Do you currently run or plan to run events that need to accept registrations, such as workshops, training classes, non-profit fund raisers, marketing functions, or even a large-scale event like a school concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Co-ordinating event registrations can be a complex process. You will probably need to manage calendar schedules, available dates and seating allocations, registration numbers, data collection, collecting payments and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and providing tickets to event participants.
There are a number of advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower costs, help you easily copy settings for previous events, give you more control, improve client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting up a web-based event registration system can be very costly.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-based website or blog, you can download and install a very inexpensive and highly professional online event registration system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Management
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software enables you to easily schedule multiple events and begin processing registrations in just minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and accept online registrations)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed plugin that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
Customize registration forms
You can use various event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your event attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing follow-ups.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Please Note: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their software: EE 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is significantly different than the older EE 3, as it has been redeveloped using a different structure to accommodate future expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually transition completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.
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Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current website or blog into a feature-rich and professional 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 an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by literally eliminating the chore of processing registrations manually.
Essentially, you are enabling participants to complete the enrolment process by themselves.
Letting your enrollees to do all of the data entry frees you up from doing admin work and lets you direct more time on planning a more enjoyable event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management process that you want your participants to experience.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- 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 pay for the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy add-ons only if you need extra functionality.
- Increased Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new registrations any time of day or night. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features (see below) let people interested in registering for your event share your information with others who may also be interested.
- Green And Paperless Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, the event registration process can remain entirely online, significantly reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks associated with enrollment.
- Own Your Data. You own all the data gathered from event participants.
Event Espresso Features
The Event Espresso software provides functionality to users through standard features (these are included with the plugin) and additional features that users can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides a number of great built-in to WordPress users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- Customized Event Registration Form. With Event Espresso you can gather specific information using a custom event registration form on your website to prepare a unique experience for your clients.
- WordPress Event Calendar. Participants can easily find your events and add these to their schedule with a WordPress calendar.
- Ticket Selector. Present several ticket options to prospects and let them purchase the ticket(s) that best fits their needs.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your WP theme and display registrant data throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Price Types. Price types let you create new prices that adjust the default ticket pricing for the system-default ticket.
- Discount & Promotional Codes. You can leverage promotion and multiple discount codes to incentivize visitors to take action without hesitation, or make your offerings more appealing for price-sensitive customers. Also useful for helping to increase sales of events close to timelines.
- Manual Registration Option. you have the option of registering event participants at the door, or sending in paper-based forms for manual inputting later.
- No-Ticket Events. You can set up events without making it necessary for attendees to get tickets. Event Espresso can be used for all forms of events, not just when tickets are required.
- Public Commenting. Add social engagement to your events page by encouraging potential customers to ask questions about your event and previous customers to post feedback that can help others decide whether or not to enroll. Moderation settings for public comments are set up in the WP default commenting system.
- Keyword Rich URLs. Keyword rich event page URLs take advantage of your Permalinks configuration settings. “Pretty” permalinks that use topic-relevant keywords enhance the context of your pages and improves your search rankings, helping you drive more visitors to your events.
- Complete Control Of Your Event Management. Event Espresso puts you in complete control of all aspects of your event’s registration and ticketing processes, and also allows you to automate the process with event management tools that include staff and venue manager, custom event page designs, payment processing, wait lists, attendee limits, print-ready tickets and more.
- Import Events. Event Espresso 4 provides an advanced importing feature that lets you upload a lot of event data all at one time. You can export, edit and import data for events, datetimes, ticketing details, prices, registration questions, venues, terminology, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Register Multiple Attendees. Event Espresso 4 allows a single person or people to enroll multiple attendees at once. You decide how many attendees are allowed to enrol in a single booking session by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso provides users with access to a community of experienced event managers, software programmers, web designers, internet marketers and business owners who also use the plugin. You can engage with other Event Espresso users using their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event participants who have not paid in full for their registration with a standard but personalized PDF invoice with just one click. Your invoices will address pre-registered participants who have not paid their registration yet by name, display the amount they owe, and include a link to the event, a payment url and a link where they can download a PDF invoice.
- Transaction Reports. Event reports gives you data of the registrations and transactions, allowing you to measure the performance of your events with the aggregate number of people who have registered and how much money you have collected.
Extra features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These allow you to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso plugin that are 100% compatible with WordPress.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. EE 4 allows you to output a log file with debugging data that can be useful for web developers who are diagnosing problems.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & Value For Money: According to the philosophy stated on their 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 company operates on a model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium version of Event Espresso also includes over 40 additional features, including:
- Email shortcodes for including attendee data in emails and updates.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse a group of questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Add ons
As well as a comprehensive array of features, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow you to further expand the functionality of events.
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 the event does not have a featured image available, it will use a default image.
- Recurring Events Drop-down Template Add-on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize events with multiple datetimes 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 occur in a certain date range.
- Social Coupons Integration Add on: If your website uses Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can even specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration addon allows you to take advantage of the WordPress user system. With the WP User Integration add-on 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 your special events. Members can also input personal information into their profile page allowing them to quickly register for events by auto-filling in the personal information on the event registration form. Users can also look up past events and pay for new events.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Addon Versions: This add on lets you include other users in the event management process and give new users permission to create events or regional managers permission to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WP users roles and give them different permissions with different capabilities, allowing staff to help you manage your events or events that others create. You can customize roles so that users do not have access to certain areas of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain areas 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.
- EE4 Event Ticketing And Bar Scanning Add-on: The Ticketing addon gives you the capacity to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon adds the ability to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing addon includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for handling check-in scans at the venue door. Registrants can either print out their tickets or display them on their mobile devices. The mobile app can be used for checking in or checking out attendees and to validate tickets.
- Events Calendar Addon: This WordPress events calendar displays events and event categories using an attractive graphical calendar.
- MailChimp Integration: The MailChimp add-on lets you auto-register participants to a specific mailing list or group within your MailChimp account.
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:
Testimonials
Below are a few of the testimonials that users have written 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
”…it really does blow everything else that’s out there out of the water.” Chris Reynolds, Arcane Palette Creative Design
”Loving the functions and support from Event Espresso. One of the best plugins I’ve ever bought!” Nathan
Plugin Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, trainer, workshop promoter, 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 registered owner, go through the forums for useful ideas and practical suggestions to improve your event management workflow or enhance the experience of your event attendees.
Support
Event Espresso works with with all WordPress plugins and themes that follow WP coding standards. If you do need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great end-user support, as many of its plugin clients 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 software provides comprehensive support that includes access to a support forum, 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.
In addition, Event Espresso boasts a well-staffed team of experienced WordPress developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can rely on to organize and manage your events.
Software Pricing
Event Espresso is available in a range of editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced software functionality, however, you should consider downloading one of the premium plugin versions below:
- Personal License Edition – This enables you to run Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This lets you set up Event Espresso on one site only. It includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Edition – This lets you install Event Espresso on 5 domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Price details for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the plugin retails for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current price: Event Espresso – Event Manager And Ticketing Registration Software For WordPress
Note: The pricing above was current at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Plugin Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Look up the software’s documentation pages for 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 report issues and leave feedback.
For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product information pages.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event registration and ticketing management software, used by thousands of WP website owners.
If you are a WordPress user and you intend to run an event that involves scheduling dates, times and venues (offline and online), booking participants, and/or booking tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better WP plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticketing Manager Software
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