Does your company currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating bookings or registrations, such as seminars, community classes, not-for-profit fund raisers, marketing conferences, or even a big event such as a trade exhibit, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Co-ordinating event registrations can be a complex and time-consuming process. You have to co-ordinate event schedules, availability, participant numbers, data entry, payments and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to attendees.
There are lots of benefits to setting up an automated online event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower costs, help you easily copy settings for similar events, give event managers more control, improve customer experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting up an online event booking system can be very expensive.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-based website, you can download and install an inexpensive and professional online event registration system.
Introducing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WordPress software allows you to easily create an event and begin processing bookings in minutes.
(Set up multiple events and receive online event bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-rich software that gives you full control of your event registration management process.
Customize event registration forms
You can use a number of event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up ticket-selling, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your participants, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing follow-ups.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is completely different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the platform is being redeveloped using a different structure to accommodate future growth and expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually phase out Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
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
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current website into a fully-featured and automated event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to attendee limits, multiple pricing options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by practically doing away with the chore of processing registrations manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for event attendees to enrol by themselves.
Allowing your enrollees to do the data themselves 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 full control over the event management and booking process that you want your attendees to experience.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Less Costs: The Event Espresso plugin provides you with a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third party service. This is made possible through a model where you purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and buy add-ons only if you need new features.
- More Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept new signups any time of day or night. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing add ons (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event invite other people they know who may be interested.
- Green Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign up process can remain entirely in digital form, significantly reducing typical paper waste from tasks related to administration.
- All Data Belongs To You. You control all the information acquired from your event attendees.
Features
The Event Espresso software provides functionality to its customers through standard features (these are included with the plugin) and additional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many unique built-in to site owners. Here are just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to use in minutes.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso allows you to create as many kinds of tickets as you want and set separate prices, ticket quantity limits, etc.
- Event Calendar. Attendees can easily find your upcoming events and add these to their schedule with a WordPress calendar.
- Tax Administration Options. Event Espresso 4 gives you several options to administer taxes for an event and report tax fees to registrants when purchasing tickets. Event managers can configure taxes globally or on a per-ticket basis.
- Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your WordPress theme and display events data throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Price Types. Price types let you create new prices that adjust the base ticket pricing for your default ticket.
- In-App Documentation. Event Espresso 4 includes 3 detailed in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Event Check-In List. Generate a list of registrants and check in those who have attended.
- Admin Pre-approval. Control who can participate in your events.
- RSS Event Feeds. Keep your users updated about your events, bring in more visitors and expand your content reach with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Optimized For The Latest WordPress Version. The Event Espresso 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you build aesthetically enhanced event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Country-specific Settings. You can configure the country and currency settings that will be used in events, such as currency, currency symbols, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, regions, etc.
- Exportable Information. You can output all the information collected from your event participants into Excel or CSV format for producing reports, devising marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, and so on.
- Multiple Event Attendee. EE 4 allows one person or a group to order multiple tickets and different types of tickets simultaneously. Event managers control how many attendees are able to register in one booking session by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Registrant Profiles. You can manage each attendee’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their data organized.
- Social Sharing. Event registrants and your site visitors can help increase exposure for your events using social media share buttons.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post types. You can also customize the page templates to display events in your own custom way.
Extra features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This allows you to have more control and options over your content and how the information displays to your prospects.
- Control Box Management & Reorganization. Event Espresso leverages the WordPress user interface, which brings the ability to reorder the user interface to match your workflow. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or entirely deleted from your workflow configuration.
- Autonomy, Flexibility And 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 goals, the software has been built using a model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also provides you with 40+ additional features, including:
- Live-filtering when you search for events inside the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse a group of questions for similar events.
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow customers to significantly expand the functionality of your event management process.
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, it will use a default image.
- Recurring Events Management Addon: The Recurring Events management addon lets you put your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months … even years in advance. You can create as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in advance as you like. Event Espresso will automatically open and close bookings for all of these recurring events.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add on: The Category Accordion template shows event categories in a simple list. Clicking a category name displays the events associated with that category and closes previously open categories.
- Social Media Buttons Add on: The social media add-on displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media add on comes free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- Custom Template Addon: The Custom Template add-on is capable of displaying your event lists in a range of visually exciting ways.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Addon Editions: This add on lets you involve other staff in the event management process and give new users the ability to create events or regional managers the ability to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WordPress users roles and assign them different permissions with different privileges, so your staff can help you manage your events or events that other people create. You can customize roles so that users do not have access to certain sections of your WP dashboard and/or certain parts 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 addon.
- Multiple Event Registration Add-on: The Multi-Event registration add-on gives your 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 shopping 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.
- Events Table Template Addon: The Events Table Template addon provides event managers with an easy-to-use system that allows you to edit 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 developers design custom templates using one of the templates provided as a base template.
- JSON API Add on: The new Event Espresso JSON API add on enables other software applications, online tools, mobile apps, etc… to access your Event Espresso details through an Application Programming Interface (API).
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin, including new add-ons.
For complete details about the latest Event Espreso features and add ons, check out the plugin here:
User Feedback
Here are some of the many testimonials that plugin users have written about Event Espresso:
”Congratulations on an absolutely fantastic plugin. I’m really impressed with its functionality and add on features and will definitely upgrade my client’s production site to the premium version (when ready for launch) to incorporate all the features. As I have told another client “this plugin is the cat’s meow”.” Pete Mansel
“I just completed my first event using Event Espresso. I really believe without Event Espresso my event would not have been the success it was.” Cathy Earle, Women Only Weekend
”Loving the functions and support from Event Espresso. One of the best plugins I’ve ever bought!” Nathan
Useful Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, trainer, workshop planner, or event professional, there are just countless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a licensed user, go through the user forum for useful ideas and practical suggestions to streamline your event management workflow or enhance the experience of your customers.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso works with with most WP plugins and WP themes that follow WP coding standards. If you do need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive support, as so many of its end-users attest:
”Thank you Seth for being so responsive and going above and beyond the call of duty with your app! I highly recommend Event Espresso for its functionality and for the stellar support. Seth has a deep knowledge and understanding of WordPress and has built a tool that is seamless to use for both organizer and attendee alike! After looking at a bunch of alternatives, Event Espresso far surpasses the other apps that are available.” Wendy Troupe, ICS North Pole Express
Event Espresso provides robust support that includes access to a support forum, in-depth 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.
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 rely on to run and manage your events.
Product Price
Event Espresso is available in different plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software features, however, you need to consider purchasing one of the ”Pro” plugin editions below:
- Personal Licensing – This license enables 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 Licensing – This edition lets you install Event Espresso on one site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Edition – This option enables you to install Event Espresso on five sites. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the software is selling for the amounts 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 article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the site.
Event Espresso – Additional Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the software’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 your particular 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 web site.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event booking and ticketing manager plugin, used and trusted by thousands.
If you own a WordPress site and you plan to run an event that involves managing dates, times and venues, registering attendees, and booking tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better WP plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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