Does your business currently run or plan to run events that require managing bookings, such as workshops, group classes, charity fund raisers, social conferences, or even a large-scale event like 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 complex process. You need to manage scheduling, available dates and seating, registration numbers, data collection and storage, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and delivering tickets to attendees.
There are a number of advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily copy settings for previously-run events, give you more control, create a more enjoyable user experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting up an online event booking system can be very costly.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-powered digital presence, you can install a very inexpensive and professional web-based event registration solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Management System
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software allows you to easily schedule your event and begin receiving online bookings in just a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and accept online event bookings)
Event Espresso is a feature-packed application that gives you full control over your event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize registration forms
You can use a range of event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up selling tickets, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media sites like Facebook.
View detailed information about event attendees
Note: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their software: EE 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is fundamentally different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the software is being redeveloped using a different structure to accommodate future growth and expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually retire Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and advantages of this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Automated Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website or blog into a fully-featured and automated event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by practically eliminating the need to process registrations and signups manually.
Basically, you are facilitating event attendees to complete the registration process by themselves.
Letting your clients to do the data entry frees up your time and lets you focus more of your time on creating a more enjoyable event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon see, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management process that you want your users to experience.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Reduced Costs: Event Espresso provides you with an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third-party service provider. This is made possible by using a model where Event Espresso users buy the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then buy add ons when you need extra functionality.
- More Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new event bookings any time of day or night. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing add ons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event share your information with others who may also be interested.
- Green & Paperless Event Booking Process: With Event Espresso, your event booking process remains wholly online, reducing typical paper waste from tasks associated with admin and record-keeping.
- Own Your Data. You own all the information collected from event participants.
Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to its users via built-in features (these come with the software) and additional features that users can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Custom Event Registration Forms. With Event Espresso you can gather specific information using custom event registration forms on your website to create a customized experience for your event participants.
- Customizable Event Page Designs. Create a custom design for your events and registrations page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and parts, and HTML and/or CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present multiple ticket options to prospective registrants and let them choose the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Smart Single Page Checkout Process. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is smart, fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary registrant’s information for any additional attendees.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow you to create new prices that adjust the default ticket price of your default ticket.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system lets you authenticate tickets, speed up door registrations, create various check-in “stations” and track participants.
- Manual Registration Option. you have the option of registering event attendees when they show up, or sending in paper forms for manual processing later.
- Event Manager Pre-approval. Control who can and cannot attend your events.
- RSS Event Feeds. Keep your blog readers updated about your events, bring in more visitors and reach a wider audience with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Draft Events. Draft events let you build your event in your own time frame without publishing it to your site. You can work on your event until you are ready to take things live, or schedule your event to publish at a later date and time.
- Easy Event Management. Event Espresso puts event managers in complete control of every aspect of an event’s registration and ticketing processes, and lets you automate the process with event management tools that include staff and venue management, custom event page designs, payment processing, list waiting, limits on attendees, print-ready tickets and more.
- Exportable Information. You can export all of your data gathered from your event attendees into Excel or CSV format for producing reports, planning new marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, and so on.
- WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the default WP Visual editor, allowing you to quickly and easily add graphic images and create your content without having to learn HTML or CSS, just like any standard WordPress post.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso gives you access to a community of experienced event managers, web developers, web designers, marketers and businesses who also use the software. You can network with other Event Espresso users using their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Staff Management. Save time and keep your data organized by reusing team member profiles for multiple events or displaying profile information such as team member’s contact information, resume and photo using a shortcode in your event description.
- Event Reporting. Quick-view event reporting gives you information of all registrations and transactions, allowing you to measure the performance of your events with the aggregate number of registrations and amount of revenue has been collected.
Additional features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This allows you to have more control and options over your content and how your information displays to your readers.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. EE 4 allows you to output a log file with debugging data that can be helpful for developers when potential software problems.
- 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 and highly efficient model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes over 40 additional features, including:
- Live-filtering when searching for events in the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse a common set of questions for similar events.
- Option to skip the confirmation page during the registration process.
Add ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow users to significantly enhance the capabilities of managing an 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 the event does not have a featured image, a default image will be used instead.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Template Add-on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize events with many datetimes into a drop-down list.
- Events Calendar Table Template Addon: 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 website uses Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can also specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration addon allows you to take full 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 your members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered site users can have access to these special events. Members can also add personal data into their profile page allowing them fast registration for events by auto-filling in their personal information on the event registration form. Your users can also look up event history and make payment for 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 add-on allows you to promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add-on lets you manage the environment for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to every seat.
- EE4 Event Ticketing & Bar Scanning Addon: The Ticketing add on adds the capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon adds the capacity to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing add-on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for handling check-in scans at the door. People 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 registrants and to validate tickets.
- Events Calendar Add-on: This WordPress events calendar displays events and categories of events via an attractive graphical calendar.
- Infusionsoft Integration Add-on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and business marketing plugin addon, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture registrant data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your website.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin, including new add-ons.
To learn more about the newest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website:
Testimonials
Below are some of the many great testimonials that satisfied customers have posted about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso is so easy to use yet feature rich and stable. It is a cornerstone of our site and our success.” Fraser Barner, Speaker’s Lab
”Event Espresso event management plugin for WordPress is really an awesome plugin.” Cheryl Smithem, Charleston PR & Design
”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
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, teacher, festival promoter, or event management professional, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a registered user, go through the support forum for new ideas and practical ways to streamline your event management and registration process or enhance the experience of your attendees.
Support
Event Espresso is compatible with other WordPress plugins and WordPress themes that follow standard WordPress development rules. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great end-user support, as so many of its users confirm:
”No complaints here. Satisfied customer. You can teach us all few things about customer service. Thanks!” Charles
The software provides incredible support that includes access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base 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 an established team of experienced WordPress web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely software you can depend on to run your events.
Plugin Cost
Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin features, however, you may want to consider downloading one of the premium plugin versions below:
- Personal Edition – This lets you configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License – This edition lets you set up Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Edition – This allows you to install Event Espresso on 5 sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin sells for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Event Espresso – Event Manager And Registration Plugin For WordPress
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the site.
Additional Info
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 tools to find answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to your specific situation, or to report issues and share feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the leading WP event registration and ticketing manager plugin, used and trusted by thousands of companies.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you currently run an event that requires managing dates and venues (offline and online), enrolling participants, and/or booking 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 – WordPress Event Management & Ticketing Registration Plugin
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