Do you currently run or plan to run events that require handling registrations, such as seminars, group classes, non-profit fund-raisers, networking events, or even a large-scale event like a show, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Managing event sign-ups is a complex process. You have to manage scheduling, dates, registration numbers, data entry, collecting payments and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and delivering tickets to event registrants.
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 reduce expenses, help you easily replicate previously-run events, give event managers more control, create a more enjoyable customer experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-based web site, you can easily set up a very inexpensive and professional online event booking solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Management & Registration Plugin
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software lets you easily schedule multiple events and start accepting registrations in minutes.
(Set up multiple events and process online event registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed software that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can use a range of event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up selling tickets, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event participants, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing updates.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is fundamentally different than the older EE 3, as it is being revamped using a different structure to accommodate future growth. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually migrate completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and advantages of this plugin.
More info:
Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing web site into a fully-featured and automated event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by virtually doing away with the need to process registrations and bookings manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for attendees to enroll themselves.
Allowing your enrollees to do all of the data entry frees you up from doing administration and lets you focus more attention on creating a better event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will learn in a moment, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your clients to experience.
Some additional benefits include:
- Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to developing your own software or using a 3rd party provider. This is made possible through a model where users buy the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and purchase optional add ons when you need additional features.
- Increased Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new event registrations 24 hrs a day. In addition, Event Espresso social add ons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event invite other people they know who may also be interested.
- Paperless Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event booking process is performed entirely in digital form, significantly reducing traditional paper waste from tasks related to enrollment.
- Own Your Information. You control all the data collected from your event attendees.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to end-users via 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:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in no time.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In EE 4, events can have many dates and times (called datetimes), which these can be managed from a single event.
- Customized Notification Email Message. Configure automated booking and payment notification email messages to communicate with your customers.
- Ticket Selector. Present multiple ticket options to prospective registrants so they can choose the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration enables you to customize the settings of Google Maps on your event listing and event details pages.
- Spam Protection. Prevent the risk of spamming and robots creating bogus registrations by using reCAPTCHA settings to provide human authentication.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system lets you authenticate tickets, speed up door registrations, set up various check-in “stations” and track all participants.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. EE 4 lets you understand who your customers are and how they’ve done business with you.
- Administrative Pre-approval. Control who can and can’t attend your events.
- Public Commenting. Add “social proof” by encouraging potential attendees to ask questions about your event and previous participants to post feedback that can help others consider whether or not to enroll. Moderation settings for public comments are configured via the WP native commenting settings.
- Optimized For The Latest Version Of WP. The Event Espresso 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you create beautifully-designed event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Complete Control Of Your Event Management. Event Espresso puts you in full control of every aspect of an event’s registration and ticketing processes, and allows you to automate the process with event management tools that include staff and venue management, customizable event page designs, payment processing, list waiting, attendee limits, print-ready tickets and more.
- Default Tickets. If you create similar tickets for your events, you can set up as your default ticket for your new events simply by ticking a checkbox.
- WP WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the native WordPress WYSIWYG editor, allowing you to quickly and easily insert graphic images and stylize your content without knowledge of HTML or CSS, just like any typical WordPress post or page.
- Attendee Records. You can manage your customer’s profiles and payment history and keep all of their records organized and easily within reach.
- Social Sharing. Event registrants and your website visitors can help promote your events using social sharing buttons.
- Categorize Events. If you have several different types of events like free and paid, conference speakers and breakout sessions, different types of programs and program modules, etc. you can categorize these to help event participants to find what they’re searching for. You can list all the events in a category on a custom event category page, make the events searchable by category, and colour-code events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make these easier to find, in addition to suggesting other events in the categories that interest your visitors.
Extra features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These allow web developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso plugin that are fully compatible with the WordPress development platform.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. EE 4 allows you to generate a log file with debugging data that can be helpful for web developers when diagnosing problems.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value: According to the mission statement on their web site, 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 software has been built using a modular that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium version of Event Espresso also provides you with over 40 additional features, including:
- Live-filtering when you search for events in the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse a series of questions for similar events.
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Add-Ons
As well as an amazing range of features, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow you to significantly expand the capabilities of the event management process.
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.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Template Add on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes the events with multiple datetimes into a drop-down list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Addon: The Category Accordion template shows event categories as a simple list. Clicking on a category name displays all events related to that category and closes any previously open categories.
- Social Coupons Integration Addon: If your website uses Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can also specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- Custom Files Add-on: The Custom Files addon provides PHP files that let you override certain aspects of the Event Espresso plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Addon Editions: This add-on lets you include other staff in your organization to help manage your events and give new users permission to create events or regional managers the capacity to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WordPress users roles and allow them different permissions with different privileges, so others can help you manage your events or events that others create. You can customize roles so that a user does not have access to certain areas of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain parts of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to allow users to control factors geographically for events and users, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add on.
- Multiple Event Registration Add on: The Multi-Event registration add-on gives potential attendees the ability to register for 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 Multiple 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.
- EE4 Events Calendar Add on: This WordPress events calendar displays events and event categories using a nice graphical calendar.
- MailChimp Integration: The MailChimp add on allows you to auto-register attendees to a specified mailing autoresponder list or group within MailChimp.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin, including new add ons.
For more information about the newest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website:
User Feedback
Here are some of the many testimonials that satisfied users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso is so easy to use yet feature rich and stable. It is a cornerstone of our site and our success.” Fraser Barner, Speaker’s Lab
”I have been using Event Espresso to run my festival and have been very happy with how it has worked out. They have provided tremendous support and their iPhone app is amazing and easy to use. I suggest using it for your event.” Alex Grant, Byron Spirit Festival
”Loving the functions and support from Event Espresso. One of the best plugins I’ve ever bought!” Nathan
Useful Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, teacher, workshop planner, or event management consultant, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, visit the support forum for tips and practical suggestions to improve your event management and registration process or improve the experience of your event customers.
Product Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with most WP plugins and WP themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you find that you need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent support, as so many of its plugin clients 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 exceptional support that includes access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase 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.
In addition, Event Espresso boasts an established team of experienced WordPress web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely software you can rely on to run and manage your events.
Software Price
Event Espresso is available in different plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced software functionality, however, you may want to consider using one of the paid plugin versions below:
- Personal License Edition – This allows you to set up Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This edition enables you to run Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License Edition – This lets you install Event Espresso on 5 sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the plugin is being retailed for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The above reflects the pricing when this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the software’s online documentation tools for answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to a particular situation, or to notify developers about problems and share feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product information pages.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the leading WP event registration and ticketing management plugin, used by thousands of WordPress site owners.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you plan to run an event that involves scheduling dates, times and venues, registering participants, and/or reserving tickets, then you will probably not find a better plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso
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