Do you currently run or plan to run events that need managing bookings, such as seminars, community courses, non-profit fund raisers, marketing events, or even a large-scale event like an exhibition, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Co-ordinating event registrations can be a complicated and time-consuming process. You need to co-ordinate scheduling, dates, registration numbers, data entry, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and providing tickets to event participants.
There are lots of advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce costs, help you easily copy settings for repeat events, give you more control, create a more enjoyable client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite expensive.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-powered digital presence, you can download and install an inexpensive and highly professional online event booking solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WP enables you to easily schedule multiple events and begin accepting online registrations literally in a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online event bookings)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich application that gives you complete control over the event registration management process.
Customize your event registration forms
You can employ a number of event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your participants, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and autoresponders.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is completely different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the plugin is being redeveloped using a different structure to enable future growth. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually transition 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:
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing digital presence into a fully-featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by virtually eliminating the need to process registrations and sign-ups manually.
Essentially, you are facilitating participants to enrol by themselves.
Allowing your customers to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you concentrate more attention on planning a better event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon learn, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management process that you want your customers to experience.
Additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Reduced Costs: The Event Espresso plugin provides you with a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to building your own software or using a third-party service provider. This is made possible by using a model where Event Espresso users start with the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and buy add ons only when you need additional functionality.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept online event signups 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing features and add-ons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event share your information with friends who may also be interested.
- Paperless Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, your event booking process remains wholly online, significantly reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks associated with admin and record-keeping.
- All Information Belongs To You. You control all the data gathered from your event attendees.
Plugin Features
The Event Espresso software provides functionality to users through standard features (these are included with the plugin) and optional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides a number of features to WP users. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Ready to start using in no time.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso allows you to create as many types of tickets as you need and specify prices, maximum number of tickets, etc.
- Custom Confirmation Email Message. Easily set up custom automatic registration and payment notification emails to communicate with your clients.
- Ticket Selector. Present a number of ticket options to prospects so they can choose the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration allows you to configure the look and control settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details sections.
- Default Prices. Set up events quickly by pre-configuring default ticket pricing.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system enables you to authenticate tickets, speed up door registrations, set up various check-in “stations” and track attendees.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. EE 4 lets you know who your customers are and how they have done business with you.
- Waiting Lists. Latecomers can join a waiting list if your event is completely sold out. You can also make it a requirement wait-list registrants pay for their spots if you plan to add more capacity for your event.
- Event RSS Feeds. Keep your site readers up-to-date about your events, drive quality traffic and reach a wider audience with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Keyword-Rich Page URLs. Keyword-rich Web links leverage your WP Permalinks configuration settings. “Pretty” web links that use relevant keywords add to the context of your events and improves your search rankings, helping you drive a more targeted audience to your events.
- Your Organization Settings. Configure your organization’s profile to display throughout the plugin and your WordPress themes. Your organization fields include: organization name, address, city, state, country, zip/postal code, email, phone, VAT/tax number, logo, Facebook profile URL, Twitter URL, LinkedIn URL, Pinterest URL, Google+ URL, Instagram URL.
- Upload Event Data. Event Espresso 4 provides a CSV-based importing capability that lets you upload a lot of event data all at one time. You can export, edit and upload data for events, datetimes, tickets, prices, custom registration questions, venues, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Multiple Event Attendee. Event Espresso 4 allows one person or an organization to enroll multiple attendees at once. You control how many people are allowed to enroll in a single registration by specifying either limits on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso gives you access to an expert community of event managers and plugin users. You can interact with other Event Espresso users via their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event participants who have not made payment for their booking with a standard but personalized PDF invoice with just one click. Your invoices will reference pre-registered customers who have not paid their registration in full by name, display the balance they owe, and include a link to the event, a payment link and a link to download a PDF invoice.
- Accurate Event Participant Manager. You have control of your attendees’ date; who has enrolled, for what event and how much they’ve 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 a spreadsheet for additional uses, send custom payment reminders and receipts and communicate with your event attendees on a person-by-person basis or all at once.
Extra features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This allows web developers to have more control and options over your content and how the information displays to your visitors.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 lets you generate a log file with debugging data that can be useful for developers who are potential problems.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & Value For Money: According to the philosophy stated on their web site, Event Espresso’s goal 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 software has been built using 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 includes 40+ added features, including:
- Live-filtering when searching for events within the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse a group of questions for similar events.
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow users to significantly expand the functionality of managing an event.
Some of these add ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display scheduled events by location. There are four maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Manager Add-on: The Recurring Events management add on enables 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 want. Event Espresso will then 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 also be customized to display an event thumbnail instead of the date.
- Social Media Buttons Addon: The social media addon displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media add-on comes free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on lets you take advantage of the WP 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 your members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered users of the site can have access to your special events. Members can also store personal data into their profile page allowing them fast registration for events by auto-filling in their personal information on the event booking form. Users can also look up past events and pay for new events.
- Seating Chart Add on: The seating chart addon is for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is perfect for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart add on allows you to promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress website. 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.
- Event Ticketing Addon: The Ticketing add on gives you the ability to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon gives you the ability to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing add-on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for handling check-in scans at the door. Registrants 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 View Template Add-on: The Events Table Template add-on gives event managers a simple and easy-to-use system that allows you to edit 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 web developers to design their own custom templates using one of the included templates as a base template.
- EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Addon: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and marketing plugin add on, you can easily automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture customer data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your Event Espresso powered website.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin, including new addons.
For complete details about the newest Event Espreso features and add ons, check out the plugin here:
Customers – Testimonials
Below are just some of the many great testimonials that satisfied 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
“I just completed my first event using Event Espresso. I really believe without Event Espresso my event would not have been the success it was.” Cathy Earle, Women Only Weekend
”I played around with the free version for a couple hours then purchased the Pro for a client. Love it and so do they! Sweetest Event plugin I have tried.” Bill Chambers, Bill Chambers Design
Plugin Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, presenter, workshop planner, or event professional, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, spend a little time visiting the forums for inspiration and practical ways to improve your event management process or improve the experience of your event participants.
Support
Event Espresso works with with other WordPress plugins and WordPress themes that follow standard WP development rules. If you do need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent customer support, as many of its plugin users confirm:
”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 plugin provides great support including access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, priority 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.
Additionally, Event Espresso boasts an established team of experienced WordPress developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can count on to manage your events.
Event Espresso Pricing
Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced software functionality, however, you may want to consider using one of the premium plugin editions below:
- Personal Edition – This license enables you to configure Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This option enables you to configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This license enables you to configure Event Espresso on 5 domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
The cost to purchase the Event Espresso plugin depends 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 current price: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Management
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing when this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding 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 software’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to a particular use-case, 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.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing management plugin, used by thousands of users.
If you are a WordPress user and you plan to run any event that involves scheduling dates and venues, registering attendees, and/or selling seating, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticket Manager Plugin
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