Do you currently run or plan to run events that need to accept registrations, such as workshops, training classes, non-profit fundraisers, corporate functions, or even a large-scale event like an art exhibition, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Managing event registrations can be a time-consuming process. You will probably have to manage scheduling, availability, participant numbers, data collection, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to event participants.
There are lots of advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily duplicate repeat events, give you more control, improve customer experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be very costly.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-powered website or blog, you can easily set up a very inexpensive and highly professional online event booking system.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticketing Management System
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WordPress allows you to easily schedule multiple events and begin receiving online bookings in minutes.
(Set up multiple events and process online event bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a feature-packed software that gives you complete control over the event registration management process.
Create custom event registration forms
You can use multiple event registration strategies, from simple online enrollments and straight up ticket-selling, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and autoresponders.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Please Note: Currently, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is impressively different than the older EE 3, as the platform is being rebuilt using a different structure to enable future growth. The EE 4 plugin platform 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.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website into a fully-featured and automated event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to attendee limits, multiple pricing options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by literally doing away with the chore of processing registrations manually.
Basically, you are enabling attendees to register by themselves.
Allowing your customers to do the data entry frees up your time and lets you direct more attention on creating a memorable event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management and booking process that you want your attendees to experience.
Additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin provides you with a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third-party service. The cost is kept low by using a model where you start with the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy optional addons only if you need added features.
- More Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new registrations outside normal business hours. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing addons (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event share your information with other people they know who may be interested in attending.
- Green And Paperless Event SignUp Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign-up process can remain wholly online, eliminating typical paper consumption from tasks associated with admin and record-storage.
- Own Your Information. You control all the data gathered from your event attendees.
Plugin Features
The Event Espresso plugin delivers functionality to its users via built-in features (these are included with the plugin) and optional features that you can buy for an added cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many built-in to WordPress users. Here are just some:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Custom Event Registration Form. With Event Espresso you can collect specific information using a custom event registration form on your web site to plan a great experience for your clients.
- Customized Notification Email Message. Easily set up automatic booking and payment notification emails to communicate with event participants.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso seamlessly integrates with leading payment gateways, enabling you to collect money before running your events.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration allows you to customize the display settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details sections.
- Spam Protection. Eliminate the chance of spammers and bots making false registrations by using reCAPTCHA settings that provide human validation.
- Mobile Registration & Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system allows you to authenticate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, set up various check-in “stations” and track all participants.
- Event Check-In List. Generate an exportable list of event attendees and check-in those who have attended.
- Waiting Lists. Interested persons can subscribe to a waiting list if your event is full. Additionally, you can make it a requirement wait-listed registrants pre-pay if you plan to add more capacity for your event.
- Private Commenting On Contacts. Record observations about contacts on their profile. Private notes allows you to keep a record of when users contacted you, your internal observations, and how you have helped them.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events let you build your event page over multiple sessions without displaying it live on your website. You can continue building your events until you are ready to take it live, or schedule your event to publish at a future time and date.
- Your Organization Settings. you can configure your organization’s profile to display throughout the plugin and your WP themes. The organization information include: organization name, address, city, state, country, zip code, email address, telephone number, VAT/tax number, logo, Facebook URL, Twitter URL, LinkedIn URL, Pinterest URL, Google+ profile URL, Instagram profile URL.
- Default Tickets. If you create similar tickets for your events, you can set up as your default ticket for the next time you create an event simply by ticking a checkbox.
- Register Multiple Participants. EE 4 allows an individual or an organization to buy multiple tickets and different ticket types at once. Event managers can control how many people are able to enrol in one registration by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Automatic Plugin Installation Updating. Event Espresso provides simple one-click software upgrading to ensure that you have the newest features and to keep your software installation up-to-date with the latest version of WordPress.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event registrants who have not fully paid for their admission with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click of a button. Your invoices will reference pre-registered customers who have not paid their registration in full by name, give them the amount owing, and include a link to the event, a payment url and a url where they can download a PDF invoice.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post type features such as custom fields, post meta data, taxonomies, etc. You can even customize the page templates to display event information in your own unique way.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions And Filters. These features allow web-based software developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso software that are compatible with the WordPress software platform.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 allows you to create a log file with debugging data which can be useful for web developers when diagnosing errors.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & Value For Money: 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 modular and highly effective model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium version of Event Espresso also comes with over 40 additional features, including:
- Duplicating events – limits the need to re-enter event data when adding new events.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing commonly asked questions for similar events.
- Option to skip the confirmation page during the registration process.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow customers to significantly expand the functionality of managing an 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, a default image will be used instead.
- Recurring Events Management Add on: The Recurring Events management add-on enables 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 automatically open and close registrations for all recurring events.
- Events Date Range Template Add-on: The Date Range custom event list template enables your users to browse for events that occur within a certain date range.
- Social Coupons Integration Addon: If your web site uses Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can also specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- Custom Template Add on: The Custom Template addon is capable of displaying your event lists in a variety of visually exciting ways.
- Seating Chart Addon: The seating chart add-on 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 add-on allows you to offer reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues right from your WordPress website. The Seating Chart addon lets you manage the environment for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to each seat.
- Multi-Event Registration Addon: The Multiple Event registration add-on gives your potential attendees the ability to register for 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 Multiple 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 Calendar Addon: This addon uses the WordPress calendar to display events and categories of events in an attractive graphical calendar.
- MailChimp Integration: The MailChimp add-on lets you auto-register participants to a specific autoresponder list or group within MailChimp.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software, including new add-ons.
To learn more about the newest Event Espreso features and add ons, check out the plugin here:
User Feedback
Below are just some of the many great testimonials that satisfied customers have written about Event Espresso:
”My hope with this whole integration is to be able to show other school districts an affordable and easy solution to these registrations. I cannot believe how much money they are charged for less by other companies. This has the potential to save schools tens of thousands, which is huge right now.” Kelly, College Station Independent School District
”When you can get a company to expend more money switching systems just to use your plugin…you’ve really accomplished something.” David, House of Prayer
”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 gym owner, teacher, festival planner, or event management consultant, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a licensed user, spend a little time visiting the forums for inspiration and practical ways to streamline your event management and registration workflow and enhance the experience of your participants.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso is compatible with all WordPress plugins and themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent technical support, as many of its customers attest:
”No complaints here. Satisfied customer. You can teach us all few things about customer service. Thanks!” Charles
The Event Espresso plugin provides comprehensive support with access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, custom development 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 WordPress developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can count on to run your events.
Plugin Pricing
Event Espresso is available in different editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software options, however, you may want to consider using one of the ”Pro” plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This allows you to configure Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This edition allows you to set up Event Espresso on one site only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License Edition – This lets you run Event Espresso on five sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Price details for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the plugin retails for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Please Note: The pricing above was current at the time this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the site.
Additional Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the software’s documentation tools for answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to a particular situation, or to report problems and leave feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event booking and ticketing management plugin, used and trusted by thousands of WP users.
If you own a WordPress-powered web site and you intend to run any event that requires scheduling dates and venues, registering participants, and/or selling tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticket Manager Plugin
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