Does your organization currently run or plan to run events that require handling bookings or registrations, such as seminars, group courses, not-for-profit fund raisers, networking conferences, or even a big event such as a music festival, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event registrations can be a complex process. You will probably have to co-ordinate event schedules, dates, attendee numbers, data processing, payments and invoicing, confirmations, reminders and alerts, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to event registrants.
There are lots of advantages to setting up an automated web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower expenses, help you easily reproduce recurring events, give event managers more control, improve customer experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite expensive.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-powered web site, you can easily set up an inexpensive and highly professional web-based event registration system.
Announcing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WordPress plugin enables you to easily schedule multiple events and begin receiving bookings in a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online event bookings)
Event Espresso is a feature-packed application that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
Customize registration forms
You can employ a number of event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up ticket-selling, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your event attendees, or integrating your event bookings with social media and autoresponders.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Note: Currently, Event Espresso is transitioning between 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 revamped using a different structure to enable future expansion. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually retire EE 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some 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 current online presence into a fully-featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple price levels 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 improve your business productivity by literally doing away with the need to process registrations manually.
Basically, you are facilitating attendees to enrol themselves.
Letting your attendees to do all of the data themselves frees up your time and lets you concentrate more of your time on creating a more enjoyable event.
Full 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 clients to experience.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Reduced Costs: Event Espresso gives you a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a 3rd-party service provider. This is made possible by using a model where users purchase the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and buy add-ons when you need additional functionality.
- Increased Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online registrations 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing features (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event share your information with their friends who may also be interested in attending.
- Paperless Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event booking process remains wholly online, eliminating traditional paper waste from tasks associated with enrollment.
- All Data Belongs To You. You control all the information acquired from your event attendees.
Plugin Features
The Event Espresso plugin provides functionality to its users via standard features (these come with the plugin) and optional features that customers can buy for an additional cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many unique built-in to site owners. Here are just some of these:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Ready to start accepting registrations in very little time.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso allows you to set up as many different types of tickets as you need and specify separate prices, ticket quantity limits, and more.
- Custom Confirmation Emails. Set up automatic registration and payment notification emails to communicate with event clients.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso seamlessly integrates with payment gateways, allowing you to collect booking fees prior to running the events.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is smart, fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically copy the primary registrant’s information for any additional participants.
- Spam Protection. Prevent the risk of spamming and bot software programs creating fake registrations with reCAPTCHA option that validate human activity.
- Promotional Codes. Set up promotion and discount codes to incentivize prospects to register now, or make your offerings more appealing for others. This is also practical if you want to sell-out events close to timelines.
- Event Check-In List. Generate an exportable list of event attendees and check in everyone who attends.
- Admin Pre-approval. Be selective about who can register for your events.
- Private Contact Notes. Keep comments about a contact on their profile and how you have helped your customers. Private notes lets you keep a record of when users contacted you, your internal notes, and how you have assisted them.
- Works With The Most Recent Version Of WordPress. The Event Espresso 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you create highly aesthetic event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Your Organization Settings. you can configure your profile to be deployed throughout Event Espresso and your front-end templates. Organization data include: business name, street address, city, state, country, zip/postal code, email, telephone, VAT/tax number, logo, Facebook profile URL, Twitter profile URL, LinkedIn profile URL, Pinterest profile URL, Google+ profile URL, Instagram URL.
- Import Event Information. EE 4 provides an advanced importing feature that allows you to import bulk event data at once. You can export, edit and import details about events, datetimes, ticketing information, pricing, registration questions, venues, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Venue Profiles. The venue manager in EE 4 allows details about a venue to display throughout the Event Espresso admin and the public areas of your site to inform attendees of your event’s location. The venue record has many standard WordPress settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also displays venue information like venue capacity, venue web address, phone number, physical, maps, etc. You can also list venue profiles in specific sections of your WP theme as well as on a venue listing page on your website where you can set up and display venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have listed for a particular venue.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso lets you interact with a community of experienced event managers, web developers, designers, marketers and business owners who also use the software. You can engage with other members of the Event Espresso community 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 attendees who have not made payment for their admission with a standard but personalized PDF invoice with just one click of a button. Your invoices will address pre-registered customers who have not paid their registration in full by name, display the balance they owe, and include links to the event details, a payment url and a url where they can download a PDF invoice.
- Transaction Reporting. Event reports gives you information of your registrations and transactions, allowing you to measure the performance of your events with the aggregate number of people who have registered and amount of revenue you’ve collected.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming. Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical users, and also extremely robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and web-based software developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, Event Espresso 4 permits more complex extensions and customizations to the plugin.
- Maintenance Mode. Pause registration capabilities for regular website traffic when website maintenance is required. You can continue to work on your event pages during maintenance mode.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value For Money: According to the philosophy stated 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 goals, 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 edition of Event Espresso also includes 40+ added features, including:
- Live-filtering when you search for events in the Event Espresso admin.
- Default surcharge (the same as adding a service tax to each ticket).
- Default payment status.
Addons
As well as an amazing number of features, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow you to further expand the capabilities of managing your event.
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, a default image will be used.
- Recurring Events Management Addon: The Recurring Events manager addon lets you put your events on autopilot by scheduling repeated events weeks or months ahead. You can create as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in advance as you need. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all of these 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 the event thumbnail image instead of the date.
- EE4 Events Social Sharing Add on: This addon adds social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that lets your registrants to post a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after booking.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on lets you take advantage of the WP user system. With the WP User Integration add-on you can give users a special incentive by offering member pricing and overriding event pricing when members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered users of the website will have access to your special events. Members can also enter personal details into their profile page allowing them to quickly register for events by auto-filling in their personal information on the event registration form. Your users can also view past events and make payment for new events.
- Seating Chart Add on: The seating chart add-on 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 promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues right from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add on lets you control the environment for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach single pricing to every seat.
- Multiple Event Registration Add on: The Multiple Event registration addon gives potential attendees the ability to book 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.
- Events Table View Template Add on: The Events Table Template add on gives you a simple and easy-to-use system that allows you to modify the design 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 their own custom templates using one of the templates included as a base template.
- EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Add on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft App and Merchant Account integration all-in-one sales and business marketing plugin addon, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture event attendee data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your Event Espresso powered website.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin, including new add-ons.
For full details about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website:
Customers – Feedback
Here are some of the many testimonials that satisfied plugin users have posted about Event Espresso:
”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
”I have to say that it has been the right choice for me…I’ve been extremely pleased with the way my site is working.” Robin, RobinTime
”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 motivational speaker, presenter, workshop promoter, or event management professional, there are just countless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a registered owner, spend a little time visiting the forums for tips and practical ways to streamline your event management workflow or enhance the experience of your participants.
Support
Event Espresso works with with all 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 user support, as many of its users 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 robust support including access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, premium 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 a well-staffed team of experienced WordPress developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely software you can rely on to organize and manage your events.
Software Cost
Event Espresso is available in a range of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software functionality, however, you should consider purchasing one of the paid plugin versions below:
- Personal License – This lets you install Event Espresso on 1 site only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This enables you to run Event Espresso on 1 site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on five domains. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
The cost to purchase the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the plugin retails for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Please Note: The pricing above was current when this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the site.
Additional Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the software’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to a specific use-case, or to notify developers about errors and give feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing manager software, used by thousands.
If you own a WordPress-powered site and you plan to run events that involve scheduling dates, times and venues, booking participants, and booking tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
***