Does your business currently run or plan to run events that require handling bookings or registrations, such as seminars, group courses, charity fund raisers, corporate functions, or even a large-scale event like a community festival, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Managing event bookings is a complex process. You will most likely have to co-ordinate scheduling, event dates, participant numbers, data collection, payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and delivering tickets to attendees.
There are lots of advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce costs, help you easily copy settings for recurring events, give you more control, create a more enjoyable client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be very costly.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-powered website or blog, you can easily set up a very inexpensive and highly professional web-based event booking solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WordPress enables you to easily set up multiple events and start receiving bookings literally in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and accept online registrations)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed software that gives you full control of your event registration management process.
Create custom event registration forms
You can employ a range of event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up selling tickets, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your event attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing follow-ups.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Please Note: Currently, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is impressively different than the older Event Espresso 3, as it is being revamped using a different structure to enable future expansion. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually phase out Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and features of using this plugin.
Learn more here:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current website or blog into an automated and feature-rich event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to attendee limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by virtually eliminating the need to process registrations manually.
Essentially, you are enabling participants to complete the sign-up process themselves.
Allowing your customers to do the data entry frees up your time and lets you focus more of your attention on planning a more unique event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your clients to experience.
Additional benefits include the following:
- Reduced Costs: Event Espresso provides you with a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to building your own system or using a 3rd party service. This is made possible through a model where you buy the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and buy optional addons only when you need additional functionality.
- Increased Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept new signups 24 hours a day. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing add-ons (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event invite other people they know who may also be interested.
- Green Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign up process is completed entirely in digital form, reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks related to administration.
- Own Your Information. You control all the information obtained from your event participants.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to users through built-in features (these come with the software) and additional features that users can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many unique features to WordPress users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Ready to start accepting registrations in minutes.
- Customized Event Registration Form. Event Espresso lets you collect unique data using custom event registration forms on your web site to create a great experience for your users.
- Customizable Event Page Designs. Create a custom design for your events and bookings page using Event Espresso’s template options and elements, plus HTML and CSS.
- Tax Administration Options. Event Espresso 4 gives you several options to administer taxes for your event and report tax fees to registrants who purchase tickets. You can configure taxes globally and on a ticket-by-ticket basis.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your theme and display attendee details throughout other areas of your site.
- Spam Protection. Eliminate the chance of spamming and bots making bogus registrations by using reCAPTCHA option to provide human validation.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system allows you to authenticate tickets, speed up door registrations, create multiple check-in “stations” and track attendees.
- Manual Registration Option. you have the option of registering event participants at the door, or send in paper registration forms for manual processing later.
- Waiting Lists. Interested persons can join a waiting list if your event is full. You can also specify that waiting list members pay for their spots if you plan to expand numbers for your event.
- Public Commenting. Add social interactivity to your event page by encouraging potential customers to ask questions about your event and previous participants to post feedback that can help others decide whether or not to enroll. Moderation settings for comments are configured via the WP commenting system.
- Optimized For The Most Recent Version Of WP. The EE 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you create visually enhanced event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Country-specific Settings. You can configure the country and currency settings to be used when hosting events, such as currency, currency signs, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, regions, etc.
- Bulk Edit Events. Event Espresso 4 provides an advanced importing capability that lets you quickly import a lot of event data at once. You can export, edit and upload details about events, datetimes, tickets, pricing, registration questions, venues, terminology, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the native WP WYSIWYG editor, so you can quickly and easily insert photos and create your event descriptions without knowledge of HTML or CSS, just like any standard WP post or page.
- Attendee Profiles. You can manage each attendee’s profiles and payment history and keep all of their data organized.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event customers who have not fully paid for their booking with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click of a button. Your invoices will address pre-registered participants who have not paid their registration in full by name, give them the amount owing, and include links to the event, a payment url and a url where they can download the invoice.
- Accurate Event Participant Management. You have control of your attendees’ information; who has enrolled, which event they have registered for and how much they’ve paid. With the attendee manager, you can get an overview of registered participants and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export a list of attendees to a CSV file for additional uses, send customized payment reminders and receipts and communicate with your registrants on a person-by-person basis or collectively.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions And Filters. These features allow you to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso plugin that are compatible with the WordPress development platform.
- Maintenance Mode. Pause registration capabilities for regular site visitors whenever you need to carry out maintenance on your site. You can still work on your event pages during maintenance mode.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value: According to the philosophy stated on their site, Event Espresso’s aim is to “empower business and organization leaders with the event registration, ticketing and management tools that maximize the success of events.” To achieve their objectives, the software has been built using a modular and effective model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also provides you with over 40 added features, including:
- Duplicating events – simplifies the work of re-entering event information when adding new events.
- Default surcharge (similar to applying a service fee to all tickets).
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As well as an amazing range of features, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow end-users to significantly enhance the capabilities of the event management process.
Some of these add ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display all scheduled events by location. There are four maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Management Add-on: The Recurring Events manager add-on lets you put events on autopilot by scheduling repeated events weeks or months in advance. You can create as many future events as you need. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations 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 show an event thumbnail instead of a date.
- Social Coupons Integration Addon: If your website is featured on Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can also specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- Custom Files Add on: The Custom Files add on provides PHP files that let you override certain aspects of the Event Espresso plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Add on Versions: This add on lets you include other users in the event management process and give new users permission 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 privileges, allowing staff to help you manage your events or events that others create. You can customize roles so that a user does not have access to certain parts of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain areas of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to allow users to have geographic responsibilities for events and users, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add on.
- Multiple Event Registration Add on: The Multiple Event registration add-on gives potential customers 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 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 Template Addon: The Events Table Template add-on provides you with a simple and easy-to-use system that allows you to edit 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 lets web developers design custom templates using one of the included templates 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 software add on, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture customer data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your website.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin, including new addons.
To learn more about the newest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website:
User Testimonials
Here are some of the many testimonials that satisfied customers have written about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso is one of the nicest Event Managers (WP Plugin) I have come across.” Joe Distefano, Citizen Joe
”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
”Just bought an Event Espresso license for an upcoming conference website we are working on. The custom registration forms functionality rocks!” Eric Sopp, Inside Design
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, teacher, seminar promoter, or event 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 registered owner, visit the support forum for inspiration and practical suggestions to streamline your event management and registration workflow and enhance the experience of your customers.
Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with other WordPress plugins and themes that follow standard WordPress coding guidelines. If you do need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great support, as many of its satisfied plugin end-users 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 amazing support with 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.
In addition, Event Espresso boasts a well-staffed team of experienced web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can depend on to organize and manage your events.
Event Espresso Pricing
Event Espresso is available in different plugin 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 ”Pro” plugin editions below:
- Personal Licensing – This allows you to run Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This enables you to run Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This enables you to set up Event Espresso on 5 sites. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
The cost of purchasing the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin is being retailed for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Manager & Ticketing Registration Software For WordPress
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller when you visit the site.
Additional Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the plugin’s documentation tools for answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to a specific use-case, or to report bugs and give feedback.
For all 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 leading WP event booking and ticketing manager software, used and trusted by thousands of WordPress users.
If you are a WordPress user and you plan to run events that involve managing dates and venues (offline and online), registering participants, and/or reserving seating, then you will probably not find a better software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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