Does your business currently run or plan to run events that require managing bookings, such as workshops, group courses, not-for-profit fundraisers, corporate functions, or even a big event like a concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Managing event sign-ups can be a time-consuming process. You need to manage scheduling, date availability, registration numbers, data administration, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to participants.
There are many advantages to setting up an automated online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily copy settings for previously-run events, give you more control, improve user experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite expensive.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-based website or blog, you can install a very inexpensive and highly professional web-based event booking system.
Announcing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Management Software
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software enables you to easily set up an event and begin accepting online bookings in a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online event registrations)
Event Espresso is a feature-packed application that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can employ various event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up ticket sales, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your participants, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and autoresponders.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their software: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is impressively different than the older EE 3, as the plugin is being rebuilt using a different structure to enable future growth and expansion. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually move completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website into an automated and feature-rich event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to attendee limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by practically eliminating the need to process registrations manually.
Basically, you are facilitating participants to enrol by themselves.
Letting your customers to do all of the data entry frees you up from doing admin work and lets you invest more of your time on organizing a memorable event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and booking process that you want your users to experience.
Additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Significantly Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to building your own software or using a third-party service. The cost is kept low through a model where users start with the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy add ons only if you need extra functionality.
- Increased Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept online registrations 24 hours a day. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social and marketing features (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event share your information with others who may also be interested.
- Green & Paperless Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign up process is kept wholly online, significantly reducing traditional paper waste from tasks associated with admin and record-keeping.
- Own Your Information. You control all the information acquired from event participants.
Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to users through standard features (these are included with the plugin) and additional features that users can buy for an added cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many unique built-in to site owners. Here are just some:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to start accepting registrations in no time.
- Multiple Dates and Times Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have many dates and times (datetimes), and these can be managed from a single event.
- Customizable Event Designs. Customize your events and signup page using Event Espresso’s template options and parts, and HTML and CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present several ticket options to registrants so they can purchase the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration allows event managers to customize the display of Google Maps on your event listing and event details sections.
- Default Prices. Create events quickly and easily by pre-configuring default prices.
- Discount Codes. You can leverage promotional and multiple discount codes to encourage people to register now, or simply make your events more affordable for price-sensitive customers. This is also practical if you want to sell out events close to deadlines.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of registering event participants when they show up, or sending in paper forms for manual registration later.
- Event Manager Pre-approval. Be selective about who can and cannot participate in your events.
- Event RSS Feeds. Automatically update users, drive quality traffic and reach a wider number of potential customers with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Works With The Latest WP Version. The EE 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you build visually attractive event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- 15+ Languages. Event Espresso can be run in 15+ languages, with more translations coming soon.
- Default Tickets. If you create identical tickets for many of your events, you can easily set one of those tickets as your default ticket for the next time you create an event simply by checking a box.
- Multiple Attendee Enrolments. Event Espresso 4 allows one person or a group to book multiple participants simultaneously. Event managers can control how many people are able to enrol in one booking session by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Attendee Records. You can manage your attendee’s profiles and payment history and keep all of their information organized and easily within reach.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential participants who have not paid yet for their booking with a standard but personalized PDF invoice with just one click of a button. Your invoices will reference pre-registered participants who have not paid their registration yet by name, give them the balance owing, and include a link to the event information, a payment url and a link to download the invoice.
- Accurate Event Participant Management. You have control of your customers’ records; who has registered, for what event and how much they have paid. With the attendee manager, you can get a quick overview of registered attendees and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export an event attendee list to Excel for additional reports, send custom payment reminders and receipts and send messages to your attendees individually or all at once.
Additional features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This feature allows developers to have more control and options over the content of your event pages and how your information displays to your readers.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 lets you generate a log file with debugging data which can be helpful for developers when troubleshooting.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & Value: According to the mission statement on their site, Event Espresso’s goal 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 and highly efficient model 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 attendee data in emails and email updates.
- Default surcharge (similar to adding a service tax to each ticket).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listing pages.
Add ons
In addition to an incredible number of features, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow you to further expand the functionality of events.
Some of these addons include:
- EE4 Events Grid Template Addon: 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, a default image will be used.
- Recurring Events Manager Addon: The Recurring Events management add on allows you to put your events on autopilot by scheduling repeated events weeks or months ahead. You can schedule as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in the future as you want. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close bookings for all of your recurring events.
- 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 also be customized to display an event thumbnail instead of the date.
- Social Coupons Integration Addon: 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.
- Custom Files Add on: The Custom Files addon provides PHP files that let you bypass certain aspects of the plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Add-on Versions: This addon lets you involve others in the event management process 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 WP users roles and assign 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 users do not have access to certain areas of your WP dashboard and/or certain parts 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 add-on.
- Multiple Event Registration Add on: The Multi-Event registration add-on 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 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 addon uses the WordPress calendar to display events and categories of events using an attractive graphical calendar.
- JSON API Addon: The new Event Espresso JSON API add-on lets other software applications, online tools, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso data through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin, including new addons.
To learn more about the latest Event Espreso features and add ons, visit the plugin website:
Customer Feedback
Here are some of the many testimonials that satisfied customers 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
”I recently downloaded it to add to a nonprofit site for a Boy Scout troop and the features work wonderfully with what we wanted to accomplish for the site. It allows us to set up calendar, events, and even take payments for trips. At first, I thought that it would be overkill for such a small site, but now I see the possibilities and will definitely be offering Event Espresso to my clients that need an event organization system for their web sites.” Lucy Conn, Troop 462
”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, teacher, conference promoter, or event management consultant, there are just endless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed user, go through the forums for inspiration and practical suggestions to improve your event management process or improve the experience of your event participants.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso is compatible with all WP plugins and WP themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you do need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great support, as many of its clients confirm:
“I’m really impressed with not only the application itself but the support. I have rarely seen such a responsive support staff than at EE. They rock…I highly recommend this plugin!” sock2me
Event Espresso provides robust support including access to a support forum, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, priority 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 solid track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can depend on to manage your events.
Event Espresso Cost
Event Espresso is available in various editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced software options, however, you will want to consider downloading one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal Licensing – This option enables you to configure 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 Licensing – This lets you run Event Espresso on 1 site only. It includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This option lets you set up Event Espresso on five domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Current pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin is being retailed for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticketing Manager
Note: The pricing above was current when this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the site.
Event Espresso – Additional Plugin Info
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.
Search the plugin’s documentation tools to find answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to a specific situation, or to report bugs and share feedback.
For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product site.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event registration and ticketing manager software, used and trusted by thousands.
If you own a WordPress-powered web site and you intend to run events that require managing dates, times and venues (offline and online), booking attendees, and reserving tickets, then you will probably not find a better software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – Event Manager & Ticket Registration Software For WordPress
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