Does your organization currently run or plan to run events that need managing bookings, such as workshops, group courses, non-profit fundraisers, corporate conferences, or even a large-scale event like a concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Managing event bookings is a complicated and time-consuming process. You will probably need to co-ordinate scheduling, available dates and spaces, attendee numbers, data collection and storage, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations, reminders, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and providing tickets to attendees.
There are many benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower expenses, help you easily copy settings for recurring events, give you more control, create a more enjoyable customer experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting up an online event registration system can be quite costly.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-powered website, you can download and install an inexpensive and professional online event booking system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – Event Management And Ticket Registration Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WordPress enables you to easily create multiple events and start accepting online bookings in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and receive online bookings)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-rich software that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
Create custom event registration forms
You can employ multiple event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your event attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media sites like Facebook.
View detailed information about event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their software: EE 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is impressively different than the older EE 3, as the platform has been redeveloped using a different structure to allow for future expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually move completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and features of this plugin.
Go here to learn more:
Plugin 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 And Ticketing Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current digital presence into a fully-featured and automated event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple pricing options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by literally eliminating the need to process registrations and sign-ups manually.
Essentially, you are facilitating event participants to enrol themselves.
Letting your enrollees to do the data entry frees you up from doing administration and lets you invest more of your energy on creating a better event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will learn in a moment, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and registration process that you want your clients to experience.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Significantly Lower Costs: Event Espresso gives you a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a 3rd-party provider. The cost is kept to a minimum by using a model where Event Espresso users start with the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and purchase optional addons only when you need additional functionality.
- More Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online event signups 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social and marketing features (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event invite their friends who may also be interested.
- Green Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign-up process is performed entirely online, reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks related to admin and record-keeping.
- All Information Belongs To You. You own all the data obtained from event attendees.
Plugin Features
The Event Espresso plugin delivers functionality to users through built-in features (these are included with the software) and additional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many unique features to WordPress users. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso allows you to create as many kinds of tickets as you want and specify unique pricing options, limits on ticket quantities, etc.
- Customizable Event Page Designs. Create a custom look for your events and signup page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and components, as well as HTML and CSS.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso integrates with leading payment gateways, allowing you to collect money before running events.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout Process. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is smart, fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically copy the primary registrant’s details for any added attendees.
- Spam Protection. Prevent the chance of spamming and bots making fake registrations on your site by using reCAPTCHA settings that provide human authentication.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system allows you to authenticate tickets, speed up door registrations, set up various check-in “stations” and track all attendees.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of registering event attendees when they show up, or send in paper-based forms for manual registration later.
- Waiting Lists. Prospective attendees can join a waiting list if your event is completely sold out. You can also make it a requirement wait-listed attendees pay for their spots if you plan to expand capacity for your event.
- Private Contact Notes. Record comments about users on their profile and how you’ve helped them. Private notes helps you keep a record of when event participants contacted you, your internal observations, and how you have interacted with your contacts.
- Search Engine Friendly URLs. Keyword-rich event page Web links leverage your WordPress Permalinks configuration settings. SEO-friendly urls that use topic-relevant keywords enhance the context of your events and is favored by search engines, helping you bring more visitors to your site.
- Your Organization Settings. Configure your organization’s profile to be used throughout Event Espresso and your front-end templates. The organization fields include: business name, street address, city, state, country, zip/postal code, email, telephone, tax number, logo, Facebook profile URL, Twitter profile URL, LinkedIn profile URL, Pinterest URL, Google+ profile URL, Instagram profile URL.
- Exportable Data. You can output all the information gathered from your event customers into Excel or CSV format for compiling advanced reports, implementing new marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, etc..
- WordPress WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the standard WordPress Visual editor, so you can quickly and easily insert images and write your content without having to learn HTML or CSS, just like any typical WP post or page.
- Attendee Profiles. Manage your registrant’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their records organized.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential registrants who have not paid yet for their enrollment with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click. Your invoices will address pre-registered participants who have not paid their registration in full by name, display the balance owing, and include links to the event information, a payment link and a link where they can download the invoice.
- Categorize Events. If you have several different types of events like free and paid, conference speakers and mastermind sessions, different kinds of programs and program modules, etc. you can categorize them to make it easier for your registrants to locate what they’re searching for. You can list all the events in a category on an event category page, make events searchable by category, and colour-code events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make these easier to find, in addition to suggesting other events in the categories that interest your existing customers.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for basic users, and also robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, Event Espresso 4 enables more complex developments and customizations to the application.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 lets you output a log file with debugging data that can be useful for developers who are potential software problems.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value For Money: According to the philosophy stated on their site, Event Espresso’s objective 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 that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes over 40 additional features, including:
- Live-filtering when you search for events inside the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing a series of questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow software users to further enhance the functionality of events.
Some of these add ons 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 available, it will use a default image.
- Recurring Events Drop-down Custom Template Add-on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize multiple datetime events into a dropdown list.
- Events Calendar Table Template Addon: The Calendar Table template is a list template with a bold date and customizable “register now” button. The template can be customized to display an event thumbnail image instead of a date.
- Social Media Buttons Addon: The social media add-on displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media addon is included free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- Custom Template Add-on: The Custom Template addon is capable of displaying your events in a number of visually exciting ways.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Add-on Versions: This addon lets you involve staff in your organization to help manage your events and give new users the capacity 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 give them different permissions with different capabilities, so others can help you manage your events or the events that others create. You can customize roles so that users do not have access to certain sections of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain sections of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to allow users to control factors geographically for events and users, use the Roles and Permissions Pro addon.
- Event Ticketing And Bar Scanning Add on: The Ticketing add-on gives you the capacity 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 bar code types are included for handling check-in scans at the venue door. Attendees can either print out their tickets or display them on their mobile devices. The barcode scanner can be used for checking in or checking out registrants and to validate tickets.
- Events Calendar Add on: This WordPress events calendar displays events and categories of events in a nice graphical calendar.
- MailChimp Integration: The MailChimp addon allows you to automatically register participants to a chosen mailing list or group within your MailChimp account.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin, including new addons.
To learn more about the newest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website here:
Customer Feedback
Below are a few of the many testimonials that satisfied users have written about Event Espresso:
”It’s been very comprehensive and covers exactly the aspects of event registration that we needed for our site plus some features that we didn’t even need but could still use in the future. Very Excellent Plugin!” Tristan Hall, Area 12:2 Youth Group
“I just completed my first event using Event Espresso. I really believe without Event Espresso my event would not have been the success it was.” Cathy Earle, Women Only Weekend
”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
Useful Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, teacher, workshop planner, or event management professional, there are just endless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed user, visit the user forum for tips and practical suggestions to improve your event management and registration process or enhance the experience of your event registrants.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso is compatible with all WordPress plugins and themes that follow WP coding standards. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent support, as many of its users confirm:
”By far, the customer service experience with Event Espresso has been the best of any WordPress Theme or Paid Plugin that I’ve used in the past two years!” Megan Murray, Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe
The Event Espresso software provides incredible support with access to support forums, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase 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.
In addition, Event Espresso boasts an established team of experienced WordPress web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can rely on to organize and manage your events.
Plugin Pricing
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 will want to consider downloading one of the premium plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This lets you set up Event Espresso on 1 site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License – This edition enables you to set up Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License – This lets you install Event Espresso on 5 sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Price details for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the software is selling for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The pricing above was current at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the plugin’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to your particular situation, or to notify developers about issues and share feedback.
For all 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 registration and ticketing management plugin, used by thousands of WP users.
If you are a WordPress user and you currently run any event that involves managing dates, times and venues (offline and online), registering attendees, or reserving tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable WP plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Management & Registration Software
***