeted audience to your site.
- 15+ Languages. Event Espresso has been translated into 15+ languages, with more languages coming soon.
- Import Events. EE 4 provides a CSV-based importing feature that lets you import a lot of event data at once. You can export, edit and import data for events, datetimes, tickets, pricing, custom registration questions, venues, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- WordPress WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the standard WordPress WYSIWYG editor, allowing you to quickly and easily insert images and write your event descriptions without having to learn HTML or CSS, just like any WP post or page.
- Attendee Profiles. Manage your attendee’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their data organized.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event registrants who have not fully paid for their registration with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click of a button. Your invoices will reference pre-registered customers who have not paid their registration in full by name, give them the balance they owe, and include links to the event information, a payment url and a url to download the invoice.
- Categorize Events. If you have a number of event types such as free and paid, workshops and breakout sessions, different kinds of programs and program modules, etc. you can categorize these to make it easier for your attendees to locate what they’re searching for. You can display all the events in a category on an event category page, make all events searchable by category, and colour-code events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make these easier to find, as well as suggesting other events in the categories that appeal to your visitors.
Extra features include:
- Hooks, Actions And Filters. These features allow you to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso application that are completely compatible with the WordPress development platform.
- Control Box Management & Organization. Event Espresso leverages the WP user interface, which brings the ability to organize the user interface to suit your workflow processes. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or entirely deleted from the workflow configuration.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & Value: 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 as a result.
The premium version of Event Espresso also includes 40+ additional features, including:
- Duplicating events – eliminates the work of re-entering event information when adding new events.
- Default surcharge (similar to applying a service tax to every ticket).
- Default payment status.
Add-Ons
In addition to an incredible array of features, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow customers to significantly enhance the capabilities of managing an event.
Some of these add-ons include:
- EE4 Events Grid Template Addon: 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 available, a default image will be used.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Custom Template Addon: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes many datetime events into a dropdown list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Addon: The Category Accordion template displays event categories in a simple list. Clicking on a category name displays all events associated with that category and closes previously open categories.
- EE4 Events Social Sharing Addon: This add-on adds 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.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on allows you to take advantage of the WP user system. With the WP User Integration add-on you can give your users a special incentive by offering member prices and overriding event pricing when your members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered website users can have access to your special events. Members can also enter personal details into their profile page allowing them to quickly register for events by auto-filling in their personal information on the event registration form. Your users can also look up event history and pay for future events.
- Seating Chart Addon: The seating chart add on is 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 add-on lets you promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add on lets you manage the environment for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach single pricing to every seat.
- EE4 Event Ticketing Addon: The Ticketing addon adds the ability to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon adds the ability to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing add-on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for managing check-in scans at the door. Registrants can either print out their tickets or display them on their mobile devices. The barcode scanner can be used for checking in or checking out registrants and to validate tickets.
- Events Table Template Add-on: The Events Table Template add-on provides you with a simple and easy-to-use system that lets you edit the design of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also lets developers build their own custom templates using one of the templates included as a base template.
- MailChimp Integration Add on: The MailChimp add-on lets you automatically register attendees to a selected mailing list or group within MailChimp.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software, including new addons.
For full details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, check out the plugin here:
User Feedback
Below are some of the many testimonials that customers have written about Event Espresso:
“It is a very, very slick plugin. It’s one of those plugins where you install it, change a couple of settings, and boom you’re selling tickets.” Brad Williams, WebDevStudios
”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
”Thank you, we just did 2 sell out seminars of 50 attendees in 48 hours using Event Espresso and it was awesome. My wife was able to pick up on the processing backend with ease. You have done a great job on getting this system together – very simple, clear and well laid out With powerful functionality. I am so glad I dumped the old booking application we had and gave Event Espresso a go. Just wanted to say thanks, and thanks for the very patient, friendly and speedy assistance in helping me to get it all set up at the start. Many thanks to you and your team. A grateful customer.” Nicholas de Castella, Emotional Intelligence Trainings
Useful Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, teacher, workshop planner, or event professional, there are simply endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, visit the user forum for new ideas and practical suggestions to streamline your event management and registration process or enhance the experience of your registrants.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso works with with other WordPress plugins and themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you do need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent support, as so many of its customers 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 amazing support with access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base 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.
In addition, Event Espresso boasts an established team of experienced web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely software you can depend on to run your events.
Software Price
Event Espresso is available in a number of editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software functionality, however, you may want to consider purchasing one of the ”Pro” plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This lets you run Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This license enables you to set up Event Espresso on 1 site only. It includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This edition enables you to set up Event Espresso on 5 domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Pricing details of the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software sells for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Please Note: The pricing above was current at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the site.
Additional Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Look up the plugin’s online documentation tools for answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to a specific situation, or to notify developers about issues and share feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing manager plugin, used and trusted by thousands of users.
If you own a WordPress website and you plan to run an event that involves scheduling dates and venues, enrolling participants, or booking tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable WordPress plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso
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