Does your organization currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating bookings, such as seminars, community courses, charity fund raisers, corporate events, or even a big event such as an arts & crafts, 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 complex process. You will most likely need to co-ordinate calendar schedules, available dates and seating allocations, attendee numbers, data administration, payments and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to event participants.
There are a number of benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower costs, help you easily reproduce recurring events, give event managers more control, improve customer experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting up an online event registration system can be expensive.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-based website, you can set up an inexpensive and highly professional web-based event booking system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Manager
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WordPress plugin lets you easily create an event and begin receiving online bookings in just a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and receive online event registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed application that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can employ a number of event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up selling tickets, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your participants, or integrating your event bookings with social media sites like Facebook.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Please Note: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is fundamentally different than the older EE 3, as the platform is being redeveloped using a different structure to accommodate future growth and expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually migrate completely to EE 4, 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:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website or blog into an automated and 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.
Higher Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by literally eliminating the need to process registrations and sign-ups manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for event attendees to enrol by themselves.
Allowing your participants to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing administration and lets you spend more of your attention on organizing a better event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will learn shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your attendees to experience.
Additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Less Costs: Event Espresso is an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to developing your own system or using a 3rd-party service. The cost is kept low through a model where users purchase the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and buy add ons only if you need new functionality.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new signups 24/7. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features and addons (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event share your information with others who may be interested in attending.
- Paperless Event SignUp Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign-up process remains wholly in digital form, reducing traditional paper waste from tasks related to administration.
- All Information Belongs To You. You own all the data you obtain from event participants.
Plugin Features
The Event Espresso plugin delivers functionality to end-users through standard features (these are included with the plugin) and additional features that users can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many features to website owners. Here are just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Customized Event Registration. With Event Espresso you can collect specific data using a custom event registration form on your website to plan a customized experience for your users.
- Customizable Event Page Designs. Create the look and feel you want for your events and signup page using Event Espresso’s template options and parts, plus HTML and/or CSS.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso seamlessly integrates with leading payment gateways, enabling you to collect registration fees before running the events.
- Smart Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically copy the primary attendee’s registration details for any added attendees.
- Spam Protection. Eliminate the risk of spamming and bots making fake registrations on your website with reCAPTCHA option to confirm human activity.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system enables you to validate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, set up various check-in “stations” and track all attendees.
- Manual Registration Option. you have the option of booking event participants when they show up, or send in paper-based registration forms for manual submission later.
- Waiting Lists. Latecomers can join a waiting list if your event has reached maximum capacity. You can also specify that wait-list registrants pay for their spots if you plan to add more capacity for your event.
- Public Commenting. Add social a new level of engagement to your event by allowing potential prospects to interact with you online via commenting and previous attendees to post reviews that can help others choose whether or not to sign up. Moderation settings for commenting are set using the WordPress built-in commenting settings.
- Keyword Rich Event Page Web Links. Keyword rich URLs leverage your WordPress Permalinks configuration settings. Search engine friendly web links that use relevant keywords add to the context of your pages and is favored by search engines, helping you drive more traffic to your website.
- 15+ Languages. Event Espresso is currently available in 15+ languages, with more languages coming soon.
- Bulk Edit Events. Event Espresso 4 provides an advanced importing capability that enables you to import a lot of event data all at one time. You can export, edit and upload data for events, datetimes, tickets, pricing, registration questions, venue info, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- WP WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the built-in WP Visual editor, so you can quickly and easily insert graphic images and create your event descriptions without having to learn HTML or CSS, just like any typical WordPress post.
- Registrant Profiles. Manage your customer’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their information organized.
- Social Sharing. Event attendees and your website visitors can tell others about your events using social sharing buttons.
- Categorize Events. If you have several different types of events such as free and paid, workshops and mastermind sessions, different types of courses, etc. you can categorize them to make it easier for your participants to find what they’re looking for. You can list all events in a category on a custom event category page, make events searchable by category, and color-code events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make these easier to find, as well as suggesting new events in the categories that interest your existing customers.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These allow developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso plugin that are compatible with WordPress.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. EE 4 allows you to output a log file with debugging data which can be helpful for web developers who are potential plugin problems.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value For Money: 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 software has been built using a modular and effective model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium version of Event Espresso also provides you with over 40 additional features, including:
- Live-filtering when you search for events inside the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing a series of questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Addons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow end-users to further enhance the functionality of your event management system.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display scheduled events by location. There are 4 maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Manager Add-on: The Recurring Events manager addon lets you put events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months in advance. You can add as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in the future as you need. Event Espresso will automatically open and close registrations for all of these recurring events.
- 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 also be customized to show the event thumbnail image instead of a date.
- 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.
- Custom Files Addon: The Custom Files add-on lets you override certain aspects of the plugin.
- Seating Chart Addon: The seating chart add-on is for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is ideal for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart add-on allows you to offer reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues right from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart addon lets you control the environment for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to every seat.
- Multi-Event Registration Add-on: The Multiple Event registration add-on 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 cart. With the Multi-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 provides event managers with a simple and easy-to-use system that allows you to 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 lets web developers design their own custom templates using one of the templates provided as a base template.
- JSON API Add-on: The Event Espresso JSON API addon enables other applications, websites, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso data through an Application Programming Interface (API).
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin, including new add ons.
For more details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website here:
Customer Feedback
Here are some of the many great testimonials that plugin users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso is one of the nicest Event Managers (WP Plugin) I have come across.” Joe Distefano, Citizen Joe
”I have been using Event Espresso to run my festival and have been very happy with how it has worked out. They have provided tremendous support and their iPhone app is amazing and easy to use. I suggest using it for your event.” Alex Grant, Byron Spirit Festival
”Event Espresso plugin still rocks. Saw you guys were up for the WP Honors too. Glad I paid for it! If you need event management on your WordPress site I recommend Event Espresso.” Patrick Allmond, Focus Consulting
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, trainer, event planner, or event management professional, there are just endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a registered owner, visit the forums for inspiration and practical suggestions to streamline your event management and registration workflow and improve the experience of your customers.
Support
Event Espresso works with with all WP plugins and themes that follow standard WP development rules. If you find that you need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive end-user support, as many of its users confirm:
”No complaints here. Satisfied customer. You can teach us all few things about customer service. Thanks!” Charles
Event Espresso provides great support including access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, premium 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 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 Pricing
Event Espresso is available in a number of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin features, however, you should consider using one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal Licensing – This enables you to install Event Espresso on 1 site only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This enables you to set up Event Espresso on one site only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Edition – This allows you to set up 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 can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software sells for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticketing Management
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the website.
Additional Plugin Info
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin. Make sure to remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the plugin’s documentation tools for answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to a particular situation, or to report bugs and share feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the leading WP event booking and ticketing manager plugin, used and trusted by thousands of WordPress website owners.
If you own a WordPress web site and you intend to run any event that requires managing dates and venues (offline and online), booking attendees, and booking seating, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticket Registration Software For WordPress
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