Do you currently run or plan to run events that need to accept bookings, such as seminars, community courses, non-profit fund-raisers, networking events, or even a large-scale event such as a concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Managing event sign-ups is a complex and time-consuming process. You may have to manage scheduling, event dates, participant numbers, data collection and admin, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and providing tickets to participants.
There are many benefits to setting up an online event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce costs, help you easily duplicate previously-run events, give you more control, improve customer experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be costly.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-based digital presence, you can easily set up an inexpensive and professional web-based event booking solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – Event Management And Ticket Registration System For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WP software lets you easily create an event and begin accepting registrations in minutes.
(Set up multiple events and process online registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a feature-rich plugin that gives you full control of your event registration management process.
Customize your event registration forms
You can use a range of event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up selling tickets, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your participants, or integrating your event bookings with social media and email marketing systems.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is considerably different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the software is being redeveloped using a different structure to allow for 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 EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Automated Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website or blog into a fully-featured and automated event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to attendee limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by virtually doing away with the chore of processing registrations manually.
Basically, you are enabling participants to complete the enrollment process by themselves.
Letting your customers to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing administration and lets you invest more of your time on delivering a more enjoyable event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon discover, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management process that you want your attendees to experience.
Some additional benefits include:
- Lower Costs: Event Espresso is an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to developing your own solution or using a 3rd party service provider. The cost is kept to a minimum by using a model where Event Espresso users purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then purchase add-ons when you need added functionality.
- More Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new registrations any time of day or night. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing addons (see below) let people interested in registering for your event invite their friends who may be interested in attending.
- Green And Paperless Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event registration process can be conducted wholly online, eliminating traditional paper consumption from tasks associated with admin and record-keeping.
- Own Your Information. You own all the data gathered from event participants.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to users via built-in features (these are included with the plugin) and optional features that you can buy for an extra cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many unique built-in to WP users. Here are just some:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Ready to use in very little time.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso allows you to set up as many kinds of tickets as you want and specify prices, ticket quantity limits, and more.
- Customized Notification Email Message. Set up automatic booking and payment confirmation email messages to communicate with event attendees.
- Ticket Selector. Present multiple ticket options to registrants so they can choose the ticket(s) that best fits their needs.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your WP theme and reuse contact information throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Prices. Create events quickly and easily by pre-configuring system-default ticket pricing.
- Mobile Registration And Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system lets you authenticate tickets, speed up door registrations, create various check-in “stations” and track your participants.
- Event Check-In List. Generate a list of event attendees and check-in those who have attended.
- Waiting Lists. Interested persons can subscribe to a waiting list if your event has reached capacity. Additionally, you can make it a requirement wait-list attendees pre-pay if you plan to add more capacity for the event.
- Public Commenting. Add “social proof” by allowing potential prospects to interact with you online via commenting and past attendees to post feedback that can help others decide whether or not to enroll. Moderation settings for public commenting are set using the WordPress commenting admin area.
- Keyword Rich Event Page Web Links. Keyword-rich event page URLs leverage your WP site’s Permalinks configuration settings. “Pretty” web links with relevant keywords add to the context of your content and is favored by search engines, helping you drive more potential customers to your website.
- Country-specific Settings. Event managers can configure the country and currency settings that will be used in your events, including currency name, currency symbols, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, regions, and so on.
- Exportable Data. You can output all of your information collected from your event participants into Excel or CSV format for compiling advanced reports, planning new marketing strategies, reviewing attendee statistics, and so on.
- Register Multiple Participants. Event Espresso 4 allows a single person or an organization to register multiple attendees simultaneously. Event managers control how many people can enrol in one registration by specifying either limits on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso gives you access to an expert community of event managers and plugin users. You can engage with other Event Espresso users through their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential registrants who have not fully paid for their registration with a standard but personalized invoice with one click. Your invoices will address pre-registered customers 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.
- Categorize Events. If you have several different types of events such as free and paid, workshops and breakout sessions, different kinds of programs and program modules, etc. you can categorize them to help event attendees to locate what they’re looking for. You can display all the events in a category on a custom event category page, make events searchable by category, and colour-code your events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make these easier to find, in addition to suggesting new events in the categories that interest your existing customers.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions And Filters. These features allow you to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso software 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 helpful for developers when troubleshooting.
- 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 objectives, 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 version of Event Espresso also includes over 40 added features, including:
- Email shortcodes that includes registrant data in emails and email updates.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing commonly asked questions for similar events.
- Option to skip the confirmation page in the registration process.
Addons
As well as a comprehensive range of features, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow you to significantly expand the capabilities of your 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 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 organizes the events with many datetimes into a dropdown list.
- Events Calendar Table Template Add-on: The Calendar Table template is a list template with a bold date and customizable “register now” button. The template can be customized to show the event thumbnail instead of a date.
- EE4 Events Social Sharing Addon: Add social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that allows your attendees to share a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after registration.
- Custom Template Addon: The Custom Template add-on is capable of displaying your events in a range of exciting and interesting ways.
- 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 manage the experience for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to each seat.
- Event Ticketing Addon: The Ticketing add on gives you the capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on adds the ability to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing add-on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for managing check-in scans at the venue door. Attendees 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 registrants and to validate tickets.
- EE4 Events Table Template Addon: The Events Table Template addon gives you an easy-to-use system that allows you to modify the look and feel of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also allows developers to design their own custom templates using one of the included templates as a base template.
- Infusionsoft Integration Addon: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and business marketing software add-on, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture event attendee data, track registrations, and accept payments from your web site.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin, including new addons.
For more information about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website here:
Testimonials
Below are some of the many testimonials that users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Broadcasting my support for Event Espresso will be a pleasure. I recently helped the Webmaster at a sister church configure your event manager for their site, so I can say with confidence and from experience, that Event Espresso is the best Event Manager plugin ever!” Philip Simpson, The Charlotte Church
”Event Espresso event management plugin for WordPress is really an awesome plugin.” Cheryl Smithem, Charleston PR & Design
”At first we looked at CVENT for one of our clients and they wanted $16,000 per year for 3000 event attendees + fees totaling $22k. That is before Staff and Webinar fees. Worst of all we had to prepay the $16k amount even if we never used all 3000 attendees. That was when we looked at Event Espresso and we realized we could build our own event system for less than 16K. For the most part we have been very satisfied with our decision. The real ROI will come next year when they don’t have to pay another 16k-22K! Over the next 5-6 years we should be able to claim that we saved the company over $100,000 – Thanks Event Espresso!” David Waterman (Long Version), KT Benefits & InkItDigital.com
Useful Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, trainer, show planner, or event management professional, 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, spend a little time researching the support forum for useful ideas and practical suggestions to streamline your event management workflow and enhance the experience of your participants.
Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with other WordPress plugins and themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent end-user support, as many of its satisfied plugin customers 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 Event Espresso plugin provides incredible 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 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 a well-staffed team of experienced web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can rely on to manage your events.
Software Pricing
Event Espresso is available in different plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin options, however, you will want to consider using one of the ”Pro” plugin editions below:
- Personal Licensing – This enables you to install Event Espresso on 1 site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This option enables you to install Event Espresso on one site only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Edition – This edition lets you run 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 specials being offered. Presently, the plugin sells for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing when this article was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site.
Additional Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the software’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to your particular use-case, or to notify developers about errors and leave feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event registration and ticketing manager plugin, used by thousands.
If you own a WordPress-powered site and you intend to run events that require scheduling dates and venues (offline and online), enrolling participants, and reserving seating, then you will probably not find a better software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticket Manager Plugin
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