Does your organization currently run or plan to run events that require handling registrations, such as seminars, training courses, non-profit fund raisers, social events, or even a big event such as a show, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Co-ordinating event bookings can be a complex process. You may need to co-ordinate scheduling, event dates, registration numbers, data administration, collecting payments and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to event attendees.
There are lots of benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily reproduce similar events, give you more control, improve customer experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be very costly.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-powered site, you can install an inexpensive and professional online event registration solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticket Registration Software For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin lets you easily create an event and begin processing online bookings literally in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and accept online event bookings)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed plugin that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize registration forms
You can use several event registration strategies, from simple online enrollments and straight up selling tickets, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event participants, or integrating your event registration forms with social media sites like Facebook.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their software: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is considerably different than the older Event Espresso 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 phase out EE 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing web site into an automated and fully featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by virtually eliminating the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for participants to complete the enrolment process by themselves.
Allowing your customers to do the data themselves frees up your time and lets you spend more attention on delivering a more unique event.
Complete 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 participants to experience.
Some additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Less Costs: The Event Espresso plugin gives you a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third-party provider. The cost is kept low by using a model where Event Espresso users start with the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and purchase add-ons when you need added functionality.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept online registrations any time of day or night. In addition, Event Espresso social and marketing features and add-ons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event share your information with others who may be interested in attending.
- Green And Paperless Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign-up process can remain entirely online, significantly reducing traditional paper waste from tasks related to admin and record-storage.
- All Information Belongs To You. You control all the information collected from your event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to end-users via standard features (these come with the plugin) and additional features that customers can buy for an added cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many unique built-in to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso allows you to create multiple ticket types and specify prices, limits on ticket quantities, and more.
- Customizable Event Page Designs. You can customize your events and enrollments page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and elements, as well as HTML and/or CSS.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso provides integration with several payment gateways, enabling you to collect money before running your events.
- Intelligent 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 attendee’s registration details for any additional attendees.
- Default Price Types. Price types let you create new prices that adjust the base ticket price of your system-default ticket.
- Discount Codes. Offer promotional and multiple discount codes to incentivize prospects to take action without delays, or make your offers more appealing for price-sensitive prospects. This is also practical for helping to sell-out events close to timelines.
- Event Check-In List. Generate a list of event attendees and confirm everyone who has attended.
- Ticketless Events. You can set up events without making it necessary for registrants to book tickets. Use Event Espresso for any kind of event, not only when tickets are needed.
- Private Notes On Contacts. Record observations about contacts on their profile and how you’ve interacted with your contacts. Private commenting enables you to keep a record of when users contacted you, your internal notes, and how you have helped your contacts.
- Works With The Most Recent WordPress Version. The EE 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you create beautiful event pages that are easier to use and mobile-friendly.
- Complete Control Of Your Event Management. Event Espresso puts event managers in complete control of all aspects of your event’s registration and ticketing, 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, print-ready ticketing and more.
- Default Tickets. If you create similar tickets for your events, you can easily set up as your default ticket for your new events simply by ticking a checkbox.
- Venue Management. The venue manager in EE 4 lets details about a venue to appear throughout the Event Espresso admin and the public areas of your site to inform attendees of the location of your event. The venue profile displays many of the standard WordPress settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also lets you republish information like venue seating capacity, venue web address, phone number, venue address, map, etc. You can also display venue profiles on specific locations in your theme as well as on a venue listing page on your site where you can set up and publish venue profiles for multiple events or display all the events for a particular venue.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso provides users with access to a community of experienced event managers, web developers, designers, online marketers and business owners who also use the software. You can network with other Event Espresso users via their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Staff Manager. Save time and keep your business organized by reusing staff profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in an event description.
- 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 even customize the templates to display event information in your own unique way.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for most WP users, and also extremely robust and customizable for higher end users and web developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, Event Espresso 4 facilitates more complex developments and customizations to the software.
- Control Box Management And Reorganization. Event Espresso lets you leverage the WordPress user interface, which gives you the ability to reconfigure the user interface to match your workflow processes. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or completely removed from the page.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & 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 mission, the company operates on a modular that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium version of Event Espresso also includes over 40 added features, including:
- Live-filtering when you search for events in the Event Espresso admin.
- Default surcharge (similar to applying a service fee to all tickets).
- Option to skip the confirmation page in registration.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow you to significantly enhance the functionality of managing your event.
Some of these add ons 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 drop-down list.
- Events Date Range Template Addon: The Date Range custom event list template lets your users to search for events that take place in a certain date range.
- Social Coupons Integration Addon: If your web site is featured on Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can even specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- Custom Files Add on: The Custom Files addon lets you override certain aspects of the Event Espresso plugin.
- Seating Chart Add-on: The seating chart add on is great 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 add-on lets you offer reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress website. The Seating Chart addon lets you control the experience for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to every seat.
- Multiple Event Registration Addon: The Multi-Event registration addon gives your 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 cart. With the Multi-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 event managers a simple and easy-to-use system that lets you change the look and feel 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.
- MailChimp Integration Add on: The MailChimp add on allows you to automatically register attendees to a specific mailing list or group within MailChimp.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin, including new add ons.
For complete details about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website here:
Plugin Users – Feedback
Here are some of the many great testimonials that customers have written about Event Espresso:
”It’s been very comprehensive and covers exactly the aspects of event registration that we needed for our site plus some features that we didn’t even need but could still use in the future. Very Excellent Plugin!” Tristan Hall, Area 12:2 Youth Group
”Customizing an Event Registration plugin for WordPress by @EventEspresso. Love the pro version. Highly Recommended!” Joshua Garity
“Love the plugin, we only use it once a year for a race we have in February. This saved us tons of time in data entry. In addition, we had more runners register than any other year. We attribute that to the ease of registering online. Thanks for your work.” Ed, Friends of Oscar Scherer Park
Useful Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, trainer, conference promoter, or event management professional, there are simply endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a registered user, spend a little time going through the support forum for inspiration and practical ways to streamline your event management workflow or enhance the experience of your registrants.
Plugin Support
Event Espresso is compatible with all WP plugins and WP themes that follow standard WP development rules. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent support, as so many of its satisfied plugin users attest:
”These guys are right on any problem or issue or even general questions. You can’t really put a value high enough on the kind of support these guys offer.” Mark Wigston, Muskoka Graphics
Event Espresso provides comprehensive support including access to support forums, in-depth 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.
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 rely on to organize and manage your events.
Plugin Cost
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 functionality, however, you will want to consider purchasing one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal License Edition – This option allows you to set up Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This allows you to run Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This license lets you configure Event Espresso on 5 domains. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin is being retailed for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Event Espresso – Event Manager & Ticketing Registration Plugin For WordPress
Note: The pricing above was current when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site.
Additional Plugin Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the plugin’s documentation tools for answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to a specific situation, or to report problems and leave feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product site.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of event promoters.
If you own a WordPress web site and you intend to run any event that involves managing dates, times and venues, enrolling participants, or reserving tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticketing Manager Plugin
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