Do you currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating registrations, such as seminars, community courses, not-for-profit fund-raisers, marketing conferences, or even a large-scale event such as a community festival, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Managing event sign-ups can be a time-consuming process. You have to co-ordinate scheduling, date availability, attendee numbers, data collection and storage, payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing 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 lower expenses, help you easily reproduce previous events, give event managers more control, improve client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-based digital presence, you can download and install a very inexpensive and professional web-based event registration solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticket Manager Plugin
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software enables you to easily set up an event and begin processing online registrations in a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and accept online bookings)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-rich plugin that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize event 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 attendees, or integrating your event bookings with social media and email marketing tools.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Important: 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 EE 4 is significantly different than the older EE 3, as it is being revamped using a different structure to accommodate future growth and expansion. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually migrate completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
More info:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just some of the 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 current online presence into a feature-rich and professional event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple pricing options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by literally eliminating the need to process registrations and bookings manually.
Essentially, you are facilitating participants to perform the registration themselves.
Allowing your participants to do the data themselves frees up your time and lets you direct more energy on organizing a memorable event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will discover in a moment, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management and booking process that you want your users to experience.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to developing your own solution or using a 3rd party provider. The cost is kept low by using a model where Event Espresso users purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then purchase add ons only if you need added features.
- Increased Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept online signups 24 hrs a day. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features and addons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event invite other people they know who may be interested in attending.
- Green & Paperless Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign-up process remains entirely online, reducing traditional paper waste from tasks related to administration.
- Own Your Information. You own all the data gathered from event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso 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 many unique built-in to WordPress users. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in no time.
- Customized Event Registration Forms. With Event Espresso you can collect unique data using custom event registration forms on your web site to plan a great experience for your customers.
- WordPress Event Calendar. Registrants can easily see your events and add these to their schedule with the WordPress calendar.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso integrates with several payment gateways, allowing you to collect money prior to running your events.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration allows you to configure the display settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details sections.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow you to create new prices that adjust the default ticket price of the default ticket.
- In-App Documentation. Event Espresso 4 provides 3 useful in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Event Check-In List. Generate an exportable list of registrants and check-in those who have attended.
- Ticketless Events. You can set up events without the requirement for registrants to select tickets. Use Event Espresso for any type of event, not just those that accept tickets.
- Public Commenting. Add social engagement to your event by encouraging potential customers to interact with you online via commenting and past attendees to post reviews that can help others choose whether or not to enroll. Moderation settings for comments are set up using the WordPress native commenting settings.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events let you build your event page over time without displaying it live on your website. You can work on your event until you are ready to go live, or schedule to publish your event at a later time and date.
- Easy Event Management. Event Espresso puts you in complete control of all aspects of your event’s registration and ticketing processes, and allows you to automate this process with event management tools that include staff and venue management, customizable event page designs, payment processing, wait lists, limits on attendees, printable ticketing and more.
- Default Tickets. If you find yourself creating similar tickets for your events, you can set up as your default ticket for all new events simply by ticking a checkbox.
- WordPress Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the built-in WP WYSIWYG editor, so you can quickly and easily insert graphic images and format your content without knowing HTML or CSS, just like any other WordPress post or page.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso lets you engage with an expert community of experienced event managers and other plugin users. You can engage with other Event Espresso users via their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event participants who have not paid in full for their admission with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click of a button. Your invoices will address pre-registered attendees who have not paid their registration yet by name, display the amount owing, and include a link to the event, a payment url and a link where they can download a PDF invoice.
- Transaction Reports. Quick-view event reports provides you with information of your registrations and transactions, allowing you to measure the performance of your events with the aggregate number of registrations and how much money you’ve collected.
Extra features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This allows web developers to have more control and options over your events and how your information displays to your visitors.
- Metabox Management & Organization. Event Espresso leverages the WordPress user interface, which brings the ability to reorder the user interface to suit your workflow process. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or deleted from your workflow configuration.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value For Money: According to the mission statement on their web site, Event Espresso’s objective 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 software has been built using 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 includes 40+ added features, including:
- Duplicating events – simplifies the need to re-enter event data when creating new events.
- Default surcharge (similar to adding a service tax to every ticket).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listing pages.
Addons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow plugin users to further expand the functionality of events.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display upcoming events by location. Four maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Management Addon: The Recurring Events manager addon lets you put events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months in advance. You can create as many future events as you like. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all recurring events.
- 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 also be customized to show an event thumbnail instead of a date.
- Social Coupons Integration Add on: If your web site uses Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can even specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on allows you to take full 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 pricing 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 enter personal data into their profile page allowing them to quickly register for events by auto-filling in the personal information on the event registration form. Your users can also view previous events and make payment for events.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Add on Editions: This add-on lets you involve others in the event management process and give new users the capacity to create events or regional managers permission to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WP users roles and allow them different permissions with different privileges, so your staff can help you manage your events or the events that other people create. You can customize roles so that a user does not have access to certain parts of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain areas of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to allow users to control factors geographically for events and users, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add on.
- Multiple Event Registration Add on: The Multi-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 Multi-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.
- Events Table Template Add-on: The Events Table Template add-on provides you with an easy-to-use system that allows you to modify the design of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also lets web developers design their own custom templates using one of the included templates as a base template.
- EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Add on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and marketing plugin addon, you can completely 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: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software, including new add-ons.
For more details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, check out the plugin here:
Testimonials
Below are some of the many testimonials that users have posted about Event Espresso:
”My clients have used Event Espresso for Transportation (Cadet Bus for leave), Parties (tailgates and brewery tours), and Horse-back riding lessons and camps. What a terrific plug-in and fantastic support from Seth!” Nina, Blue Iris Web Design
”Over the next 5-6 years we should be able to claim that we saved the company over $100,000 – Thanks Event Espresso!” David Waterman, KT Benefits & InkItDigital.com
”Loving the functions and support from Event Espresso. One of the best plugins I’ve ever bought!” Nathan
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, trainer, seminar promoter, or event consultant, there are just countless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a licensed user, go through the user forum for inspiration and practical suggestions to improve your event management workflow or enhance the experience of your event attendees.
Support
Event Espresso is compatible with all WP plugins and themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent user support, as so many of its satisfied customers confirm:
”No complaints here. Satisfied customer. You can teach us all few things about customer service. Thanks!” Charles
The Event Espresso plugin provides comprehensive support with 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 developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can rely on to manage your events.
Software Pricing
Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin options, however, you should consider downloading one of the paid plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This edition enables you to set up 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 – This license allows you to set up Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License – This license option allows you to install Event Espresso on 5 sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Price details for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the plugin sells for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the site.
Event Espresso – Additional Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the plugin’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to a specific situation, or to notify developers about bugs and give feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product web site.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the leading WP event booking and ticketing manager plugin, used by thousands of event managers.
If you own a WordPress-powered website and you plan to run an event that involves scheduling dates, times and venues, registering participants, and/or reserving seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable WordPress plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – Event Management And Registration System For WordPress
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