Do you currently run or plan to run events that need to accept bookings or registrations, such as workshops, training classes, charity fund-raisers, social functions, or even a big event such as an arts & crafts, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event registrations can be a time-consuming process. You have to manage scheduling, available dates and seating allocations, participant numbers, data collection and admin, payments and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders and notifications, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to event registrants.
There are a number of benefits to setting up an automated online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce costs, help you easily reproduce previously-run events, give you more control, improve client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite costly.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-based website or blog, you can set up a very inexpensive and highly professional web-based event registration solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Manager And Ticket Registration System
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin allows you to easily create multiple events and start accepting online bookings in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online bookings)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed application that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize registration forms
You can use various event registration strategies, from simple online enrollments and straight up ticket sales, to setting up 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 event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is fundamentally different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the software has been rebuilt using a different structure to allow for future growth. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually phase out EE 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and advantages of this plugin.
Learn more here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Hands-Free 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 maximum seating limits, multiple price levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by practically doing away with the chore of processing registrations manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for participants to enrol by themselves.
Allowing your attendees to do the data themselves frees up your time and lets you concentrate more time on creating a better event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will learn shortly, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management process that you want your attendees to experience.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Reduced Costs: The Event Espresso plugin provides you with a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a 3rd-party service provider. The cost is kept to a minimum by using a model where you purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and purchase optional add-ons when you need additional functionality.
- Increased Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept new event sign-ups outside normal business hours. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing 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.
- Paperless Event Booking Process: With Event Espresso, the event booking process can remain entirely online, eliminating typical paper consumption from tasks related to administration.
- Own Your Information. You control all the information you acquire from event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to end-users via standard features (these are included with the plugin) and optional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many great 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 lets you configure as many different types of tickets as you need and specify separate prices, number of tickets, and more.
- Customizable Event And Registration Page Designs. Create a unique look and feel for your events and signup page using Event Espresso’s template options and elements, as well as HTML and/or CSS.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso provides integration with payment gateways, enabling you to collect money before running your events.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration enables you to customize the settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details pages.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow event managers to create new prices that adjust the default ticket pricing of the default ticket.
- In-App Documentation. Event Espresso 4 includes 3 useful in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Event Check-In List. Generate an exportable list of event attendees and confirm everyone who has attended.
- Ticketless Events. List events without the requirement for attendees to book tickets. Use Event Espresso for any kind of event, not only when tickets are required.
- XML RSS Feeds. Keep your users updated about your events, bring in more visitors and widen your content reach with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Draft Events. Draft events enable you to build an event over time without publishing it to your website. You can continue building your event pages until you are ready to publish it live on your website, or schedule to publish your event pages at a later date and time.
- 15+ Languages. Event Espresso is currently available in over 15 languages, and more are being added all the time.
- Exportable Data. You can export all of your information gathered from event customers into Excel or CSV format for compiling reports, implementing marketing strategies, reviewing attendee statistics, etc..
- Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the default WP WYSIWYG editor, so you can quickly and easily add photos and write your event descriptions without knowledge of HTML or CSS, just like any WordPress post or page.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso lets you engage with an expert community of event managers and plugin users. You can network with other Event Espresso users using their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Staff Member Management. Save time and stay organized by reusing staff profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in any event description.
- Accurate Attendee Manager. You have control of your participants’ information; who has registered, which event they have booked and how much they’ve paid. With the attendee manager, you can get a quick overview of registered attendees and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export an attendee list to an Excel spreadsheet for additional uses, send custom payment reminders and receipts and send messages to your customers individually or as a group.
Additional features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical WordPress users, and also extremely robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and web-based software developers. The bottom line is that by using Object-oriented programming (OOP), EE 4 facilitates more complex developments and customizations to the software.
- Maintenance Mode. You can pause registration capabilities for normal site visitors when you need to carry out maintenance on your website. You can still work on the back-end of your site during maintenance mode.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value: 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 mission, the company operates on a modular 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+ additional features, including:
- Email shortcodes that includes participant data in emails and email newsletters.
- Default surcharge (the same as adding a service tax to all tickets).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listing pages.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
In addition to an amazing range of features, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow end-users to further enhance the capabilities of events.
Some of these add ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display upcoming events by location. Four maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Drop-down Custom Template Add on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes events with multiple datetimes into a drop-down list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add on: The Category Accordion template displays categories in a simple list. Clicking a category name shows all events associated with that category and closes previously open categories.
- Social Media Buttons Add on: The social media addon displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media add-on is included free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- Custom Files Add on: The Custom Files addon provides PHP files that let you override certain aspects of the plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Add on Versions: This addon lets you involve your staff in the event management process and give new users permission to create events or regional managers the ability 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, so your staff can help you manage your events or the events that other people create. You can customize roles so that users do not have access to certain areas of your WP dashboard and/or certain sections of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to allow users to have geographic responsibilities for events and users, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add-on.
- EE4 Event Ticketing & Bar Scanning Addon: The Ticketing add on adds the ability to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon adds the capacity to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing add on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for handling check-in scans at the door. People 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 attendees and to validate tickets.
- Events Calendar Addon: This add on uses the WP calendar to display events and categories of events using a nice graphical calendar.
- MailChimp Integration Addon: The MailChimp add-on lets you auto-register attendees to a selected autoresponder list or group within your MailChimp account.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin, including new addons.
For full details about the latest Event Espreso features and add ons, visit the plugin website:
User Feedback
Here are some of the many great testimonials that satisfied plugin users have written about Event Espresso:
”I want to commend you on a fabulous product which is just the right price for a small non-profit. People are happy with the registration process, as are we! …Thank you SO much for a great product.” Sandra Forero Bush, World Trade Center Tacoma
”I recently downloaded it to add to a nonprofit site for a Boy Scout troop and the features work wonderfully with what we wanted to accomplish for the site. It allows us to set up calendar, events, and even take payments for trips. At first, I thought that it would be overkill for such a small site, but now I see the possibilities and will definitely be offering Event Espresso to my clients that need an event organization system for their web sites.” Lucy Conn, Troop 462
”At first we looked at CVENT for one of our clients and they wanted $16,000 per year for 3000 event attendees + fees totaling $22k. That is before Staff and Webinar fees. Worst of all we had to prepay the $16k amount even if we never used all 3000 attendees. That was when we looked at Event Espresso and we realized we could build our own event system for less than 16K. For the most part we have been very satisfied with our decision. The real ROI will come next year when they don’t have to pay another 16k-22K! Over the next 5-6 years we should be able to claim that we saved the company over $100,000 – Thanks Event Espresso!” David Waterman (Long Version), KT Benefits & InkItDigital.com
Useful Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, trainer, show promoter, or event management consultant, there are simply unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed user, visit the support forum for tips and practical suggestions to improve your event management workflow and improve the experience of your event attendees.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso works with with all WP plugins and themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive user support, as so many of its plugin customers attest:
”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
The Event Espresso plugin provides amazing support with access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, email 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 a well-staffed team of experienced web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin 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 options, however, you should consider using one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal Licensing – This allows you to run Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This allows you to set up Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License Edition – This license enables you to run Event Espresso on 5 domains. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Pricing details of the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the software sells for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Manager
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site.
Additional Info
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin. Make sure to remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the plugin’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to a specific situation, or to notify developers about problems and leave feedback.
For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the leading WP event registration and ticketing management software, used by thousands of users.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you intend to run an event that involves scheduling dates and venues, booking attendees, and selling tickets, then you will probably not find a more suitable plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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