Does your company currently run or plan to run events that require handling registrations, such as workshops, group classes, not-for-profit fund-raisers, corporate functions, or even a big event like an exhibition, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Managing event sign-ups can be a time-consuming process. You will most likely be required to co-ordinate scheduling, event dates, registration numbers, data entry, payments and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and providing tickets to event registrants.
There are a number of benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower costs, help you easily duplicate previous events, give you more control, improve user experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite costly.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-based site, you can set up an inexpensive and professional online event registration solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Manager Plugin
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software allows you to easily set up your event and begin receiving registrations in minutes.
(Set up multiple events and receive online event registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed plugin that gives you full control over your event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can employ various event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your attendees, 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 supports two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is completely different than the older EE 3, as the plugin has been rebuilt using a different structure to accommodate future growth and expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually migrate completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and features of this plugin.
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current digital presence into a feature-rich and professional event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by literally doing away with the need to process registrations manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for participants to enrol on their own.
Letting your participants to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you concentrate more of your resources on planning a better event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management process that you want your participants to experience.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Reduced Costs: Event Espresso gives you a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a 3rd party service provider. The cost is kept low by using a model where you purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy optional addons only when you need extra functionality.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept online bookings 24 hours a day. In addition, Event Espresso social and marketing features and add-ons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event invite their friends who may be interested in attending.
- Green Event SignUp Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign-up process can remain entirely online, reducing typical paper waste from tasks associated with admin and record-storage.
- All Data Belongs To You. You own all the information collected from event attendees.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to users via built-in features (these come with the plugin) and additional features that users can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many built-in to WordPress users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso allows you to create multiple ticket types and specify different pricing options, ticket quantity limits, and more.
- Customized Notification Email Message. Configure automated registration and payment notification emails to communicate with event clients.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso provides integration with leading payment gateways, enabling you to collect registration fees prior to running your events.
- Smart Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary attendee’s registration information for any additional participants.
- Default Price Types. Price types let you create new prices that adjust the base ticket price for the system-default ticket.
- Mobile Registration & Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system allows you to authenticate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, set up multiple check-in “stations” and track all participants.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. Event Espresso 4 lets you know who your clients are and how you’ve done past business with your customers. Your Contact Profile page stores the name, biography, contact information, event registration data, comments, and more about each registrant.
- No Ticket Events. Create events without the requirement for attendees to get tickets. Event Espresso can be used for any kind of event, not only those that need tickets.
- RSS Feeds. Keep your customers up-to-date about your events, bring in more visitors and expand your content distribution with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Optimized For The Most Up-To-Date WordPress Version. The EE 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 can be set up in 15+ languages, with more translations planned.
- Import Events. EE 4 provides an advanced importing feature that allows you to easily import a lot of event data at once. You can export, edit and import data for events, datetimes, ticketing details, prices, registration questions, venue info, terminology, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Event Venue Profiles. The venue manager feature in EE 4 lets details about a venue to be published throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front-end of your site to inform registrants of your event’s location. The venue record displays many standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also displays details such as venue capacity, venue web address, telephone number, physical and virtual location, maps, etc. You can also list all of your venues in various locations in your theme and on a venue listing page on your website where you can set up and display venue profiles for multiple events or display all the events for a given venue.
- Registrant Records. Manage your customer’s profiles and payment history and keep all of their data organized and easily accessible.
- Social Sharing. Event attendees and site visitors can help increase exposure for your events using social media sharing buttons.
- Accurate Participant Management. You have control of your participants’ date; who has enrolled, for what event 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 an Excel spreadsheet for additional reports, send customized payment reminders and receipts and communicate with your customers on a person-by-person basis or as a group.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for general WP users, and also robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, EE 4 facilitates more complex enhancements and customizations to the plugin.
- Metabox Management And Organization. Event Espresso leverages the WordPress user interface, which gives you the ability to reorganize the user interface to suit your workflow processes. Each meta box can be collapsed, re-arranged or deleted from the workflow configuration.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & Value For Money: According to the mission statement 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 mission, the software has been built using a modular and effective model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium version of Event Espresso also provides you with over 40 added features, including:
- Email shortcodes for including customer data in notification emails and newsletters.
- Default surcharge (similar to applying a service fee to all tickets).
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow you to significantly enhance the capabilities of managing your event.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display all upcoming events by location. There are four maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Custom Template Addon: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes many datetime events into a drop-down list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add-on: The Category Accordion template shows categories as a simple list. Clicking on a category name shows the events associated with that category and closes previously open categories.
- Social Media Buttons Add on: The social media add-on displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media addon is included free with any of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- Custom Template Addon: The Custom Template addon can display your events in a range of exciting and interesting 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 ideal 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 from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add-on lets you manage the experience for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach single prices to each seat.
- Event Ticketing Addon: The Ticketing add-on adds the ability to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add-on adds the capacity to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing add-on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for managing check-in scans at venues. Attendees 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 registrants and to validate tickets.
- EE4 Events Table Template Addon: The Events Table Template addon gives event managers 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 build custom templates using one of the included templates as a source template.
- JSON API Addon: The Event Espresso JSON API add-on lets other software applications, websites, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso content through an Application Programming Interface (API).
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software, including new add-ons.
To learn more about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website:
Testimonials
Below are some of the many testimonials that satisfied users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso is so easy to use yet feature rich and stable. It is a cornerstone of our site and our success.” Fraser Barner, Speaker’s Lab
”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
”Thank you, we just did 2 sell out seminars of 50 attendees in 48 hours using Event Espresso and it was awesome. My wife was able to pick up on the processing backend with ease. You have done a great job on getting this system together – very simple, clear and well laid out With powerful functionality. I am so glad I dumped the old booking application we had and gave Event Espresso a go. Just wanted to say thanks, and thanks for the very patient, friendly and speedy assistance in helping me to get it all set up at the start. Many thanks to you and your team. A grateful customer.” Nicholas de Castella, Emotional Intelligence Trainings
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, teacher, conference planner, or event professional, there are simply endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a registered owner, spend a little time going through the user forum for inspiration and practical suggestions to improve your event management process or enhance the experience of your registrants.
Support
Event Espresso is compatible with all WP plugins and WP themes that follow standard WP development rules. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great end-user support, as many of its customers confirm:
”Thank you Seth for being so responsive and going above and beyond the call of duty with your app! I highly recommend Event Espresso for its functionality and for the stellar support. Seth has a deep knowledge and understanding of WordPress and has built a tool that is seamless to use for both organizer and attendee alike! After looking at a bunch of alternatives, Event Espresso far surpasses the other apps that are available.” Wendy Troupe, ICS North Pole Express
The software provides incredible support that includes access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase 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 web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can rely on to run your events.
Event Espresso Price
Event Espresso is available in different plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin functionality, however, you should consider downloading one of the premium plugin versions below:
- Personal Edition – This license option allows you to configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License – This enables you to install Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License Edition – This option enables you to run Event Espresso on 5 sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
The cost to purchase the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin retails for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticketing Management
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the website.
Additional Plugin Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding 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 software’s documentation tools for answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to a particular use-case, or to notify developers about problems and give feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the leading WP event registration and ticketing manager software, used and trusted by thousands of businesses.
If you own a WordPress-powered site and you plan to run events that involve scheduling dates, times and venues (offline and online), registering participants, or selling tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable WP plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso
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