Do you currently run or plan to run events that need co-ordinating bookings or registrations, such as workshops, training classes, not-for-profit fund-raisers, marketing events, or even a big event like a school concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Co-ordinating event sign-ups is a complex process. You will probably need to co-ordinate scheduling, dates, attendee numbers, data processing, collecting payments and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs 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 duplicate previously-run events, give you more control, improve client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite costly.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-powered digital presence, you can download and install a very inexpensive and professional online event booking solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Management And Ticket Registration Software
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software lets you easily set up your event and start receiving registrations in just minutes.
(Set up multiple events and receive online event bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich plugin that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
Customize registration forms
You can use several 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 registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing updates.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Please Note: Currently, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is impressively different than the older EE 3, as the plugin is being revamped using a different structure to accommodate future growth. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually transition completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and advantages of using this plugin.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:
Automated Event Registration Management And Ticketing Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current online presence 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.
Increased Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by virtually doing away with the need to process registrations and signups manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for event participants to enrol on their own.
Allowing your clients to do the data entry frees you up from doing administration and lets you spend more of your time on planning a more unique event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon discover, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and booking process that you want your attendees to experience.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Less Costs: The Event Espresso plugin gives you an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a 3rd party service. The cost is kept to a minimum through a model where Event Espresso users purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy addons when you need extra functionality.
- Increased Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept new signups 24 hours a day. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social features and addons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event share your information with friends who may be interested.
- Paperless Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event registration process can remain wholly in digital form, reducing traditional paper waste from tasks related to administration.
- Own Your Data. You own all the data acquired from your event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
The Event Espresso software provides functionality to end-users through standard features (these are included with the software) and optional features that users can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many great features to website owners. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. 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), which these can be managed from a single event.
- Customizable Event & Registration Page Designs. Create a custom design for your events and enrollments page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and elements, as well as HTML or CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present several ticket options to prospects and let them choose the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is smart, fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary attendee’s registration details for any additional registrants.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow event managers to create new prices that adjust the base ticket price for your default ticket.
- In-App Documentation. Event Espresso 4 includes 3 comprehensive in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Event Check-In List. Generate a list of event registrants and check-in everyone who attends.
- No Ticket Events. Set up events without making it necessary for attendees to book tickets. Event Espresso can be used for all forms of events, not just when tickets are for sale.
- XML RSS Event Feeds. Provide automatic updates to your users, bring in more visitors and reach a wider audience with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Works With The Most Up-To-Date WordPress Version. The Event Espresso 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you build beautiful event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Multi-Language Software. Event Espresso is is available in 15+ languages, with more languages planned.
- Exportable Data. You can output all the data gathered from your event participants into Excel or CSV format for creating reports, planning marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, and so on.
- Venue Manager. The venue manager in Event Espresso 4 lets information about venues to appear throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front-end of your website to inform users of the location of your event. The venue profile has many standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also displays venue details such as venue capacity, venue site URL, telephone number, venue location details, map, etc. You can also list all of your event venues in various parts in your theme as well as on a venue listing page on your website where you can set up and reuse venue profiles for multiple events or display all the events for a particular venue.
- Attendee Records. Manage your registrant’s profiles and payment history and keep all of their data organized.
- Team Member Management. Save time and keep your information organized by reusing staff profiles for multiple events or displaying profile information such as team member’s contact information, resume and photo using a shortcode in your event description.
- Categorize Events. If you have several different event types such as free and paid, workshops and mastermind sessions, different kinds of programs and program modules, etc. you can categorize these to help your participants to find what they’re searching for. You can display all the events in a category on an event category page, make all events searchable by category, and colour-code events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make them easier to find, in addition to suggesting other events in the categories that appeal to your visitors.
Additional features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming. Event Espresso is simple enough for basic WP users, and also robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and developers. The bottom line is that by using Object-oriented programming (OOP), Event Espresso 4 makes possible more complex developments and customizations to the plugin.
- Maintenance Mode. You can pause registrations for regular site visitors whenever website maintenance is required. You can continue to work on the back-end of your site during maintenance mode.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & Value For Money: Event Espresso states on their website that their mission 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 in the process.
The premium version 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 tickets).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listing pages.
Add-Ons
As well as an amazing range of features, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow software users to further expand the capabilities of events.
Some of these addons 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, it will use a default image.
- Recurring Events Manager Add-on: The Recurring Events manager add on allows you to put events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months ahead. You can schedule as many future events as you like. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close bookings 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.
- Social Coupons Integration Add-on: If your web site is featured on Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can even specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- Custom Template Addon: The Custom Template add-on is capable of displaying your event lists in a variety of exciting and interesting ways.
- Seating Chart Add-on: The seating chart addon is for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is 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 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 prices to each seat.
- 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 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.
- EE4 Events Table View Template Add-on: The Events Table Template addon provides you with an easy-to-use system that allows you to change 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 web developers design their own custom templates using one of the templates included as a source template.
- EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Add on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and marketing software add-on, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture event attendee data, track bookings, and accept payments from your web site.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software, including new addons.
For more details about the newest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website here:
User Testimonials
Below are some of the many testimonials that satisfied 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
”…it really does blow everything else that’s out there out of the water.” Chris Reynolds, Arcane Palette Creative Design
”I am in love with your product, I work with many educational institutions that hold classes/events and I will definitely recommend this to all of them, the only time I have seen a system this comprehensive and sophisticated is when an organization I worked with paid a programmer nearly $8,000 for a custom solution, and yet still there are features in your registration system that his didn’t have. Thank you so much for your help and patience.” Abdullah J.
Plugin Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, trainer, concert promoter, or event consultant, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed user, search the user forum for useful ideas and practical ways to improve your event management process or improve the experience of your customers.
Product Support
Event Espresso works with with all WordPress plugins and WordPress themes that follow WP coding standards. If you do need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive end-user support, as so many of its clients 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
Event Espresso provides great support with access to a support forum, 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 web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can depend on to run your events.
Plugin Price
Event Espresso is available in a range of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software functionality, however, you need to consider using one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This license option enables you to set up Event Espresso on one domain only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This lets you install Event Espresso on 1 domain only. It includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This enables you to set up Event Espresso on five sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin retails for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticketing Manager
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site.
Event Espresso – Additional Plugin Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the software’s online documentation tools for answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to your particular use-case, or to notify developers about problems and leave feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product site.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event registration and ticketing manager plugin, used by thousands.
If you own a WordPress website and you plan to run events that require managing dates, times and venues, enrolling participants, and/or selling tickets, then you will probably not find a more suitable software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more information, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticketing Management Plugin
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