Does your company currently run or plan to run events that need handling bookings, such as workshops, training courses, not-for-profit fundraisers, networking events, or even a big event such as a community festival, 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 event schedules, date availability, registration numbers, data collection and storage, payments and invoicing, confirmations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to attendees.
There are lots of benefits to setting up an automated online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower expenses, help you easily duplicate similar events, give you more control, create a more enjoyable client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be very costly.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-powered digital presence, you can set up an inexpensive and professional online event booking solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticketing Management System
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software allows you to easily create your event and start processing online bookings literally in a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and accept online registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed plugin that gives you complete control of your event registration management process.
Customize your event registration forms
You can use a number of event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up ticket sales, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing follow-ups.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this review, 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 software has been revamped using a different structure to accommodate future growth. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually move completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and features of using this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current website into a fully-featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by practically doing away with the chore of processing registrations manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for event participants to register themselves.
Letting your enrollees to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing administration and lets you concentrate more time on delivering a more unique event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management and booking process that you want your attendees to experience.
Additional benefits include:
- Significantly Lower Costs: Event Espresso provides you with a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to building your own system or using a third-party service provider. This is made possible through a model where Event Espresso users start with the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and buy optional add-ons only if you need extra functionality.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new event sign-ups outside normal business hours. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing add ons (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event invite friends who may also be interested in attending.
- Paperless Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign-up process remains entirely in digital form, reducing typical paper consumption from tasks related to enrollment.
- All Data Belongs To You. You own all the information you obtain from event participants.
Plugin Features
The Event Espresso software provides functionality to end-users via standard features (these come with the software) and additional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many unique features to WordPress users. Here are just some:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Ready to start accepting registrations in minutes.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In EE 4, events can have many dates and times (datetimes), that these can be managed from a single event.
- Customizable Event Page Designs. Customize your events and bookings page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and elements, as well as HTML and CSS.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso provides integration with payment gateways, enabling you to collect registration fees prior to running your events.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration allows you to configure the look and control settings of Google Maps on your event listing and event details sections.
- Default Prices. Set up events fast by pre-configuring system-default ticket pricing.
- In-App Documentation. Event Espresso 4 provides three built-in in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Manual Registration Option. you have the option of booking event attendees at the door, or sending in paper-based forms for manual registration later.
- Waiting Lists. Prospective attendees can subscribe to a waiting list if your event has reached capacity. Additionally, you can make it a requirement wait-list members pay for their spots if you plan to add more capacity for your event.
- XML RSS Feeds. Keep your customers up-to-date about your events, bring in more visitors and expand your content reach with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Draft Events. Draft events let you build your event at your own leisure without publishing it to your website. You can work on your events until you are ready to publish it on your website, or schedule to publish your event pages at a later time and date.
- Complete Control Of Your Event Management. Event Espresso puts you in complete control of every aspect of an event’s registration and ticketing, and also allows you to automate this process with event management tools that include staff and venue management, custom event page designs, payment processing and handling, list waiting, attendee limits, printable tickets and more.
- Bulk Import Event Data. EE 4 provides an advanced importing capability that allows you to easily import a lot of event data all at one time. You can export, edit and import data for events, datetimes, ticketing information, pricing, custom registration questions, venue info, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the default WordPress Visual editor, so you can quickly and easily add graphic images and format your content without having to learn HTML or CSS, just like any WP post or page.
- Automatic Updating. Event Espresso provides simple one-click software updates to ensure that you have the newest features and to keep your software installation compatible with new versions of WordPress.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event registrants who have not paid yet for their booking with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click. Your invoices will reference pre-registered participants who have not paid their registration in full by name, give them the balance owing, and include a link to the event, a payment link and a url where they can download a PDF invoice.
- Attendee Reporting. Quick-view event reporting gives you information of all registrations and transactions, enabling you to analyze the performance of your events with the aggregate number of people who have registered and how much money has been collected.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These features allow developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso plugin that are compatible with WordPress.
- Maintenance Mode. Pause registration capabilities for regular website visitors when you need to carry out maintenance on your website. You can still work on your content during maintenance mode.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value: According to the philosophy stated on their website, 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 objectives, the company operates on a modular 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+ additional features, including:
- Live-filtering when you search for events inside the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing the same questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow customers to significantly enhance the capabilities of managing an event.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display upcoming events by location. 4 maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Management Add-on: The Recurring Events management addon enables you to put your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months … even years in advance. You can add as many events in the future as you need. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close bookings for all of your 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 display the event thumbnail image instead of the date.
- Social Media Buttons Addon: The social media addon displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media add on is included free with any of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on lets you take full advantage of the WordPress 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 users of the website can have access to these special events. Members can also input 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 view previous events and pay for events.
- Seating Chart Addon: The seating chart add-on 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 lets you promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress website. The Seating Chart add on lets you control the experience for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to every seat.
- Event Ticketing Addon: The Ticketing add-on adds the capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon gives you the ability to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing addon includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for handling check-in scans at the venue door. People 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.
- EE4 Events Calendar Add on: This WordPress events calendar displays events and categories of events in an attractive graphical calendar.
- Infusionsoft Integration Addon: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and business marketing software add on, you can easily automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture registrant data, track registrations, and accept payments from your web site.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin, including new add ons.
For full details about the newest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website here:
User Feedback
Below are a few of the many testimonials that customers have written about Event Espresso:
“It is a very, very slick plugin. It’s one of those plugins where you install it, change a couple of settings, and boom you’re selling tickets.” Brad Williams, WebDevStudios
”…it really does blow everything else that’s out there out of the water.” Chris Reynolds, Arcane Palette Creative Design
“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, presenter, seminar planner, or event consultant, there are just countless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, visit the support forum for tips and practical suggestions to improve your event management and registration workflow or improve the experience of your event registrants.
Plugin Support
Event Espresso works with with all WP plugins and WP themes that follow standard WP development rules. If you find that you need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent customer support, as so many of its plugin end-users confirm:
”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
The Event Espresso plugin provides robust support with access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, custom development support and even a monthly VIP member pass giving 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 a well-staffed team of experienced web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can depend on to manage your events.
Plugin Pricing
Event Espresso is available in different editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin options, however, you should consider purchasing one of the ”Pro” plugin editions below:
- Personal License Edition – This allows you to install Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This lets you install Event Espresso on one domain only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This lets you configure Event Espresso on five domains. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 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 software is being retailed for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing: Event Espresso – Event Manager And Registration System For WordPress
Please Note: The pricing above was current when this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller when you visit the website.
Additional Info
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the plugin’s online documentation tools to find answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to a particular situation, or to notify developers about issues and leave feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product site.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the leading WP event registration and ticketing management software, used by thousands.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you plan to run any event that requires managing dates and venues, registering participants, and reserving tickets, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticketing Management
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