Do you currently run or plan to run events that require registrations, such as seminars, group courses, not-for-profit fund-raisers, networking events, or even a large-scale event like an exhibition, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Managing event sign-ups is a time-consuming process. You have to manage calendar schedules, availability, participant numbers, data collection, payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to event registrants.
There are many advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower costs, help you easily replicate previously-run events, give you more control, improve user experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be very expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-based web site, you can set up a very inexpensive and highly professional web-based event booking system.
Announcing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Management & Registration Plugin
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WP lets you easily schedule an event and begin processing online bookings in just a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and receive online bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich plugin that gives you complete control over the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can use various event registration strategies, from simple online enrollments and straight up selling tickets, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your participants, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and autoresponders.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Please Note: 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 impressively different than the older EE 3, as the plugin has been revamped using a different structure to allow for future growth and expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually transition completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and features of this plugin.
Learn more about the plugin here:
Benefits
Here are just a few 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 website into a fully-featured and automated event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple pricing options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by literally eliminating the need to process registrations manually.
Basically, you are facilitating participants to enroll by themselves.
Letting your attendees to do the data entry frees you up from doing admin work and lets you invest more of your energy on delivering a memorable event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon discover, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management process that you want your users to experience.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Lower Costs: Event Espresso gives you a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third-party service provider. This is made possible through a model where users pay for the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then purchase addons when you need extra features.
- Increased Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new registrations outside normal business hours. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing add ons (see below) let people interested in registering for your event invite other people they know who may be interested.
- Green & Paperless Event SignUp Process: With Event Espresso, the event signup process remains entirely online, significantly reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks related to administration.
- All Information Belongs To You. You own all the data gathered from your event attendees.
Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to users through standard features (these are included with the software) and optional features that you can buy for an added cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many great built-in to WP users. Here are just some:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Ready to use in very little time.
- Custom Event Registration Forms. Event Espresso lets you collect specific information using a custom event registration form on your site to prepare a great experience for your customers.
- Customizable Event And Registration Page Designs. Customize your events and signup page using Event Espresso’s limitless template options and components, and HTML and/or CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present several ticket options to prospects and let them choose the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your theme and reuse registrant information throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Prices. Set up events fast by pre-configuring default ticket pricing.
- Discount Codes. Offer promotional and multiple discount codes to incentivize prospects to take action immediately, or make your events more attractive for others. This is also practical if you want to sell out events close to deadlines.
- Contact Profiles & Contact List. Event Espresso 4 provides you with the tools to know who your customers are and how you’ve done business with your clients. Your Contact Profile section records the name, biography, contact information, event registration details, private comments, and more about each customer.
- Waiting Lists. Interested persons can join a waiting list if your event has reached maximum attendance. You can also specify that waiting list registrants pay for their spots if you plan to expand capacity for your event.
- Public Commenting. Add social interactivity to your events by encouraging potential customers to interact with you online via commenting and past attendees to post reviews that can help others choose whether or not to enroll. Moderation settings for public commenting are set up using the WordPress built-in commenting section.
- Keyword-Rich Event Page Web Links. Keyword-rich event page Web links take advantage of your Permalinks configuration settings. “Pretty” web links with topic-relevant keywords add to the context of your events and improves your search rankings, helping you get a more targeted audience to your events.
- Multi-Language Software. Event Espresso can be run in 15+ languages, and more translations are being added all the time.
- Exportable Data. You can output all the information collected from your event attendees into Excel or CSV format for creating advanced reports, devising marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, etc..
- Register Multiple Attendees. Event Espresso 4 allows a single person or people to register multiple participants at once. Event managers can control how many people can enrol in a single registration session by specifying either limits on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Automatic Updates. Event Espresso offers easy 1-click upgrades to make sure that you have the newest features and to keep your software installation compatible with new versions of WordPress.
- Social Sharing. Event attendees and your website visitors can help publicize your event using social media share buttons.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post type features such as custom fields, post meta data, taxonomies, etc. You can also customize your templates to display event information in your own unique way.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions And Filters. These features allow web developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso software that are compatible with the WordPress software platform.
- Maintenance Mode. You can pause registrations for normal website visitors whenever you need to make updates on your website. You can still work on the back-end of your site during maintenance mode.
- Autonomy, Flexibility And Value: 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 mission, 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 edition of Event Espresso also comes with 40+ additional features, including:
- Duplicating events – simplifies the need to re-enter event data when creating new events.
- Default surcharge (similar to applying a service tax to all tickets).
- Option to skip the confirmation page during registration.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
In addition to an amazing range of features, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow users to significantly expand the capabilities of the event management process.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display upcoming events by location. 4 maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Management Add on: The Recurring Events manager add-on allows you to put your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months … even years ahead. You can schedule as many events in advance as you need. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close bookings for all of your recurring events.
- Events Calendar Table Template Addon: The Calendar Table template is a list template with a bold date and customizable “register now” button. The template can also be customized to display an event thumbnail image instead of the date.
- EE4 Events Social Sharing Addon: This add on adds social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that allows your registrants to post a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after registration.
- Custom Template Addon: The Custom Template add-on lets you display your events in a variety of exciting and interesting ways.
- Seating Chart Add-on: The seating chart add-on is suitable for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is ideal for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart addon lets you promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add on lets you control the experience 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 customers 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 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.
- EE4 Events Table View Template Add on: The Events Table Template add-on gives you an easy-to-use system that lets you change 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 lets web developers design their own custom templates using one of the templates provided as a source template.
- EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Add-on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and marketing software add on, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture registrant data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your web site.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin, including new addons.
For complete details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, check out the plugin here:
Customer Feedback
Here are a few of the many testimonials that satisfied plugin users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso is one of the nicest Event Managers (WP Plugin) I have come across.” Joe Distefano, Citizen Joe
”Event Espresso event management plugin for WordPress is really an awesome plugin.” Cheryl Smithem, Charleston PR & Design
”I can’t even imagine what I would want the plugin to do that it doesn’t already do. I’m really happy with the features.” Jim Harmer, Improve Photography
Useful Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, presenter, seminar planner, or event management professional, there are simply countless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, visit the support forum for inspiration and practical suggestions to streamline your event management and registration process or enhance the experience of your registrants.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso works with with most WP plugins and WP themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great support, as so many of its clients attest:
”No complaints here. Satisfied customer. You can teach us all few things about customer service. Thanks!” Charles
The Event Espresso plugin provides comprehensive support with access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, email 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 an established team of experienced web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely software you can rely on to organize and manage your events.
Event Espresso Cost
Event Espresso is available in a range of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software options, however, you should consider using one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This lets you run Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License – This lets you configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License – This edition lets you configure Event Espresso on 5 domains. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Price details for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software retails for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Event Espresso – Event Management And Ticket Registration Software For WordPress
Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the website.
Additional Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the software’s documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to a particular situation, or to notify developers about problems and leave feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the preferred WP event registration and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of event promoters.
If you own a WordPress site and you plan to run an event that involves managing dates, times and venues (offline and online), enrolling attendees, and/or reserving tickets, then you will probably not find a more suitable plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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