Does your business currently run or plan to run events that need to accept bookings, such as seminars, community classes, non-profit fund raisers, networking events, 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 or participate?
Co-ordinating event bookings is a complicated and time-consuming process. You may have to manage event schedules, dates, participant numbers, data entry, payments and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and providing tickets to event attendees.
There are a number of advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower costs, help you easily replicate repeat events, give you more control, improve client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be very expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-powered site, you can easily set up a very inexpensive and highly professional online event registration solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WP plugin lets you easily set up multiple events and start receiving bookings in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and process online event registrations)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed application 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 enrolments and straight up selling tickets, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your participants, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing notifications.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is significantly different than the older EE 3, as the platform is being redeveloped using a different structure to enable 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 migrate completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
For more details go here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing web site into an automated and feature-rich event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple price levels 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 practically doing away with the chore of processing registrations manually.
Essentially, you are enabling event participants to perform the registration on their own.
Letting your participants to do the data themselves frees you up from doing administration and lets you focus more of your energy on planning a more unique event.
Full 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 customers to experience.
Additional benefits include the following:
- Reduced Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to building your own solution or using a third-party service provider. The cost is kept to a minimum through a model where Event Espresso users purchase the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then purchase addons only if you need added functionality.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept new event signups outside normal business hours. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event share your information with their friends who may be interested in attending.
- Green & Paperless Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event registration process can be conducted entirely online, reducing traditional paper waste from tasks associated with enrollment.
- All Information Belongs To You. You own all the data you acquire from your event participants.
Event Espresso Features
The Event Espresso software delivers functionality to its customers through built-in features (these are included with the software) and additional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers a number of great built-in to website owners. Here are just some of these:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to use in minutes.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso allows you to set up multiple ticket types and specify different prices, limits on ticket quantities, and more.
- WordPress Event Calendar. Customers can easily see your events and add these to their schedule using a calendar.
- Tax Administration Options. Event Espresso 4 provides a number of ways to manage taxes for your event and provide reports of tax fees to registrants when purchasing tickets. You can administer taxes globally and on a per-ticket basis.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your WordPress theme and display attendee information throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Prices. Create events quickly with pre-configured default ticket pricing.
- Mobile Registration & Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system lets you validate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, create various check-in “stations” and track participants.
- Event Check-In List. Generate an exportable list of event registrants and check-in those who have attended.
- No Ticket Events. Create events without making it necessary for attendees to book tickets. Event Espresso can be used for any kind of event, not just when tickets are for sale.
- Public Commenting. Add “social proof” by allowing potential registrants to ask questions about your event and previous customers to post comments that can help others consider whether or not to enroll. Moderation settings for comments are configured via the WP commenting admin area.
- Draft Events. Draft events let you develop your event page at your own pace without displaying it live on your website. You can work on your events until you are ready to take it live, or schedule to publish your event at a later date and time.
- Your Organization Settings. you can configure your organization’s profile to display throughout Event Espresso and your WP themes. The organization data include: business name, address, city, state, country, zip code, primary contact email address, phone, tax number, logo, Facebook profile URL, Twitter URL, LinkedIn URL, Pinterest profile URL, Google+ URL, Instagram profile URL.
- Default Tickets. If you create identical tickets for your events, you can easily set up as your default ticket for the next event simply by ticking a checkbox.
- WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the native WP Visual editor, allowing you to quickly and easily add photos and format your event descriptions without knowing HTML or CSS, just like any WP post or page.
- Registrant Records. You can manage your attendee’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their data organized and easily within reach.
- Social Sharing. Event registrants and your website visitors can help publicize your event using social media share buttons.
- Categorize Events. If you have multiple event types such as free and paid, conference speakers and mastermind sessions, different types of exercise classes, etc. you can categorize these to make it easier for your attendees to locate what they’re looking for. You can list all the events in a category on an event category page, make the events searchable by category, and color-code your events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make these easier to find, as well as suggesting other events in the categories that interest your existing customers.
Additional features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This allows web-based software developers to have more control and options over the content of your events and how the information displays to your prospective event registrants.
- Control Box Management & Reorganization. Event Espresso leverages the WordPress user interface, which gives you the ability to reorganize the user interface to suit your workflow processes. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or entirely deleted from the page.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & Value For Money: According to the philosophy stated on their website, 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 comes with over 40 added features, including:
- Duplicating events – eliminates the work of re-entering event details when adding new events.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse commonly asked questions for similar events.
- Option to skip the confirmation page in the registration process.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow customers to further expand the functionality of managing your event.
Some of these add ons include:
- 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, a default image will be used instead.
- Recurring Events Drop-down Template Add-on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize many datetime events into a dropdown 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 be customized to show an event thumbnail instead of a date.
- EE4 Events Social Sharing Addon: Add social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that lets your registrants to share a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after booking.
- Custom Template Add on: The Custom Template addon is capable of displaying your event lists in a range of exciting and interesting ways.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Addon Editions: This add-on lets you include staff 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 allow them different permissions with different capabilities, allowing staff to help you manage your events or events that others create. You can customize roles so that users do 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.
- Multi-Event Registration Add on: The Multi-Event registration add-on 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 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 Table Template Add on: The Events Table Template addon provides event managers with an easy-to-use system that lets you 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 lets developers build custom templates using one of the templates provided as a source template.
- MailChimp Integration: The MailChimp addon lets you automatically register participants to a chosen mailing list or group within MailChimp.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software, including new add ons.
For more information about the newest Event Espreso features and add-ons, check out the plugin here:
Customer Feedback
Here are a few of the many testimonials that satisfied plugin users have written 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 been using Event Espresso to run my festival and have been very happy with how it has worked out. They have provided tremendous support and their iPhone app is amazing and easy to use. I suggest using it for your event.” Alex Grant, Byron Spirit Festival
”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, teacher, show promoter, or event consultant, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a licensed user, spend a little time visiting the user forum for new ideas and practical suggestions to streamline your event management process or enhance the experience of your event attendees.
Support
Event Espresso works with with other WP plugins and WordPress themes that follow standard WordPress development guidelines. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent technical support, as many of its satisfied end-users confirm:
”No complaints here. Satisfied customer. You can teach us all few things about customer service. Thanks!” Charles
Event Espresso provides great support including access to support forums, in-depth 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 an established team of experienced WordPress developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can rely on to run your events.
Software Pricing
Event Espresso is available in a range of editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced software options, however, you need to consider using one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This allows you to configure Event Espresso on one domain only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This allows you to run Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License – This license option allows you to configure Event Espresso on five domains. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one 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 is being retailed for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Manager
Note: The pricing above was current when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the website.
Additional Plugin Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the plugin’s documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to your specific situation, or to notify developers about bugs and give feedback.
For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event registration and ticketing manager plugin, used and trusted by thousands of WP users.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you intend to run an event that requires managing dates, times and venues (offline and online), enrolling attendees, or reserving tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more details, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticketing Management Plugin
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