Do you currently run or plan to run events that need handling bookings, such as workshops, group courses, charity fund-raisers, social conferences, or even a large-scale event like a show, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event sign-ups can be a time-consuming process. You may be required to co-ordinate calendar schedules, availability, attendee numbers, data collection and storage, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to participants.
There are a number of advantages to setting up an automated web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce costs, help you easily reproduce previous events, give event managers more control, improve client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite costly.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-powered site, you can easily set up an inexpensive and highly professional online event booking system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WordPress enables you to easily schedule your event and start receiving online registrations in just a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and accept online bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed plugin that gives you complete control of your event registration management process.
Create custom event registration forms
You can use various event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your participants, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing follow-ups.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their software: EE 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is fundamentally different than the older EE 3, as the plugin is being redeveloped using a different structure to allow for future growth and expansion. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually transition completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and features of using the plugin.
Go here to learn more:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits 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 online presence into a fully-featured and automated event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by practically doing away with the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for event participants to enroll on their own.
Allowing your participants to do all of the data entry frees you up from doing administration and lets you direct more of your time on planning a more unique event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will see in a moment, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your participants to experience.
Some additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to building your own system or using a third-party service provider. This is made possible through a model where you buy the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then purchase optional add-ons when you need additional functionality.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new bookings any time of day or night. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features and add-ons (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event share your information with other people they know who may also be interested in attending.
- Green & Paperless Event SignUp Process: With Event Espresso, the event booking process can remain wholly online, eliminating typical paper consumption from tasks related to enrollment.
- Own Your Data. You own all the data you acquire from event attendees.
Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to end-users through standard features (these are included with the plugin) and additional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides a number of great built-in to WordPress users. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Ready to start accepting registrations in minutes.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso allows you to create multiple ticket types and specify different prices, number of tickets, and more.
- Customizable Event And Registration Page Designs. Create a unique look and feel for your events and registrations page using Event Espresso’s limitless template options and components, and HTML and/or CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present a number of ticket options to registrants so they can purchase the ticket(s) that best fits their needs.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary registrant’s information for any added attendees.
- Default Prices. Create events quickly by pre-configuring system-default ticket pricing.
- In-App Documentation. Event Espresso 4 includes three detailed in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Event Check-In List. Generate a list of attendees and check in those who attend.
- Event Manager Pre-approval. Be selective about who can and can’t attend your events.
- XML RSS Event Feeds. Provide automatic updates to your customers, bring in more visitors and reach a wider number of prospects with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Keyword-Rich URLs. Keyword rich event page Web links leverage your Permalinks configuration settings. SEO-friendly permalinks with relevant keywords add to the context of your content and is favored by search engines, helping you get a more targeted audience to your events.
- Complete Control Of Your Event Management. Event Espresso puts you in complete control of all aspects of your event’s registration and ticketing processes, and lets you automate the process with event management tools that include staff and venue management, customizable event page designs, payment processing, wait lists, limits on attendees, printable ticketing and more.
- Default Tickets. If you find yourself creating similar tickets for your events, you can set one of those tickets as your default ticket for the next time you create an event simply by ticking a checkbox.
- Multiple Event Participant. Event Espresso 4 allows a single person or an organization to buy multiple tickets and different types of tickets simultaneously. Event managers decide how many attendees are able to enroll in a single registration session by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso provides users with access to a community of experienced event managers, web developers, designers, marketers and business owners who also use the plugin. You can interact with other members of the Event Espresso community using their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Team Member Manager. Save time and stay organized by reusing staff profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in an event description.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post types. You can even customize your page templates to display event information in your own unique way.
Extra features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These allow developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso plugin that are fully compatible with the WordPress software platform.
- Metabox Management And Reorganization. Event Espresso lets you leverage the WP user interface, which brings the ability to reorder the user interface to match your workflow process. Each meta box can be collapsed, re-arranged or removed from the workflow configuration.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & Value: According to the philosophy stated on their web site, Event Espresso’s objective 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 modular that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium version of Event Espresso also includes over 40 additional features, including:
- Duplicating events – reduces the need to re-enter event data when adding new events.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse the same questions for similar events.
- Option to skip the confirmation page in the registration process.
Addons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow you to significantly expand the capabilities of your event management system.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display upcoming events by location. Four maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- 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 … even years in advance. You can add as many future events as you want. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all recurring events.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add-on: The Category Accordion template displays categories as a simple list. Clicking a category name shows all events associated with that category and closes any previously open categories.
- EE4 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 registrants to share a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after registration.
- Custom Files Add on: The Custom Files addon lets you bypass certain aspects of the plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Add-on Editions: This add on lets you include other users in the event management process and give new users the capacity to create events or regional managers permission to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WP users roles and give them different permissions with different capabilities, so your staff can help you manage your events or the events that others create. You can customize roles so that a user does not have access to certain parts of your WP dashboard and/or certain sections 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.
- EE4 Event Ticketing Add-on: The Ticketing add on adds the ability to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on gives you the ability to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing add-on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for handling check-in scans at venues. Registrants can either print out their tickets or display them on their mobile devices. The mobile app can be used for checking in or checking out attendees and to validate tickets.
- EE4 Events Calendar Add-on: This addon uses the WP calendar to display events and categories of events in a nice graphical calendar.
- EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Addon: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and marketing plugin add-on, you can easily automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture registrant data, track registrations, and accept payments from your website.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin, including new addons.
For more details about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, check out the plugin here:
User Feedback
Below are some of the many great testimonials that satisfied plugin users have written about Event Espresso:
”I want to commend you on a fabulous product which is just the right price for a small non-profit. People are happy with the registration process, as are we! …Thank you SO much for a great product.” Sandra Forero Bush, World Trade Center Tacoma
”Your plugin rocks! Seriously, saved me hours on the phone setting up attendance manually. Kudos. :)” William, Petruzzo Photography
”At first we looked at CVENT for one of our clients and they wanted $16,000 per year for 3000 event attendees + fees totaling $22k. That is before Staff and Webinar fees. Worst of all we had to prepay the $16k amount even if we never used all 3000 attendees. That was when we looked at Event Espresso and we realized we could build our own event system for less than 16K. For the most part we have been very satisfied with our decision. The real ROI will come next year when they don’t have to pay another 16k-22K! Over the next 5-6 years we should be able to claim that we saved the company over $100,000 – Thanks Event Espresso!” David Waterman (Long Version), KT Benefits & InkItDigital.com
Plugin Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, presenter, workshop promoter, or event management consultant, there are simply unlimited possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, go through the forums for tips and practical ways to improve your event management workflow and improve the experience of your event participants.
Plugin Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with all WP plugins and WP themes that follow WP coding standards. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent user support, as so many of its users confirm:
”These guys are right on any problem or issue or even general questions. You can’t really put a value high enough on the kind of support these guys offer.” Mark Wigston, Muskoka Graphics
Event Espresso provides comprehensive support that includes 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 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 software you can count on to manage your events.
Event Espresso Pricing
Event Espresso is available in a number of editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin features, however, you may want to consider purchasing one of the premium plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This enables you to set up Event Espresso on one domain only. It includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This license enables you to install Event Espresso on one site only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This allows you to configure Event Espresso on five domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
The cost of purchasing the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the software is being retailed for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The pricing above was current when this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding 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 plugin’s documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to your particular use-case, or to notify developers about problems and share 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 registration and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of WP site owners.
If you own a WordPress-powered web site and you plan to run events that require scheduling dates and venues (offline and online), registering participants, and/or selling seating, then you will probably not find a better software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso
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