Do you currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating bookings, such as workshops, community courses, charity fundraisers, networking 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?
Managing event bookings can be a complex process. You may need to manage event schedules, date availability, registration numbers, data entry, payments and invoicing, confirmations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and providing tickets to attendees.
There are a number of benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower costs, help you easily copy settings for previous events, give event managers more control, improve customer experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be expensive.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-powered website, you can download and install a very inexpensive and professional online event booking solution.
Announcing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software allows you to easily set up your event and start accepting online registrations literally in a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and process online event bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed application that gives you complete control over the event registration management process.
Create custom event registration forms
You can use various event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up ticket-selling, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your attendees, or integrating your event bookings with social media sites like Facebook.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Note: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is significantly different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the software has been redeveloped using a different structure to allow for future growth and expansion. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually transition completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
Learn more about the plugin here:
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current web site into a fully-featured and automated event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple price levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by literally eliminating the chore of processing registrations manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for event participants to enrol themselves.
Allowing your enrollees to do the data themselves frees you up from doing administration and lets you concentrate more energy on creating a better event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will learn in a moment, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and booking process that you want your participants to experience.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Lower Costs: Event Espresso gives you an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third-party provider. This is made possible through a model where Event Espresso users buy the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy addons when you need additional functionality.
- Increased Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept new event registrations 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features and add ons (see below) let people interested in attending your event invite their friends who may also be interested in attending.
- Paperless Event SignUp Process: With Event Espresso, your event booking process is conducted entirely online, reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks related to enrollment.
- All Data Belongs To You. You own all the information collected from event attendees.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to its customers through standard features (these come with the plugin) and additional features that customers can buy for an extra cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many unique built-in to WordPress users. Here are just some of these:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to use in no time.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso lets you create multiple ticket types and set separate prices, number of tickets, and more.
- WordPress Event Calendar. Participants can easily see your events and add these to their schedule using a calendar.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso seamlessly integrates with several payment gateways, allowing you to collect booking fees prior to running the events.
- Smart Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is smart, fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically copy the primary attendee’s registration details for any added attendees.
- Default Prices. Set up events quickly and easily with pre-configured default pricing.
- Promotional Codes. You can leverage promotion and discount codes to incentivize people to take action immediately, or make your offerings more affordable for others. This is also practical for helping to sell out events close to deadlines.
- Manual Registration Option. you have the option of registering event attendees at the door, or sending in paper registration forms for manual processing later.
- No Ticket Events. You can promote events without making it necessary for participants to get tickets. Use Event Espresso for any type of event, not just those that accept tickets.
- Private Contact Notes. Keep observations about a contact on their profile and how you have helped them. Private commenting lets you keep a record of when users contacted you, your internal notes, and how you have assisted them.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events let you develop your event page in your own time-frame without displaying it live on your website. You can keep working on your events until you are ready to take things live, or schedule your event to publish at a future time and date.
- Country-specific Settings. You can configure the country and currency settings that will be used throughout Event Espresso, such as currency name, currency signs, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, states or provinces, and so on.
- Import Events. EE 4 provides an advanced importing capability that enables you to quickly upload bulk event data at once. You can export, edit and upload data for events, datetimes, ticketing details, pricing, registration questions, venues, terminology, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the native WordPress Visual editor, allowing you to quickly and easily insert graphic images and format your event descriptions without having to learn HTML or CSS, just like any standard WP post.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso lets you engage with an expert community of experienced event managers and plugin users. You can engage with other members of the Event Espresso community using their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential attendees who have not made payment for their admission with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click of a button. Your invoices will reference pre-registered attendees who have not paid their registration yet by name, give them the amount they owe, and include links to the event, a payment link and a link to download the invoice.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post type features such as custom fields, post meta data, taxonomies, etc. You can even customize the templates to display events in your own unique way.
Extra features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This feature allows web developers to have more control and options over the content of your events and how your information displays to prospects.
- Maintenance Mode. Pause registrations for regular website traffic when website maintenance is needed. You can still work on your event pages during maintenance mode.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And 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 company operates on a modular and efficient 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+ additional features, including:
- Email shortcodes that includes customer data in emails and newsletters.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse a group of questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow users to significantly enhance the functionality of the event management process.
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. 4 maps are currently 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 repeated events weeks or months … even years ahead. You can schedule as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in the future as you like. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close bookings for all of your recurring events.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add on: The Category Accordion template displays the categories in a simple list. Clicking on a category name displays all 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.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration addon allows you to take advantage of the WP user system. With the WP User Integration add-on you can give your users a special incentive by offering member prices and overriding event prices when members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered site users can have access to your special events. Members can also input personal details into their profile page allowing them fast registration for events by auto-filling in the personal information on the event booking form. Users can also view event history 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 for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart addon allows you to 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 customers and design assigned seating charts and attach single prices to every seat.
- Event Ticketing And Bar Scanning Add on: The Ticketing add on adds the capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add-on adds 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. Customers can either print out their tickets or display them on their mobile devices. The barcode scanner can be used for checking in or checking out attendees and to validate tickets.
- EE4 Events Calendar Add-on: This add-on uses the WordPress calendar to display events and categories of events using a nice graphical calendar.
- Infusionsoft Integration Add on: 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 registrant data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your Event Espresso powered website.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software, including new add ons.
To learn more about the newest Event Espreso features and add ons, check out the plugin here:
Customer Feedback
Here are a few of the testimonials that users have posted about Event Espresso:
”It’s been very comprehensive and covers exactly the aspects of event registration that we needed for our site plus some features that we didn’t even need but could still use in the future. Very Excellent Plugin!” Tristan Hall, Area 12:2 Youth Group
”Customizing an Event Registration plugin for WordPress by @EventEspresso. Love the pro version. Highly Recommended!” Joshua Garity
”I am in love with your product, I work with many educational institutions that hold classes/events and I will definitely recommend this to all of them, the only time I have seen a system this comprehensive and sophisticated is when an organization I worked with paid a programmer nearly $8,000 for a custom solution, and yet still there are features in your registration system that his didn’t have. Thank you so much for your help and patience.” Abdullah J.
Useful Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, trainer, event promoter, or event management consultant, there are simply unlimited possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, visit the forums for inspiration and practical ways to improve your event management workflow or enhance the experience of your event customers.
Support
Event Espresso works with with all WP plugins and themes that follow standard WordPress coding rules. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great customer support, as so many of its customers attest:
”It’s magical. Support is amazing, plugin is simple to use, a 3 year old could use the iPhone app…it all is very impressive and professional.” David, House of Prayer
The plugin provides great support that includes access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, email 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 web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can count on to organize and manage your events.
Software Cost
Event Espresso is available in a range of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced software options, however, you should consider purchasing one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal Edition – This allows you to set up 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 install Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License – This license option lets you set up Event Espresso on five sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
The price of the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software is selling for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Manager
Note: The pricing above was current at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin. Make sure to remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Look up the plugin’s online documentation tools for answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to a specific situation, or to notify developers about errors and leave feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product information pages.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing manager software, used and trusted by thousands of people.
If you own a WordPress site and you currently run events that involve managing dates and venues (offline and online), booking attendees, or selling tickets, then you will probably not find a better plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – Event Manager & Registration Software For WordPress
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