Does your business currently run or plan to run events that need co-ordinating bookings, such as workshops, community courses, charity fund raisers, marketing 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 register to attend?
Co-ordinating event registrations is a complicated and time-consuming process. You will most likely be required to co-ordinate event schedules, available dates and seating, registration numbers, data collection and storage, collecting payments and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders and alerts, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and delivering tickets to event attendees.
There are a number of benefits to setting up an online event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce costs, help you easily duplicate previous events, give you more control, create a better client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be costly.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-based digital presence, you can download and install an inexpensive and professional online event booking system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Manager
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin lets you easily schedule an event and start accepting registrations in just minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online event bookings)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed plugin that gives you complete control of your event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can employ a number of event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket-selling, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing notifications.
View detailed information about event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is significantly different than the older EE 3, as the software is being redeveloped using a different structure to accommodate future expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually retire EE 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and advantages of this plugin.
Learn more here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits 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 emails, to attendee limits, multiple pricing options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by virtually doing away with the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.
Essentially, you are enabling event participants to perform the registration on their own.
Letting your participants to do all of the data entry frees you up from doing admin work and lets you spend more attention on organizing a memorable event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will discover shortly, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management and booking process that you want your participants to experience.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Less Costs: Event Espresso gives you a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to building your own system or using a third-party provider. This is made possible by using a model where you purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy add-ons only if you need new features.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online registrations 24 hours a day. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing features (see below) let people interested in registering for your event invite their friends who may also be interested in attending.
- Green & Paperless Event SignUp Process: With Event Espresso, the event signup process can remain entirely online, eliminating traditional paper waste from tasks related to administration.
- Own Your Data. You control all the data you obtain from event participants.
Plugin Features
The Event Espresso plugin delivers functionality to users through built-in features (these come with the software) and additional features that users can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many features to web site owners. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In EE 4, events can have many dates and times (called datetimes), which these can be managed from one single event.
- Customizable Event Page Designs. You can customize your events and enrollments page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and parts, plus HTML and CSS.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso provides integration with several payment gateways, enabling you to collect payments before running events.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your theme and display registrant details throughout other areas of your site.
- Spam Protection. Eliminate the likelihood of spammers and bots making bogus registrations on your web site by using reCAPTCHA tools that authenticate human activity.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system enables you to authenticate tickets, speed up door registrations, create various check-in “stations” and track participants.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of registering event attendees at the door, or sending in paper-based registration forms for manual submission later.
- Administrative Pre-approval. Be selective about who can and can’t attend your events.
- Public Commenting. Add social engagement to your events by encouraging potential registrants to interact with you online via commenting and previous attendees to post feedback that can help others consider whether or not to sign up. Moderation settings for public commenting are set in the WP native commenting system.
- Draft Events. Draft events let you build an event over time without displaying it live on your site. You can work on your event until you are ready to publish it live to your website, or schedule your event to publish at a later date and time.
- Your Organization Settings. you can configure your organization’s profile to display throughout the plugin and your front-end templates. The organization fields include: company name, street address, city, state, country, zip/postal code, email address, telephone number, VAT/tax number, company logo, Facebook profile URL, Twitter URL, LinkedIn URL, Pinterest profile URL, Google+ URL, Instagram URL.
- Exportable Data. You can export all the data gathered from event customers into Excel or CSV format for compiling reports, planning new marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, and so on.
- WP WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the native WordPress WYSIWYG editor, allowing you to quickly and easily add graphic images and write your event descriptions without having to know HTML or CSS, just like any typical WordPress post or page.
- Automatic Updating. Event Espresso provides easy one-click software upgrading to ensure that you have the latest features and to keep your software installation working with new versions of WordPress.
- Social Sharing. Event registrants and your website visitors can tell others about your event using social media share buttons.
- Accurate Participant Management. You control your attendees’ details; who has enrolled, for what event and how much they have paid. With the attendee manager, you can get an overview of registered attendees and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export an event attendee list to Excel for additional reports, send custom payment reminders and receipts and communicate with your participants individually or collectively.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming. Event Espresso is simple enough for most WordPress users, and also extremely robust and customizable for higher end users and web-based software developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, Event Espresso 4 allows for more complex extensions and customizations to the application.
- Maintenance Mode. You can pause registration capabilities for normal site traffic whenever you need to make changes on your website. You can continue to work on the back-end of your site during maintenance mode.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & 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 that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium version of Event Espresso also includes 40+ added features, including:
- Live-filtering when you search for events in the Event Espresso admin.
- Default surcharge (similar to applying a service tax to every ticket).
- Option to skip the confirmation page during the registration process.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As well as an incredible array of features, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow customers to further enhance the functionality of managing your event.
Some of these add ons include:
- 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, a default image will be used.
- Recurring Events Management Addon: The Recurring Events management add on allows you to put events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months … even years ahead. You can create as many future events as you like. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all recurring events.
- Events Category Accordion Template Addon: The Category Accordion template displays categories as a simple list. Clicking on a category name displays the events associated with that category and closes previously open categories.
- EE4 Events Social Sharing Add-on: Add social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that allows your attendees to post a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after booking.
- Custom Template Add-on: The Custom Template addon lets you display your event lists in a range of visually exciting ways.
- Seating Chart Add-on: The seating chart addon 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 addon lets you offer 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 a single price to each seat.
- EE4 Event Ticketing & Bar Scanning Add on: The Ticketing add-on gives you the capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon adds the capacity to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing addon includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for managing check-in scans at the door. Attendees can either print out their tickets or display them on their mobile devices. The mobile app can be used for checking in or checking out attendees and to validate tickets.
- EE4 Events Table Template Add-on: The Events Table Template addon provides event managers with an easy-to-use system that lets you 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 lets developers build their own custom templates using one of the included templates as a base template.
- MailChimp Integration: The MailChimp add-on lets you automatically register attendees to a chosen autoresponder list or group within MailChimp.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software, including new addons.
To learn more about the newest Event Espreso features and add ons, visit the plugin website:
Testimonials
Below are some of the many testimonials that plugin users have written about Event Espresso:
”I want to commend you on a fabulous product which is just the right price for a small non-profit. People are happy with the registration process, as are we! …Thank you SO much for a great product.” Sandra Forero Bush, World Trade Center Tacoma
”Customizing an Event Registration plugin for WordPress by @EventEspresso. Love the pro version. Highly Recommended!” Joshua Garity
”Event Espresso is very nice and functional plugin. Set it up is not very easy for a beginner like me, but you have one of the best support team in your side. They answer all questions in a timely manor. I didn’t know anything about setting up the plugins, Thanks to Event Espresso Support team that now I can find my way around this plugin. Event Espresso helps our company to manage the workshops, keep track of our students, manage the emails, and much more. We upgrade from personal License to Business license in just two weeks of using Personal license. I strongly recommend the Business license.” Ted Karlsalr, Omnilargess
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, trainer, festival promoter, or event professional, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a registered owner, spend a little time going through the forums for tips and practical ways to streamline your event management and registration workflow and enhance the experience of your attendees.
Product Support
Event Espresso works with with other WP plugins and themes that follow WP coding standards. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great support, as 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
Event Espresso provides incredible support with access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase 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 web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can rely on to organize and manage your events.
Plugin Cost
Event Espresso is available in a range of editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin functionality, however, you need to consider purchasing one of the ”Pro” plugin editions below:
- Personal Edition – This allows you to run Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License – This license option allows you to install Event Espresso on one site only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This lets you set up Event Espresso on 5 sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Current pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the software retails for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticketing Management
Note: The pricing above was current at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer 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 remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the plugin’s online documentation pages for answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to your specific situation, or to notify developers about bugs and share feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing management plugin, used and trusted by thousands of users.
If you own a WordPress site and you intend to run events that involve managing dates, times and venues (offline and online), registering participants, or selling tickets, then you will probably not find a better WordPress plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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