Does your company currently run or plan to run events that require handling bookings or registrations, such as workshops, training courses, charity fund raisers, networking conferences, or even a big event like an arts & crafts, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event sign-ups can be a complex process. You will most likely be required to co-ordinate calendar schedules, date availability, registration numbers, data processing, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to attendees.
There are a number of benefits to setting up an online event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower expenses, help you easily replicate previous events, give event managers more control, create a better user experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite costly.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-powered site, you can set up a very inexpensive and professional web-based event booking system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticketing Registration System For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software lets you easily schedule an event and start processing registrations in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online event registrations)
Event Espresso is a feature-packed plugin that gives you full control of your event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize registration forms
You can use multiple event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up ticket-selling, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your event participants, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing updates.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Note: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is fundamentally different than the older EE 3, as it is being rebuilt using a different structure to enable future growth and expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software 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 learn more about the benefits and features of using the plugin.
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Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages 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 current digital presence into a fully-featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating limits, multiple pricing options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by literally doing away with the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.
Essentially, you are facilitating participants to register by themselves.
Letting your enrollees to do the data entry frees you up from doing administration and lets you direct more energy on delivering 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 process that you want your users to experience.
Additional benefits include:
- Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to building your own software or using a third party service provider. The cost is kept to a minimum by using a model where you pay for the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy add ons when you need added functionality.
- Increased Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept new event registrations any time of day or night. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features and add-ons (see below) let people interested in attending your event invite friends who may be interested in attending.
- Paperless Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign up process is completed entirely in digital form, significantly reducing typical paper consumption from tasks associated with admin and record-storage.
- All Information Belongs To You. You control all the information you collect from event attendees.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to its users via standard features (these are included with the software) and additional features that customers can buy for an additional cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides a number of great features to WordPress users. Here are just some of these:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso lets you configure as many kinds of tickets as you need and set prices, limits on ticket quantities, and more.
- WordPress Event Calendar. Registrants can easily find your events and add these to their schedule using the calendar.
- Tax Administration Options. Event Espresso 4 provides a number of ways to administer taxes for your event and report tax fees to registrants who purchase tickets. You can administer taxes globally or on a ticket-by-ticket basis.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration enables event managers to configure the look and control settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details pages.
- Default Prices. Set up events quickly by pre-configuring default pricing.
- Mobile Registration And Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system allows you to validate tickets, speed up door registrations, create various check-in “stations” and track attendees.
- Manual Registration Option. you have the option of registering event attendees when they show up, or send in paper registration forms for manual submission later.
- Administrative Pre-approval. Control who can register for your events.
- Private Comments On Contacts. Record comments about users on their profile and how you’ve helped your contacts. Private commenting helps you keep a record of when event registrants contacted you, your internal comments, and how you have helped your customers.
- Optimized For The Latest Version Of WordPress. The EE 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you build aesthetically beautiful event pages that are easier to use and mobile-friendly.
- Your Organization Settings. you can configure your organization’s profile to display throughout the software and your WordPress themes. Organization fields include: organization name, street address, city, state, country, zip/postal code, email, telephone, tax number, company logo, Facebook URL, Twitter profile URL, LinkedIn profile URL, Pinterest URL, Google+ URL, Instagram profile URL.
- Default Tickets. If you find yourself creating similar tickets for your events, you can set up as your default ticket for any new events simply by ticking a checkbox.
- Event Venue Management. The venue manager feature in EE 4 lets details about a venue to be made available throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front end of your website to inform registrants of the location of your event. The venue profile has many of the standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also includes information such as venue capacity, venue site URL, phone number, venue location details, location map, etc. You can also display all of your venues in various sections on your WordPress theme as well as on a venue archive page on your site where you can set up and display venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have listed for a specific venue.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso gives you access to an expert community of experienced event managers and other plugin users. You can network with other Event Espresso users through their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Social Sharing. Event registrants and website visitors can help spread the word about your events using social sharing buttons.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post types. You can even customize the templates to display events in your own unique way.
Extra features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These allow web-based software developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso software that are fully compatible with the WordPress software platform.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. EE 4 allows you to generate a log file with debugging data that can be useful for web developers when troubleshooting.
- Autonomy, Flexibility And Value For Money: According to the philosophy stated on their web site, Event Espresso’s aim is to “empower business and organization leaders with the event registration, ticketing and management tools that maximize the success of events.” To achieve their mission, the company operates on a model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium version of Event Espresso also comes with 40+ added features, including:
- Live-filtering when searching for events in the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse the same questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As well as an amazing array of features, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow customers to further expand the capabilities of events.
Some of these addons include:
- EE4 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 available, it will use a default image.
- Recurring Events Manager Addon: The Recurring Events manager addon lets you put events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months … even years in advance. You can schedule as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in advance as you need. Event Espresso will automatically open and close bookings for all of your 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 image instead of the date.
- EE4 Events Social Sharing Addon: Add social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that lets your registrants to share a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after booking.
- 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 users a special incentive by offering member pricing and overriding event prices when members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered website users will have access to these special events. Members can also add personal details into their profile page allowing them to quickly register for events by auto-filling in their personal information on the event registration form. Users can also look up event history and make payment for new events.
- Seating Chart Add-on: The seating chart add-on 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 addon lets you promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues right from your WordPress website. The Seating Chart add on lets you manage the experience for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach single prices to each seat.
- Multi-Event Registration Add on: The Multi-Event registration addon gives potential attendees the ability to register for multiple events at once. In each event listing attendees will be given the option to either register for a single event or add multiple events to their shopping cart. With the Multiple Event Registration add-on, 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 View Template Addon: The Events Table Template addon 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 templates included as a base template.
- MailChimp Integration Add on: The MailChimp addon lets you automatically register attendees to a specified mailing autoresponder list or group within your MailChimp account.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin, including new add-ons.
For complete details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website:
User Feedback
Here are a few of the testimonials that satisfied customers have written 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
”Your plugin rocks! Seriously, saved me hours on the phone setting up attendance manually. Kudos. :)” William, Petruzzo Photography
”You guys have done an AWESOME job with this system…promise me to keep up the excellent work you guys are doing, for as long as you can… Respect!” Robert Jarnroth, Jarnroth Digital Productions
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, trainer, conference promoter, or event professional, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a registered owner, spend a little time researching the user forum for tips and practical ways to improve your event management process and improve the experience of your participants.
Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with all WP plugins and WordPress themes that follow WP coding standards. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great user support, as many of its satisfied plugin clients attest:
”No complaints here. Satisfied customer. You can teach us all few things about customer service. Thanks!” Charles
Event Espresso provides incredible support with access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, custom development 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 developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can depend on to run your events.
Plugin Price
Event Espresso is available in a number of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software features, however, you should consider downloading one of the paid plugin versions below:
- Personal License – This option lets you configure Event Espresso on one domain only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on one domain only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License Edition – This enables you to install Event Espresso on five sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
The price of the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current price: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Plugin Info
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Look up the plugin’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to a specific use-case, or to notify developers about errors and give feedback.
For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing manager plugin, used and trusted by thousands of users.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you intend to run events that involve scheduling dates and venues, enrolling attendees, and/or booking tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Manager & Registration Software
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