Does your organization currently run or plan to run events that need managing registrations, such as seminars, group classes, not-for-profit fundraisers, social functions, or even a big event like a dance party, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Managing event bookings can be a complex process. You will probably have to co-ordinate event schedules, availability, registration numbers, data collection and storage, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to attendees.
There are lots of advantages to setting up an automated web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily copy settings for repeat events, give event managers more control, create a better user experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite expensive.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-powered website, you can install a very inexpensive and highly professional web-based event booking solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticket Management Software
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software allows you to easily set up multiple events and begin accepting registrations in just a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and take online event bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich application that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize registration forms
You can employ several event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up ticket-selling, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event attendees, or integrating your event bookings with social media and email marketing software.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Note: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is completely different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the platform is being revamped using a different structure to allow for future growth and expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually migrate completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and advantages of using this plugin.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website:
Automated Event Registration Management And Ticketing Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing web site into a 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.
Better 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 chore of processing registrations manually.
Basically, you are facilitating attendees to enrol by themselves.
Allowing your customers to do all of the data entry frees up your time and lets you focus more of your time on planning a memorable event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and booking process that you want your customers to experience.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Reduced Costs: Event Espresso is an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third party provider. This is made possible by using a model where Event Espresso users purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy optional addons only if you need added features.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online event bookings outside normal business hours. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing addons (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event invite others who may also be interested in attending.
- Green And Paperless Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event registration process can be performed entirely in digital form, significantly reducing typical paper waste from tasks associated with admin and record-storage.
- Own Your Data. You control all the data obtained from your event participants.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to its users through standard features (these are included with the plugin) and additional features that customers can buy for an added cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many unique built-in to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to start using in no time.
- Multiple Dates and Times Per Event. In EE 4, events can have multiple dates and times (called datetimes), and these can be managed from a single event.
- Custom Notification Email Message. Easily configure automatic registration and payment confirmation emails to communicate with event participants.
- Tax Administration. Event Espresso 4 gives you a number of ways to handle taxes for your event and provide reports of tax fees to customers when purchasing tickets. Event managers can configure taxes globally or on a ticket-by-ticket basis.
- Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your WordPress theme and reuse contact details throughout other areas of your site.
- Spam Protection. Prevent the chance of spamming and robots making bogus registrations by using reCAPTCHA features that provide human validation.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system allows you to authenticate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, set up various check-in “stations” and track your participants.
- Event Check-In List. Generate a list of event registrants and check-in those who attend.
- Waiting Lists. Prospective participants can join a waiting list if your event has become sold out. You can also make it a requirement wait-listed registrants pay for their spots if you plan to expand numbers for the event.
- Private Contact Notes. Record observations about contacts on their profile. Private notes lets you keep records of when users contacted you, your internal comments, and how you’ve interacted with your customers.
- Keyword Rich Page URLs. Keyword rich event page URLs leverage your Permalinks configuration settings. SEO-friendly web links that use topic-relevant keywords enhance the context of your pages and improves your search rankings, helping you bring more visitors to your site.
- 15+ Languages. Event Espresso has been translated into more than 15 languages, with more languages planned.
- Exportable Data. You can export all of your data collected from event participants into Excel or CSV format for compiling reports, implementing new marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, and so on.
- Event Venue Manager. The venue manager feature in EE 4 allows details about venues to display throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front-end of your site to inform visitors of your event’s location. The venue profile has many standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also includes information such as venue seating capacity, venue site URL, phone number, physical, Google map, etc. You can also list venues throughout various parts on your WP theme and on a venue archive page on your site where you can set up and reuse venue profiles for multiple events or display all the events for a specific venue.
- Attendee Profiles. You can manage your attendee’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their data organized and easily within reach.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential registrants who have not paid yet for their booking with a standard but personalized PDF invoice with one click. Your invoices will reference registered participants who have not paid their registration in full by name, display the amount owing, and include links to the event, a payment link and a url to download the invoice.
- Accurate Event Participant Management. You have control of your attendees’ details; who has enrolled, for what event and what amount they paid. With the attendee manager, you can get a quick overview of registered attendees and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export a list of attendees to an Excel spreadsheet for additional uses, send customized payment reminders and receipts and communicate with your clients individually or collectively.
Extra features include:
- Hooks, Actions And Filters. These allow you to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso plugin that are compatible with the WordPress development platform.
- Control Box Management And Reorganization. Event Espresso lets you leverage the WP user interface, which gives you the ability to reorganize the user interface to suit your workflow process. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or deleted from your page.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & 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 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 edition of Event Espresso also includes over 40 additional features, including:
- Live-filtering when searching for events within the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing the same questions for similar events.
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Add ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow you to further expand the capabilities of your event management system.
Some of these addons 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 the event does not have a featured image available, it will use a default image.
- Recurring Events Manager Addon: The Recurring Events management add on enables you to put events on autopilot by scheduling repeated events weeks or months in advance. You can schedule as many events in the future as you want. Event Espresso will automatically open and close registrations for all of these recurring events.
- Events Category Accordion Template Addon: The Category Accordion template displays event categories as a simple list. Clicking the category name shows the events related to that category and closes any previously open categories.
- Social Media Buttons Add on: The social media addon displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media add on is included free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- Custom Files Add on: The Custom Files add on allows you to bypass certain aspects of the plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Add on Editions: This add-on lets you involve your staff in your organization to help manage your events and give new users the capacity to create events or regional managers the capacity to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WP users roles and allow them different permissions with different capabilities, allowing staff to help you manage your events or events that other people create. You can customize roles so that users do not have access to certain sections of your WP dashboard and/or certain sections of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to create geographic regions for other people to manage events, use the Roles and Permissions Pro addon.
- Multiple Event Registration Addon: The Multiple Event registration add-on gives your potential customers the ability to book 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 Multiple Event Registration addon, 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 Calendar Add on: This add on uses the WP calendar to display events and event categories using a nice graphical calendar.
- JSON API Add-on: The Event Espresso JSON API add on permits other applications, websites, mobile apps, etc… to access your Event Espresso data through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software, including new addons.
For complete details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website:
Plugin Users – Feedback
Here are some of the many testimonials that customers have posted about Event Espresso:
”Congratulations on an absolutely fantastic plugin. I’m really impressed with its functionality and add on features and will definitely upgrade my client’s production site to the premium version (when ready for launch) to incorporate all the features. As I have told another client “this plugin is the cat’s meow”.” Pete Mansel
”I recently downloaded it to add to a nonprofit site for a Boy Scout troop and the features work wonderfully with what we wanted to accomplish for the site. It allows us to set up calendar, events, and even take payments for trips. At first, I thought that it would be overkill for such a small site, but now I see the possibilities and will definitely be offering Event Espresso to my clients that need an event organization system for their web sites.” Lucy Conn, Troop 462
”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
Plugin Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, teacher, concert promoter, or event management professional, there are simply countless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a licensed user, go through the support forum for new ideas and practical ways to improve your event management and registration workflow and enhance the experience of your customers.
Plugin Support
Event Espresso works with with other WP plugins and themes that follow standard WordPress development rules. If you do need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent support, as so many of its plugin clients confirm:
”These guys are right on any problem or issue or even general questions. You can’t really put a value high enough on the kind of support these guys offer.” Mark Wigston, Muskoka Graphics
Event Espresso provides robust support with access to support forums, in-depth 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.
Additionally, Event Espresso boasts a well-staffed team of experienced web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can rely on to run and manage your events.
Software Pricing
Event Espresso is available in different editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin options, however, you need to consider downloading one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal Licensing – This allows you to run Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License – This lets you configure Event Espresso on one domain only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Edition – This lets you configure Event Espresso on five domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Current pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin sells for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticketing Registration Plugin For WordPress
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing when this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the site.
Event Espresso – Additional Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the software’s online documentation tools to find 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 notify developers about issues and give feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product web site.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of users.
If you own a WordPress-powered web site and you plan to run an event that involves scheduling dates, times and venues, registering participants, and/or reserving seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticketing Registration Plugin For WordPress
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