Do you currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating bookings or registrations, such as workshops, group classes, non-profit fund raisers, marketing conferences, or even a large-scale 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 bookings is a complicated and time-consuming process. You need to co-ordinate scheduling, availability, registration numbers, data collection and storage, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and providing tickets to event participants.
There are lots of advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily replicate repeat events, give event managers more control, improve client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting up a web-based event booking system can be quite costly.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-powered website, you can easily install a very inexpensive and highly professional web-based event booking solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin lets you easily schedule multiple events and begin accepting registrations in just a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and accept online event bookings)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich application that gives you complete control of your event registration management process.
Customize registration forms
You can use a number of event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket-selling, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your event participants, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and email marketing systems.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Please Note: 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 considerably different than the older EE 3, as the plugin has been revamped using a different structure to accommodate future growth. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually phase out EE 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and advantages of this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:
Automated Event Registration Management And Ticketing Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website or blog into a fully-featured and automated event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by virtually eliminating the need to process registrations manually.
Essentially, you are facilitating attendees to perform the registration by themselves.
Letting your enrollees to do the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you invest more attention on organizing a memorable event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will discover shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and booking process that you want your clients to experience.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin provides you with a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to developing your own software or using a 3rd party service provider. This is made possible through a model where you start with the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy add ons when you need additional functionality.
- Increased Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept new bookings outside traditional business hours. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social add ons (see below) let people interested in registering for your event invite others who may be interested in attending.
- Paperless Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event signup process remains entirely in digital form, significantly reducing traditional paper waste from tasks related to admin and record-keeping.
- Own Your Data. You control all the information you collect from event participants.
Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to its users through standard features (these are included with the plugin) and optional features that customers can buy for an added cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many built-in to site owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have many dates and times (datetimes), which these can be managed from one single event.
- Event Calendar. Customers can easily see your upcoming events and add these to their schedule with the WordPress calendar.
- Ticket Selector. Present several ticket options to prospects so they can purchase the ticket(s) that best suits their needs.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your theme and display venue information throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Price Types. Price types let event managers create new prices that adjust the default ticket pricing of the system-default ticket.
- Mobile Registration & 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 participants.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of booking event attendees when they show up, or send in paper-based registration forms for manual registration later.
- Ticketless Events. Promote events without requiring attendees to get tickets. Event Espresso can be used for all forms of events, not only when tickets are for sale.
- XML RSS Event Feeds. Keep your site readers updated about your events, drive quality traffic and widen your content reach with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events allow you to build your event in your own timeframe without publishing it to your site. You can continue developing your event pages until you are ready to publish it on your site, or schedule to publish your event at a future time and date.
- Complete Control Of Your Event Management. Event Espresso puts you in full control of every aspect of your event’s registration and ticketing processes, and also lets you automate this process with event management tools that include staff and venue manager, custom event page designs, payment processing and handling, list waiting, attendee limits, print-ready ticketing and more.
- Default Tickets. If you create similar tickets for many of your events, you can easily set one of those tickets as your default ticket for any new events simply by checking a box.
- Venue Profiles. The venue manager in Event Espresso 4 allows details about a venue to appear throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front end of your site to inform registrants of the location of your event. The venue record displays many of the standard WordPress settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also includes venue details such as venue capacity, venue website, phone number, venue location details, location map, etc. You can also display venue profiles on different parts in your theme as well as on a venue listing page on your website where you can set up and publish venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have booked for a given venue.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso provides users with access to a community of experienced event managers, developers, web designers, marketers and businesses who also use the plugin. You can interact with other members of the Event Espresso community via their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event clients who have not paid yet for their booking with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click of a button. Your invoices will address pre-registered customers who have not paid their registration yet by name, display the amount owing, and include a link to the event information, a payment url and a url to download the invoice.
- Categorize Events. If you have several different event types like free and paid, conference speakers and breakout sessions, different types of exercise classes, etc. you can categorize them to help your participants to find what they’re searching for. You can list all events in a category on a custom event category page, make events searchable by category, and colour-code your 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 existing customers.
Additional features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for most WP users, and also extremely robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and web developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, Event Espresso 4 permits more complex extensions and customizations to the software.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. EE 4 allows you to generate a log file with debugging data that can be useful for developers who are potential application errors.
- 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 objectives, the company operates on a modular 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:
- Live-filtering when you search for events inside the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse the same questions for similar events.
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow users to significantly enhance the capabilities of events.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display upcoming events by location. There are 4 maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Manager Add-on: The Recurring Events manager add-on lets you put your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months … even years ahead. You can add as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in advance as you like. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close bookings for all of your recurring events.
- Events Date Range Template Addon: The Date Range custom event list template allows your users to search for events that take place in a certain date range.
- Social Coupons Integration Add-on: If your site is featured on Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can even specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on lets you take full advantage of the WordPress user system. With the WP User Integration addon you can give your users a special incentive by offering member pricing and overriding event prices when members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered users of the site will have access to these special events. Members can also enter personal information into their profile page allowing them to quickly register for events by auto-filling in the personal information on the event booking form. Your users can also view past events and make payment for 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 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 website. The Seating Chart addon lets you control the environment for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach single prices to each seat.
- Multiple Event Registration Add-on: The Multi-Event registration addon gives potential customers the ability to book multiple events at once. In each event listing registrants will be given the option to either register for a single event or add multiple events to their shopping 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.
- EE4 Events Calendar Addon: This add on uses the WP calendar to display events and event categories via an attractive graphical calendar.
- Infusionsoft Integration Add on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft App and Merchant Account integration all-in-one sales and marketing software add on, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture registrant data, track bookings, and accept payments from your web site.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin, including new add-ons.
For complete details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website here:
Customers – Testimonials
Below are just some of the testimonials that plugin users have posted about Event Espresso:
”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
”I searched long and hard to find something that would serve my needs. This is, by far, the most complete and comprehensive solution I have found.” Bill Hepper, We Teach Live
”At first we looked at CVENT for one of our clients and they wanted $16,000 per year for 3000 event attendees + fees totaling $22k. That is before Staff and Webinar fees. Worst of all we had to prepay the $16k amount even if we never used all 3000 attendees. That was when we looked at Event Espresso and we realized we could build our own event system for less than 16K. For the most part we have been very satisfied with our decision. The real ROI will come next year when they don’t have to pay another 16k-22K! Over the next 5-6 years we should be able to claim that we saved the company over $100,000 – Thanks Event Espresso!” David Waterman (Long Version), KT Benefits & InkItDigital.com
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, presenter, concert planner, or event professional, there are just endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a registered owner, visit the user forum for new ideas and practical suggestions to streamline your event management process or enhance the experience of your event participants.
Support
Event Espresso works with with all WordPress plugins and WordPress themes that follow standard WordPress coding rules. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive support, as so many of its satisfied clients attest:
”Thank you Seth for being so responsive and going above and beyond the call of duty with your app! I highly recommend Event Espresso for its functionality and for the stellar support. Seth has a deep knowledge and understanding of WordPress and has built a tool that is seamless to use for both organizer and attendee alike! After looking at a bunch of alternatives, Event Espresso far surpasses the other apps that are available.” Wendy Troupe, ICS North Pole Express
The Event Espresso software provides great support that includes access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, custom development 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 a plugin you can depend on to run your events.
Event Espresso Pricing
Event Espresso is available in a number of editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin options, however, you need to consider downloading one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This allows you to run Event Espresso on one domain only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This license option allows you to install Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on five sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
The cost of purchasing the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the plugin sells for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticketing Registration Plugin For WordPress
Please Note: The pricing above was current at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the site.
Additional Plugin Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the software’s documentation tools for answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to a particular situation, or to report errors and give feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the leading WP event registration and ticketing manager software, used by thousands.
If you are a WordPress user and you intend to run events that involve managing dates, times and venues, enrolling participants, or selling tickets, then you will probably not find a more suitable plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticket Manager Software
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