Do you currently run or plan to run events that need handling bookings, such as workshops, community courses, charity fund-raisers, marketing events, or even a big event such as a concert, 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 complex process. You need to manage scheduling, available dates and spaces, attendee numbers, data collection and storage, collecting payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to participants.
There are a number of advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce costs, help you easily reproduce repeat events, give event managers more control, create a more enjoyable customer experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite expensive.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-powered website or blog, you can easily install a very inexpensive and highly professional web-based event booking system.
Announcing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin lets you easily set up multiple events and begin processing registrations in a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and receive online registrations)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-rich software that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
Customize registration forms
You can employ a range of event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up ticket-selling, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your participants, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing updates.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Please Note: Currently, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is completely different than the older EE 3, as it is being revamped using a different structure to accommodate future expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually phase out EE 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
More info:
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current web site into a feature-rich and professional event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by literally doing away with the need to process registrations manually.
Essentially, you are enabling event attendees to enroll themselves.
Allowing your customers to do all of the data themselves frees up your time and lets you direct more resources on creating a better event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon see, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your attendees to experience.
Additional benefits include the following:
- Lower Costs: Event Espresso is a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to building your own software or using a 3rd-party service. The cost is kept to a minimum by using a model where you buy the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then purchase add-ons when you need extra functionality.
- Increased Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online sign-ups 24 hours a day. In addition, Event Espresso social features and add-ons (see below) let people interested in attending your event invite friends who may also be interested.
- Green & Paperless Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign-up process can remain wholly in digital form, reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks related to enrollment.
- All Data Belongs To You. You control all the data you obtain from your event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to its users through standard features (these come with the plugin) and optional features that users can buy for an added cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many built-in to web site owners. Here are just some of these:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have multiple dates and times (called datetimes), and these can be managed from one single event.
- Custom Notification Emails. Configure automatic booking and payment notification email messages to communicate with your clients.
- Tax Administration Options. Event Espresso 4 gives you several ways to handle taxes for an event and report tax fee components to customers who purchase tickets. Event managers can administer taxes globally or on a ticket-by-ticket basis.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your theme and reuse venue information throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Price Types. Price types let event managers create new prices that adjust the default ticket pricing for your system-default ticket.
- In-App Documentation Systems. Event Espresso 4 comes with three detailed in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. EE 4 lets you know who your customers are and how they have done business with you.
- No-Ticket Events. Set up events without making it necessary for registrants to select tickets. Event Espresso can be used for any type of event, not just those that require tickets.
- Private Comments On Contacts. Record notes about event attendees on their profile and how you have interacted with them. Private commenting helps you keep a record of when users contacted you, your internal observations, and how you’ve helped them.
- Keyword-Rich Event Page Web Links. Keyword rich event page URLs leverage your WP Permalinks configuration settings. “Pretty” permalinks that use topic-relevant keywords enhance the context of your events and is favored by search engines, helping you get a more targeted audience to your events.
- Multi-Language Plugin. Event Espresso has been translated into 15+ languages, with more translations planned.
- Exportable Data. You can output all of your information gathered from event customers into Excel or CSV format for compiling reports, planning marketing strategies, reviewing attendee statistics, etc..
- Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the built-in WordPress Visual editor, allowing you to quickly and easily add images and create and edit your event descriptions without knowledge of HTML or CSS, just like any WordPress post.
- Automatic Software Updating. Event Espresso offers simple 1-click upgrading to make sure that you have the latest features and to keep your installation compatible with new versions of WordPress.
- Social Sharing. Event registrants and your site visitors can tell others about your event using social sharing buttons.
- Accurate Attendee Manager. You have control of your customers’ date; who has registered, which event they have registered for and how much they have paid. With the attendee manager, you can get an overview of registered attendees and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export a list of event attendees to a spreadsheet for additional reports, send customized payment reminders and receipts and communicate with your clients individually or all at once.
Additional features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical WP users, and also extremely robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and web-based software developers. The bottom line is that by using Object-oriented programming (OOP), Event Espresso 4 facilitates more complex enhancements and customizations to the software.
- Control Box Management And Organization. Event Espresso lets you leverage the WP user interface, which gives you the ability to organize the user interface to match your workflow processes. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or entirely deleted from the workflow configuration.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value: 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 company operates on 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 40+ added features, including:
- Live-filtering when you search for events within the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing a common set of questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow end-users to further expand the capabilities of managing your event.
Some of these add-ons 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 Dropdown Custom Template Add on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes multiple datetime events into a drop-down 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 also be customized to display an event thumbnail instead of the date.
- Events Social Sharing Add on: This add-on adds social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that allows your attendees to post a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after registration.
- Custom Files Addon: The Custom Files add-on allows you to override certain aspects of the Event Espresso plugin.
- 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 addon 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 environment for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to every seat.
- Multi-Event Registration Addon: The Multi-Event registration addon gives potential attendees the ability to book multiple events at once. In each event listing attendees 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 addon, 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 add-on uses the WP calendar to display events and categories of events in a nice graphical calendar.
- JSON API Addon: The Event Espresso JSON API add-on permits other software applications, online tools, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso information through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin, including new addons.
For full details about the latest Event Espreso features and add ons, visit the plugin website:
Users – Testimonials
Below are just some of the testimonials that satisfied users have written about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso is one of the nicest Event Managers (WP Plugin) I have come across.” Joe Distefano, Citizen Joe
”Probably the best event management plugin available.” Materia Inspiration Centre
”I’m so excited to fire Eventbrite! Event Espresso has an amazing WP plugin for event management. We’re testing it now & are very impressed! In a nutshell Event Espresso saves us money & does everything Eventbrite did before. :)” Dustin Nay
Plugin Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, presenter, conference promoter, or event professional, there are simply countless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso plugin.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a licensed user, visit the user forum for new ideas and practical suggestions to improve your event management process or improve the experience of your customers.
Support
Event Espresso works with with most WP plugins and themes that follow standard WP development rules. If you find that you need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent end-user support, as many of its clients confirm:
”Your plugin saved our client nearly $9000 in development costs because it handled the majority of the functionality we were looking for at a much lower cost. EventEspresso’s staff have been very responsive to our needs when we have them (which has been rare, because the plugin is so well coded). Great job on a great plugin!” Brandon P., Experience Farm
The plugin provides incredible support including access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, custom development 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.
Additionally, Event Espresso boasts a well-staffed team of experienced web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely software you can rely on to run and manage your events.
Software Cost
Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced software functionality, however, you need to consider downloading one of the premium plugin versions below:
- Personal License – This license option allows you to configure Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License – This allows you to set up Event Espresso on one domain only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License Edition – This license option enables you to install Event Espresso on 5 domains. It includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Pricing details of the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the software is being retailed for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The pricing above was current at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Plugin Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to stay 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 setting up and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to your particular use-case, or to report errors and leave feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product information pages.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event booking and ticketing manager software, used and trusted by thousands.
If you are a WordPress user and you currently run events that involve managing dates, times and venues, enrolling attendees, and selling seating, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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