Do you currently run or plan to run events that require managing bookings or registrations, such as workshops, community classes, non-profit fund-raisers, social conferences, or even a large-scale event such as a music show, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event registrations is a time-consuming process. You may need to manage event schedules, availability, attendee numbers, data entry, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to participants.
There are a number of benefits to setting up an automated web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce costs, help you easily duplicate repeat events, give you more control, improve user experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-powered digital presence, you can download and install a very inexpensive and professional online event registration solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software enables you to easily create your event and begin accepting registrations in just a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and process online bookings)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-rich plugin that gives you complete control over your event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can use multiple event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up selling tickets, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your event attendees, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing updates.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Note: Currently, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is impressively different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the software has been revamped using a different structure to allow for future expansion. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually transition completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and advantages of this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
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 website or blog into a fully-featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating limits, multiple price levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by literally doing away with the chore of processing registrations and sign-ups manually.
Essentially, you are enabling participants to enroll on their own.
Letting your participants to do all of the data entry frees you up from doing administration and lets you direct more attention on delivering a more unique event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will discover shortly, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management and registration process that you want your clients to experience.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to building your own software or using a 3rd party provider. The cost is kept low by using a model where you pay for the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and purchase addons when you need extra features.
- More Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept online event sign-ups 24/7. In addition, Event Espresso social and marketing features and add ons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event share your information with their friends who may be interested in attending.
- Green Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign up process can remain wholly online, significantly reducing typical paper waste from tasks associated with admin and record-keeping.
- All Information Belongs To You. You own all the data collected from event attendees.
Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to users via built-in features (these are included with the plugin) and additional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many unique built-in to WP users. Here are just some:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Dates and Times Per Event. In EE 4, events can have many dates and times (called datetimes), which these can be managed from one single event.
- Event Calendar. Participants can easily find your events and add these to their schedule using a WordPress calendar.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso integrates with payment gateways, allowing you to collect money prior to running the events.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout Process. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary registrant’s details for any added attendees.
- Spam Protection. Eliminate the risk of spamming and bot software programs making false registrations on your web site by using reCAPTCHA settings that confirm human activity.
- Mobile Registration And Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system enables you to authenticate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, create various check-in “stations” and track attendees.
- Event Check-In List. Generate an exportable list of registrants and confirm everyone who has attended.
- No-Ticket Events. You can create events without making it necessary for participants to select tickets. Use Event Espresso for all kinds of events, not only those that require tickets.
- Public Commenting. Add “social proof” by encouraging potential attendees to ask questions about your event and previous customers to post reviews that can help others decide whether or not to sign up. Moderation settings for comments are specified in the WordPress native commenting admin area.
- Keyword-Rich URLs. Keyword rich event page URLs leverage your WP site’s Permalinks configuration settings. SEO-friendly urls with topic-relevant keywords enhance the context of your events and is favored by search engines, helping you drive a more targeted audience to your events.
- Your Organization Settings. Configure your organization’s profile to be used throughout Event Espresso and your front-end templates. Your organization fields include: company name, street address, city, state, country, zip/postal code, primary contact email address, telephone, tax number, logo, Facebook profile URL, Twitter URL, LinkedIn URL, Pinterest URL, Google+ URL, Instagram URL.
- Exportable Information. You can output all of your information collected from event participants into Excel or CSV format for compiling advanced reports, planning marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, and so on.
- Multiple Event Participant. Event Espresso 4 allows a single person or an organization to register multiple participants simultaneously. Event managers decide how many attendees can enrol in one booking session by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Automatic Updating. Event Espresso provides easy one-click updates to ensure that you have the latest features and to keep your installation compatible with new versions of WordPress.
- Social Sharing. Event participants and site visitors can help increase exposure for your events using social share buttons.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post types. You can even customize your templates to display event information in your own unique way.
Extra features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This allows web developers to have more control and options over your event page and how your information displays to your readers.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 lets you output a log file with debugging data which can be helpful for web developers when diagnosing application problems.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & 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 goals, the software has been built using a modular that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes over 40 added features, including:
- Email shortcodes for including customer data in emails and updates.
- Default surcharge (the same as applying a service tax to all tickets).
- Default payment status.
Add ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow plugin users to further expand the capabilities of managing your event.
Some of these add ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add on: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display scheduled events by location. 4 maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Management Addon: The Recurring Events management addon lets you put events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months in advance. You can schedule as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in advance as you need. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all 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.
- Social Media Buttons Add-on: The social media addon displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media add on is included free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- Custom Files Add-on: The Custom Files addon allows you to override certain aspects of the Event Espresso plugin.
- Seating Chart Add on: The seating chart addon is 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 add-on lets you offer reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues right from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart addon lets you manage the experience for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to each seat.
- EE4 Event Ticketing Add-on: The Ticketing add-on gives you the ability 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 barcode types are included for managing check-in scans at the venue door. Customers 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.
- Events Table View Template Addon: The Events Table Template add-on gives event managers a simple and 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 enables developers to build custom templates using one of the included templates as a base template.
- MailChimp Integration Addon: The MailChimp add-on lets you automatically register participants to a particular mailing autoresponder list or group within your MailChimp account.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software, including new add-ons.
For complete details about the newest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website:
Testimonials
Below are just some of the many great testimonials that customers have written about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso rocks! I use it for my dance class registrations. Unlike most dance studios where people have to call or send an email in advance, Event Espresso puts a registration form right there in front of the user and allows me to collect valuable information from the user during the registration process with custom questions such as “Do you have previous dance experience?” or “How did you hear about us?”. It also gives my site a professional look and feel.” Ral, Ral’eau Salsa Dance Company
”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
”I played around with the free version for a couple hours then purchased the Pro for a client. Love it and so do they! Sweetest Event plugin I have tried.” Bill Chambers, Bill Chambers Design
Plugin Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, teacher, conference planner, or event management consultant, there are simply endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, search the forums for useful ideas and practical suggestions to improve your event management and registration workflow and enhance the experience of your participants.
Support
Event Espresso works with with all WordPress plugins and WordPress themes that follow standard WordPress coding rules. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive customer support, as many of its satisfied customers confirm:
”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 robust support that includes access to a support forum, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, premium 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 web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can depend on to run and manage your events.
Event Espresso Price
Event Espresso is available in a number of editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin features, however, you should consider downloading one of the ”Pro” plugin editions below:
- Personal License Edition – This allows you to configure Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This enables you to install Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License – This allows you to install Event Espresso on five sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Pricing details of the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin retails for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Event Espresso – Event Management And Registration Software For WordPress
Please Note: The pricing above was current when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the site.
Event Espresso – Additional Info
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.
Look up the software’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to a particular situation, or to report bugs and give feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product web site.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the preferred WP event booking and ticketing manager plugin, used by thousands of event promoters.
If you own a WordPress web site and you currently run an event that requires scheduling dates and venues, booking participants, and/or reserving tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable software for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso
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