Do you currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating registrations, such as seminars, training classes, charity fund raisers, marketing events, or even a large-scale event such as a concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Co-ordinating event bookings is a time-consuming process. You may have to manage calendar schedules, date availability, participant numbers, data administration, payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to participants.
There are lots of benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily reproduce previous events, give event managers more control, improve user experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be costly.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-based digital presence, you can set up a very inexpensive and professional online event booking solution.
Announcing …
Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Manager
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software enables you to easily create your event and start processing online bookings literally in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and accept online registrations)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed application that gives you complete control of your event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize registration forms
You can use several event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up selling tickets, 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 solutions.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is considerably different than the older EE 3, as the software has been redeveloped using a different structure to allow for future expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually transition completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and features of using the plugin.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages 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 website or blog into an automated and fully featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple pricing options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by literally eliminating the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for attendees to enrol on their own.
Allowing your customers to do all of the data entry frees up your time and lets you spend more of your time on delivering a memorable event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon discover, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and booking process that you want your users to experience.
Additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Less Costs: Event Espresso gives you an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to building your own solution or using a third-party provider. The cost is kept to a minimum through a model where Event Espresso users buy the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and buy optional addons when you need added features.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept new sign-ups 24 hours a day. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social addons (see below) let people interested in registering for your event share your information with others who may also be interested.
- Green And Paperless Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign up process is performed entirely online, significantly reducing traditional paper waste from tasks associated with administration.
- Own Your Data. You own all the information gathered from your event attendees.
Features
The Event Espresso plugin provides functionality to its customers via standard features (these are included with the software) and optional features that users can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many built-in to website owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to start accepting registrations in very little time.
- Custom Event Registration Form. With Event Espresso you can gather specific information using custom event registration forms on your website to create a tailored experience for your attendees.
- Customized Notification Email Message. Configure automatic registration and payment notification emails to communicate with event participants.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso seamlessly integrates with payment gateways, enabling you to collect registration fees before running events.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration enables event managers to customize the look and control settings of Google Maps on your event listing and event details pages.
- Default Price Types. Price types let you create new prices that adjust the default ticket price for the default ticket.
- Promotional Codes. You can leverage promotional and discount codes to incentivize visitors to register without hesitation, or make your offers more affordable for price-sensitive prospects. This is also practical if you want to sell out events close to deadlines.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. EE 4 lets you gain a better understanding of who your customers are and how you’ve previously engaged with them. The Contact Profile section stores updated records like the name, biography, contact details, event registration details, private comments, etc. about each registrant.
- Waiting Lists. Prospective participants can subscribe to a waiting list if your event has reached capacity. Additionally, you can make it a requirement wait-listed registrants pay for their spots if you plan to add more capacity for the event.
- RSS Event Feeds. Keep your users updated about your events, drive quality traffic and reach a wider number of potential customers with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Works With The Latest Version Of WordPress. The EE 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you create beautifully-designed event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Full Control Of Your Event Management. Event Espresso puts you in complete control of all aspects of an event’s registration and ticketing processes, and also allows you to automate the process with event management tools that include staff and venue manager, customizable event page designs, payment processing and handling, wait lists, limits on attendees, print-ready tickets and more.
- Exportable Data. You can export all the information gathered from your event attendees into Excel or CSV format for compiling reports, planning new marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, etc..
- WordPress Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the default WordPress Visual editor, so you can quickly and easily insert photos and stylize your content without knowledge of HTML or CSS, just like any WP post or page.
- 1-Click Updates. Event Espresso offers simple one-click upgrading to make sure that you have the newest features and to keep your installation compatible with new versions of WordPress.
- Staff Manager. Save time and keep your information organized by reusing staff profiles for multiple events or displaying profile information such as staff member’s contact information, resume and photo using a shortcode in any event description.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post types. You can also customize the templates to display events in your own unique way.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These features allow you to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso plugin that are compatible with WordPress.
- Maintenance Mode. Pause registration capabilities for regular website traffic whenever you need to make updates on your website. You can still work on your event pages during maintenance mode.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value: According to the mission statement on their site, Event Espresso’s aim 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 company operates on a modular and effective model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also comes with 40+ added features, including:
- Email shortcodes that includes attendee data in emails and updates.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing a series of questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, 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 the scheduled events by location. 4 maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Manager Add-on: The Recurring Events manager add on allows you to put your events on autopilot by scheduling repeated events weeks or months … even years ahead. You can create as many future events as you like. Event Espresso will automatically open and close bookings for all 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 be customized to show the event thumbnail image instead of the date.
- 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.
- Custom Template Addon: The Custom Template addon is capable of displaying your events in a range of exciting and interesting ways.
- Seating Chart Add on: The seating chart add on is for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is 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 directly from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart addon lets you manage the experience for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach single pricing to each seat.
- Multiple Event Registration Add-on: The Multiple Event registration add-on gives potential attendees 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 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.
- EE4 Events Table Template Addon: The Events Table Template add on gives event managers an easy-to-use system that allows you to modify 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 allows developers to design their own custom templates using one of the templates included as a base template.
- JSON API Addon: The Event Espresso JSON API add on enables other software applications, web tools, mobile apps, etc… to access your Event Espresso information through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin, including new addons.
For complete details about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, check out the plugin here:
User Testimonials
Below are just some of the testimonials that satisfied plugin users 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
”Event Espresso event management plugin for WordPress is really an awesome plugin.” Cheryl Smithem, Charleston PR & Design
”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, event promoter, or event consultant, 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 licensed user, spend a little time going through the user forum for new ideas and practical ways to improve your event management process or enhance the experience of your event participants.
Support
Event Espresso works with with most WordPress plugins and WP themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you do need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive customer support, as so many of its plugin users confirm:
”No complaints here. Satisfied customer. You can teach us all few things about customer service. Thanks!” Charles
The software provides comprehensive support with access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, one-on-one 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 a well-staffed team of experienced WordPress developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely software you can rely on to manage your events.
Software Cost
Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software options, however, you need to consider purchasing one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal Edition – This allows you to set up Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This edition allows you to install Event Espresso on 1 site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on 5 domains. It includes 51+ Premium features, (addons 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. When we last checked, the plugin retails for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The above reflects the pricing when this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Additional Information
Event Espresso regularly adds 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.
Search the plugin’s documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to a specific situation, or to report problems and leave feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event registration and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of WordPress site owners.
If you are a WordPress user and you plan to run any event that involves managing dates, times and venues, booking attendees, or reserving seating, then you will probably not find a better plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – Event Manager And Ticketing Registration Software For WordPress
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