Do you currently run or plan to run events that require bookings, such as seminars, training classes, not-for-profit fund-raisers, marketing events, or even a big event like a rave party, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Co-ordinating event sign-ups is a time-consuming process. You may be required to co-ordinate scheduling, availability, participant numbers, data processing, collecting payments and invoicing, confirmations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and providing tickets to attendees.
There are a number of advantages to setting up an automated web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower expenses, help you easily replicate similar events, give event managers more control, create a more enjoyable user experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be expensive.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-powered web site, you can set up an inexpensive and highly professional online event booking system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin lets you easily create an event and begin processing online registrations in just minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online event registrations)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-rich application that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
Customize your event registration forms
You can use several event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket-selling, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing notifications.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Note: Currently, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is impressively different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the platform has been revamped using a different structure to enable future growth and expansion. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually migrate completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and features of using this plugin.
Go here to learn more:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website or blog into a feature-rich and professional event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by virtually doing away with the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.
Basically, you are enabling event participants to enrol by themselves.
Allowing your participants to do the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you invest more of your energy on planning a memorable event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon see, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your participants to experience.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Significantly Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to building your own software or using a third-party service. The cost is kept to a minimum through a model where Event Espresso users purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and buy addons when you need extra functionality.
- More Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept online event signups 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features (see below) let people interested in registering for your event invite other people they know who may also be interested.
- Green & Paperless Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign-up process can be performed wholly online, reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks related to admin and record-storage.
- All Information Belongs To You. You own all the information acquired from event attendees.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to its users through standard features (these come with the plugin) and additional features that users can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many features to site owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to start accepting registrations in minutes.
- Multiple Dates and Times Per Event. In EE 4, events can have multiple dates and times (datetimes), which these can be managed from one single event.
- Customized Notification Emails. Set up automatic booking and payment notification emails to communicate with your attendees.
- Tax Admin & Reporting. Event Espresso 4 gives you a number of ways to handle taxes for your event and provide reports of tax fee components to customers who purchase tickets. You can administer taxes globally and on a ticket-by-ticket basis.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration enables event managers to configure the display of Google Maps on your event listing and event details sections.
- Default Prices. Create events quickly and easily with pre-configured default ticket pricing.
- Mobile Registration And Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system enables you to validate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, create multiple check-in “stations” and track event attendees.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of registering event participants at the door, or send in paper-based forms for manual submission later.
- No-Ticket Events. You can create events without making it necessary for participants to get tickets. Event Espresso can be used for any form of event, not just those that accept tickets.
- RSS Event Feeds. Keep your site readers up-to-date about your events, drive quality traffic and reach a wider number of potential customers with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- SEO Friendly Page URLs. Keyword rich event page Web links leverage your WP Permalinks configuration settings. Search engine friendly urls that use relevant keywords add to the context of your events and is favored by search engines, helping you drive more visitors to your events.
- Full Control Of Your Event Management. Event Espresso puts you in full control of all aspects of an event’s registration and ticketing, and lets you automate the process with event management tools that include staff and venue manager, custom event designs, payment processing and handling, wait lists, limits on attendees, printable ticketing and more.
- Default Tickets. If you create identical tickets for your events, you can set one of those tickets as your default ticket for your new events simply by ticking a checkbox.
- WordPress Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the standard WordPress Visual editor, so you can quickly and easily add graphic images and stylize your content without having to know HTML or CSS, just like any WordPress post or page.
- Attendee Records. Manage each attendee’s profiles and payment history and keep all of their data organized and easily accessible.
- Social Sharing. Event attendees and your website visitors can help increase exposure for your events using social sharing buttons.
- Categorize Events. If you have multiple event types like free and paid, workshops and mastermind sessions, different kinds of programs and program modules, etc. you can categorize them to make it easier for event attendees to locate what they’re looking for. You can list all the events in a category on a custom event category page, make all events searchable by category, and colour-code your events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make them easier to find, in addition to suggesting other events in the categories that interest your visitors.
Additional features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming. Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical WordPress users, and also robust and customizable for higher end users and developers. The bottom line is that by using Object-oriented programming (OOP), EE 4 allows for more complex extensions and customizations to the software.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 lets you output a log file with debugging data which can be helpful for web developers when troubleshooting.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & Value: 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 software has been built using a modular and highly 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 provides you with 40+ additional features, including:
- Live-filtering when searching for events inside the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing the same group of questions for similar events.
- Option to skip the confirmation page during registration.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow end-users to significantly expand the functionality of managing an event.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Grid Template Add-on: Displays events in a pure CSS grid-like structure using the featured image. Hovering over the image will display further information. If an event does not have a featured image available, a default image will be used instead.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Template Add-on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes multiple datetime events into a dropdown list.
- Events Date Range Template Add-on: The Date Range custom event list template lets your users to browse for events that occur within a certain date range.
- Events Social Sharing Add-on: Add social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that allows your attendees to post a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after registration.
- Custom Template Addon: The Custom Template addon is capable of displaying your event lists in a variety of visually exciting ways.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Addon Versions: This add on lets you involve others in your organization to help manage your events and give new users the ability to create events or regional managers the capacity to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WP users roles and assign them different permissions with different capabilities, allowing staff to 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 sections of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to create geographic regions for other people to manage events, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add-on.
- EE4 Event Ticketing Add-on: The Ticketing addon adds the ability to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on gives you the ability to scan ticket barcodes. 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. 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.
- Events Calendar Addon: This addon uses the WordPress calendar to display events and categories of events in an attractive graphical calendar.
- JSON API Addon: The Event Espresso JSON API addon lets other applications, web sites, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso content through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software, including new addons.
To learn more about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website:
Customers – Testimonials
Here are some of the many great testimonials that users have written 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
”When you can get a company to expend more money switching systems just to use your plugin…you’ve really accomplished something.” David, House of Prayer
”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
Useful Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, trainer, workshop promoter, or event consultant, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso plugin.
After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed user, search the forums for inspiration and practical suggestions to improve your event management and registration process and enhance the experience of your customers.
Product Support
Event Espresso works with with other WordPress plugins and themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you do need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent technical support, as many of its customers attest:
”Your plugin saved our client nearly $9000 in development costs because it handled the majority of the functionality we were looking for at a much lower cost. EventEspresso’s staff have been very responsive to our needs when we have them (which has been rare, because the plugin is so well coded). Great job on a great plugin!” Brandon P., Experience Farm
Event Espresso provides exceptional support that includes access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base 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.
Additionally, Event Espresso boasts an established team of experienced web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely software you can depend on to run your events.
Product Cost
Event Espresso is available in different 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 editions below:
- Personal License Edition – This license enables you to configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. It includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This option enables you to configure Event Espresso on one site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License – This allows you to run Event Espresso on 5 sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
The cost of purchasing the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software sells for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticketing Management
Note: The pricing above was current when this article was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Additional Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Look up the plugin’s documentation tools to find answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to your specific use-case, or to report errors and share feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the leading WP event booking and ticketing management plugin, used and trusted by thousands of people.
If you are a WordPress user and you currently run an event that involves scheduling dates and venues (offline and online), registering attendees, or booking seating, 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 – Event Registration And Ticketing Manager
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