Does your company currently run or plan to run events that need managing bookings or registrations, such as workshops, community classes, charity fund-raisers, marketing functions, or even a big event such as a food fair, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Managing event sign-ups is a complex and time-consuming process. You may have to co-ordinate scheduling, available dates and spaces, registration numbers, data administration, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and providing tickets to event participants.
There are lots of advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily replicate previously-run events, give event managers more control, improve customer experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite expensive.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-based website or blog, you can easily install an inexpensive and professional web-based event registration solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WP lets you easily schedule multiple events and begin receiving online registrations in just a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and take online registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed software that gives you complete control over the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can employ several event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket sales, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and email marketing tools.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Note: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is considerably different than the older EE 3, as the plugin is being rebuilt 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 price. The developers aim to eventually retire EE 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Plugin Benefits
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 current web site into a fully-featured and automated event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to attendee limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by practically doing away with the chore of processing registrations and sign-ups manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for attendees to register on their own.
Allowing your participants to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you direct more of your energy on creating a better event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will learn in a moment, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management and registration process that you want your participants to experience.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Less Costs: Event Espresso provides you with a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third party provider. The cost is kept low through a model where users buy the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and purchase addons only if you need new features.
- More Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept new event signups outside traditional business hours. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social features (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event invite others who may be interested in attending.
- Green Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, your event booking process can be completed wholly online, eliminating typical paper waste from tasks associated with enrollment.
- Own Your Data. You own all the data you acquire from your event attendees.
Features
The Event Espresso software provides functionality to end-users through built-in features (these come with the software) and optional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many unique features to website owners. Here are just some of these:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Ready to start accepting registrations in very little time.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In EE 4, events can have multiple dates and times (datetimes), which these can be managed from a single event.
- Custom Confirmation Email Message. Easily configure custom automatic registration and payment notification emails to communicate with event attendees.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso provides integration with several payment gateways, enabling you to collect money prior to running events.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration allows you to customize the display settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details pages.
- Default Price Types. Price types let you create new prices that adjust the base ticket price for the default ticket.
- In-App Documentation. Event Espresso 4 includes three useful in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of registering event attendees at the door, or sending in paper-based forms for manual submission later.
- Waiting Lists. Latecomers can subscribe to a waiting list if your event has reached the limit of registrants. Additionally, you can specify that wait-listed members pay for their spots if you plan to add more capacity for the event.
- RSS Event Feeds. Provide automatic updates to site visitors, drive quality traffic and expand your content distribution with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Draft Events. Draft events allow you to build an event over time without publishing it to your site. You can work on your event until you are ready to take it live, or schedule to publish your event at a future date and time.
- Multi-Language Plugin. Event Espresso can be run in 15+ languages, and more are being added all the time.
- Exportable Data. You can output all of your data collected from your event participants into Excel or CSV format for producing reports, devising new marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, and so on.
- WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the standard WP WYSIWYG editor, so you can quickly and easily add graphic images and write and edit your event descriptions without knowing HTML or CSS, just like any WordPress post.
- Automatic Plugin Upgrading. Event Espresso offers simple one-click plugin upgrades to ensure that you have the latest features and to keep your software installation compatible with new versions of WordPress.
- Team Member Manager. Save time and keep your data organized by reusing staff member profiles for multiple events or displaying profile information such as team member’s contact information, resume and photo using a shortcode in any event description.
- Event Reporting. Event reporting provides you with information of the registrations and transactions, allowing you to analyze the performance of your events with the aggregate number of people who have registered and how much money you have collected.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical WordPress users, and also robust and customizable for enterprise-level 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 application.
- Metabox Management And Organization. Event Espresso leverages the WP 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 your page.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & 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 version of Event Espresso also provides you with over 40 additional features, including:
- Email shortcodes for including registrant data in emails and updates.
- Default surcharge (the same as applying a service fee to every ticket).
- Option to skip the confirmation page during registration.
Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow users to further enhance the capabilities of the event management system.
Some of these add-ons include:
- EE4 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 Drop-down Custom Template Add on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes many datetime events into a dropdown list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Addon: The Category Accordion template displays categories as a simple list. Clicking the category name displays the events related to that category and closes previously open categories.
- Events Social Sharing Add-on: This add on adds social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that lets your attendees to share a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after booking.
- Custom Files Addon: The Custom Files add-on allows you to bypass certain aspects of the plugin.
- Seating Chart Addon: The seating chart add on is great 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 addon allows you to offer reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart addon lets you manage the environment for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach single prices to every seat.
- Multiple Event Registration Add-on: The Multiple Event registration addon gives 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 shopping 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 Calendar Add-on: This add-on uses the WordPress calendar to display events and categories of events using a nice graphical calendar.
- EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Addon: 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 registrant data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your website.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin, including new addons.
For more details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website:
Customers – Testimonials
Below are some of the many testimonials that satisfied plugin users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Tri-South, Inc is using Event Espresso to manage the course catalog, event ticketing, and class registration. [As their developer] I have customized a few items to make the site and plugin a seamless integration. The client is very pleased!” Jenifer Design
”I searched long and hard to find something that would serve my needs. This is, by far, the most complete and comprehensive solution I have found.” Bill Hepper, We Teach Live
”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
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, teacher, event planner, or event consultant, there are simply countless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a registered owner, visit the forums for tips and practical ways to streamline your event management workflow or enhance the experience of your event customers.
Plugin Support
Event Espresso is compatible with most WP plugins and WP themes that follow standard WP coding guidelines. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent user support, as so many of its end-users confirm:
”It’s magical. Support is amazing, plugin is simple to use, a 3 year old could use the iPhone app…it all is very impressive and professional.” David, House of Prayer
The software provides robust support including access to support forums, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, priority 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 web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely software you can rely on to run and manage your events.
Product Pricing
Event Espresso is available in different plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin features, however, you may want to consider purchasing one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This license option enables you to run Event Espresso on 1 site only. It includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This enables you to set up Event Espresso on one site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Edition – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on 5 domains. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $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 plugin sells for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the website.
Additional Plugin Information
Event Espresso regularly adds 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.
Use the software’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to a specific situation, or to report issues and share feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing management plugin, used and trusted by thousands.
If you own a WordPress site and you intend to run events that involve scheduling dates, times and venues, booking attendees, or booking tickets, then you will probably not find a more suitable solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Manager
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