Do you currently run or plan to run events that require handling registrations, such as seminars, community courses, charity fund-raisers, social events, or even a big event like a concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event sign-ups is a complex process. You have to co-ordinate scheduling, event dates, attendee numbers, data processing and storage, collecting payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and delivering tickets to participants.
There are lots of benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily replicate previous events, give you more control, improve user experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting up a web-based event registration system can be quite expensive.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-based digital presence, you can easily install an inexpensive and highly professional web-based event booking solution.
Announcing …
Event Espresso – Event Manager And Registration Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin lets you easily create multiple events and begin accepting online registrations in just a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and process online registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-rich software that gives you full control of your event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can use various event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up ticket-selling, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your participants, or integrating your event bookings with social media and email marketing systems.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Note: Currently, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is impressively different than the older EE 3, as it has been redeveloped using a different structure to allow for future expansion. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The developers aim to eventually phase out Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and features of using this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current website into an automated and fully featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple price 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 practically doing away with the need to process registrations and sign-ups manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for event attendees to complete the enrollment process themselves.
Allowing your clients to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you concentrate more energy on organizing a more unique event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your attendees to experience.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Less Costs: The Event Espresso plugin provides you with a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to developing your own software or using a 3rd party service. The cost is kept to a minimum by using a model where Event Espresso users pay for the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then buy optional add-ons only when you need extra features.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept new event registrations 24/7. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features and add ons (see below) let people interested in registering for your event invite others who may be interested.
- Green & Paperless Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event registration process remains entirely online, reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks related to administration.
- All Data Belongs To You. You own all the information gathered from event participants.
Event Espresso Features
The Event Espresso software delivers functionality to users via standard features (these are included with the software) and additional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers a number of great built-in to WordPress users. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso lets you create multiple ticket types and specify prices, ticket quantity limits, and more.
- Customized Notification Emails. Easily set up customized automated registration and payment notification email messages to communicate with event attendees.
- Ticket Selector. Present multiple ticket options to prospective registrants so they can purchase the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration enables event managers to customize the settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details pages.
- Default Price Types. Price types let event managers create new prices that adjust the base ticket price for your default ticket.
- Promotional Codes. Leverage promotional and multiple discount codes to encourage people to take action immediately, or make your offers more attractive for price-sensitive prospects. This is also practical for helping to sell-out events close to timelines.
- Event Check-In List. Generate an exportable list of registrants and check in everyone who has attended.
- No Ticket Events. Set up events without requiring registrants to get tickets. Event Espresso can be used for any type of event, not just when tickets are required.
- Public Commenting. Add social interactivity to your events by allowing potential customers to ask questions about your event and past attendees to post reviews that can help others choose whether or not to enroll. Moderation settings for public comments are configured via the WP built-in commenting settings.
- Draft Events. Draft events let you develop your event page over multiple sessions without displaying it live on your website. You can keep editing your event until you are ready to take things live, or schedule your event page to publish at a later time and date.
- Your Organization Settings. Configure your profile to be deployed throughout Event Espresso and your WP themes. Your organization data include: company name, street address, city, state, country, zip/postal code, primary contact email address, telephone, tax number, logo, Facebook profile URL, Twitter URL, LinkedIn profile URL, Pinterest profile URL, Google+ profile URL, Instagram URL.
- Default Tickets. If you find yourself creating similar tickets for your events, you can set one of those tickets as your default ticket for any new events simply by checking a box.
- Multiple Event Participant. Event Espresso 4 allows one person or people to purchase multiple tickets and different ticket types at the same time. You decide how many attendees can register in one registration by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso provides users with access to an expert community of experienced event managers and other plugin users. You can network with other members of the Event Espresso community through their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Staff Manager. Save time and stay 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 any event description.
- Categorize Events. If you have multiple event types like free and paid, conference speakers and breakout sessions, different types of exercise classes, etc. you can categorize these to help your registrants to locate what they’re looking for. You can list all the events in a category on a custom event category page, make events searchable by category, and colour-code events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make them easier to find, in addition to suggesting new events in the categories that interest your visitors.
Extra features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This feature allows web developers to have more control and options over the content of your events and how your information displays to prospects.
- Maintenance Mode. Pause registration capabilities for normal website visitors when you need to perform maintenance on your website. You can still work on the back-end of your site during maintenance mode.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & Value: According to the mission statement 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 mission, the company operates on a modular and efficient 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:
- Live-filtering when searching for events inside the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing a group of questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Addons
As well as an incredible range of features, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow users to significantly expand the capabilities of your event management system.
Some of these add ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add on: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display all upcoming events by location. Four maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Manager Add-on: The Recurring Events manager add-on enables you to put events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months in advance. You can create as many events in the future as you like. Event Espresso will automatically open and close registrations for all 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 an event thumbnail image instead of the date.
- Social Coupons Integration Add on: If your website 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 events in a range of visually exciting 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 perfect for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart add on allows you to promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues right from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add-on lets you manage the experience for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach single pricing to every seat.
- EE4 Event Ticketing And Bar Scanning Add-on: The Ticketing add-on adds the capacity to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on gives you the ability to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing add on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for managing check-in scans at the door. Registrants 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 Table Template Add on: The Events Table Template addon gives event managers a simple and easy-to-use system that allows you to modify the design of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also allows developers to build custom templates using one of the templates included as a base template.
- JSON API Add on: The new Event Espresso JSON API add on permits other software applications, online tools, mobile apps, etc… to access your Event Espresso details through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin, including new addons.
To learn more about the newest Event Espreso features and add-ons, check out the plugin here:
User Feedback
Below are some of the many testimonials that customers have posted 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
”Probably the best event management plugin available.” Materia Inspiration Centre
”You guys have done an AWESOME job with this system…promise me to keep up the excellent work you guys are doing, for as long as you can… Respect!” Robert Jarnroth, Jarnroth Digital Productions
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, teacher, workshop planner, or event management consultant, there are simply countless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a registered owner, visit the user forum for tips and practical ways to improve your event management workflow or enhance the experience of your participants.
Support
Event Espresso works with with all WP plugins and WP themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent user support, as many of its end-users 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
Event Espresso provides robust support with access to a support forum, in-depth 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 solution you can depend on to run and manage your events.
Plugin Cost
Event Espresso is available in a number of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin functionality, however, you need to consider downloading one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal License – This license option allows you to run Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This license option enables you to run Event Espresso on 1 site only. It includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License Edition – This license option lets you run Event Espresso on 5 sites. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one 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 specials being offered. When we last checked, the software is selling for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticketing Registration Plugin For WordPress
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller when you visit the site.
Additional Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Look up the plugin’s documentation tools for answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to a particular use-case, or to report errors and leave feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product site.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the leading WP event registration and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of WP website owners.
If you own a WordPress site and you currently run events that involve scheduling dates, times and venues (offline and online), enrolling participants, and/or reserving tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso
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