Do you currently run or plan to run events that require handling registrations, such as workshops, community courses, non-profit fund-raisers, networking conferences, or even a big event like a music festival, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event sign-ups can be a complex and time-consuming process. You need to co-ordinate scheduling, event dates, attendee numbers, data processing and storage, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders and alerts, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to participants.
There are a number of advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower expenses, help you easily duplicate previously-run events, give event managers more control, create a better client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite expensive.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-based website, you can easily set up an inexpensive and highly professional web-based event registration solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin lets you easily set up an event and begin processing bookings literally in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and accept online registrations)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich software that gives you complete control of your event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize your event registration forms
You can use a range of event registration strategies, from simple online enrollments and straight up selling tickets, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your participants, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and autoresponders.
View detailed information about event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their software: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is completely different than the older Event Espresso 3, as it is being rebuilt using a different structure to accommodate future expansion. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually phase out EE 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and advantages of using this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing online presence into a feature-rich and professional 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.
Higher Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by virtually eliminating the chore of processing registrations manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for attendees to perform the registration on their own.
Allowing your clients to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you concentrate more of your time on planning a more enjoyable event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon learn, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management process that you want your clients to experience.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Lower Costs: Event Espresso gives you a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a 3rd party service provider. The cost is kept to a minimum by using a model where Event Espresso users pay for the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then buy add ons when you need added features.
- More Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new event registrations 24 hours a day. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event share your information with other people they know who may also be interested.
- Paperless Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, your event booking process is transacted entirely online, significantly reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks associated with enrollment.
- Own Your Data. You own all the data you collect from your event participants.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to users through standard features (these come with the software) and additional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides a number of features to web site owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Ready to start using in very little time.
- Customized Event Registration Form. Event Espresso lets you collect unique information using a custom event registration form on your site to prepare a tailored experience for your event participants.
- Customized Notification Emails. Easily configure customized automated booking and payment notification emails to communicate with event registrants.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso integrates with payment gateways, enabling you to collect money prior to running events.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your theme and reuse venue details throughout other areas of your site.
- Spam Protection. Eliminate the chance of spamming and bot software programs creating bogus registrations by using reCAPTCHA settings to validate human activity.
- 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 attendees.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of registering event attendees at the door, or sending in paper-based registration forms for manual registration later.
- No Ticket Events. You can set up events without the requirement for participants to select tickets. Event Espresso can be used for any kind of event, not only when tickets are required.
- XML RSS Feeds. Automatically update customers, bring in more visitors and reach a wider number of potential customers with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Keyword-Rich URLs. Keyword-rich event page Web links leverage your WordPress site’s Permalinks configuration settings. SEO-friendly urls with topic-relevant keywords enhance the context of your pages and improves your search rankings, helping you drive more visitors to your site.
- Your Organization Settings. you can configure your profile to display throughout the software and your front-end templates. The organization information include: business name, street address, city, state, country, zip code, email, phone number, VAT/tax number, your logo, Facebook URL, Twitter profile URL, LinkedIn profile URL, Pinterest profile URL, Google+ profile URL, Instagram profile URL.
- Upload Events. Event Espresso 4 provides a CSV-based importing feature that lets you upload a lot of event data all at one time. You can export, edit and import data for events, datetimes, tickets, pricing, registration questions, venue info, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Register Multiple Participants. EE 4 allows a single person or people to register multiple attendees at the same time. Event managers can control how many attendees can register in one registration by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso lets you network with an expert community of experienced event managers and other plugin users. You can engage with other Event Espresso users through their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Social Sharing. Event attendees and your site visitors can tell others about your events using social share buttons.
- 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 also customize the templates to display events in your own custom way.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These allow web developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso application that are compatible with the WordPress software platform.
- Maintenance Mode. Pause registrations for normal site visitors whenever site maintenance is needed. You can continue to work on the back-end of your site during maintenance mode.
- 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 objectives, the company operates on a modular and highly effective model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium version of Event Espresso also comes with over 40 added features, including:
- Duplicating events – simplifies the work of re-entering event data when adding new events.
- Default surcharge (similar to applying a service fee to tickets).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listing pages.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As well as a comprehensive number of features, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow you to further enhance the functionality of your event management system.
Some of these add ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add on: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display all upcoming events by location. Four maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Drop-down Custom Template Add on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize the events with many datetimes into a dropdown list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add-on: The Category Accordion template shows categories as a simple list. Clicking a category name shows all events associated with 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 comes free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- Custom Template Add-on: The Custom Template addon can display your events in a range of exciting and interesting ways.
- Seating Chart Add on: The seating chart add on is suitable 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 add on lets you offer reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues directly from your WordPress website. The Seating Chart addon lets you control the environment for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach single prices to every seat.
- Multi-Event Registration Addon: 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 Add on: The Events Table Template add-on gives you an easy-to-use system that allows you to change the design of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also enables developers to build custom templates using one of the included templates as a source template.
- EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Add-on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and marketing software addon, you can easily automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture customer data, track registrations, and accept payments from your Event Espresso powered website.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software, including new addons.
For more details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website:
User Testimonials
Below are a few of the many testimonials that satisfied users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso rocks! I use it for my dance class registrations. Unlike most dance studios where people have to call or send an email in advance, Event Espresso puts a registration form right there in front of the user and allows me to collect valuable information from the user during the registration process with custom questions such as “Do you have previous dance experience?” or “How did you hear about us?”. It also gives my site a professional look and feel.” Ral, Ral’eau Salsa Dance Company
”I have to say that it has been the right choice for me…I’ve been extremely pleased with the way my site is working.” Robin, RobinTime
”Thank you, we just did 2 sell out seminars of 50 attendees in 48 hours using Event Espresso and it was awesome. My wife was able to pick up on the processing backend with ease. You have done a great job on getting this system together – very simple, clear and well laid out With powerful functionality. I am so glad I dumped the old booking application we had and gave Event Espresso a go. Just wanted to say thanks, and thanks for the very patient, friendly and speedy assistance in helping me to get it all set up at the start. Many thanks to you and your team. A grateful customer.” Nicholas de Castella, Emotional Intelligence Trainings
Plugin Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, trainer, event promoter, or event professional, 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 researching the user forum for inspiration and practical suggestions to improve your event management and registration workflow and enhance the experience of your event customers.
Plugin Support
Event Espresso works with with all WordPress plugins and WP themes that follow standard WordPress coding rules. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great support, as many of its plugin clients confirm:
”By far, the customer service experience with Event Espresso has been the best of any WordPress Theme or Paid Plugin that I’ve used in the past two years!” Megan Murray, Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe
Event Espresso provides comprehensive support including access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase 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.
In addition, Event Espresso boasts an established team of experienced WordPress web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can depend on to organize and manage your events.
Software Price
Event Espresso is available in a range of editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced software features, however, you will want to consider purchasing one of the premium plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This enables you to set up Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This edition enables you to set up Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This license option enables you to install Event Espresso on five sites. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Pricing details of the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the pricing 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 article was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller when you visit the site.
Event Espresso – Additional Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the plugin’s documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to a specific use-case, or to notify developers about bugs and give 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 and trusted by thousands.
If you are a WordPress user and you currently run events that require managing dates, times and venues (offline and online), enrolling participants, or selling tickets, then you will probably not find a better software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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