Does your business currently run or plan to run events that need to accept bookings, such as seminars, community courses, not-for-profit fund raisers, social events, or even a big event like an exhibition, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event registrations can be a time-consuming process. You will most likely have to co-ordinate scheduling, availability, participant numbers, data collection and storage, collecting payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to attendees.
There are lots of benefits to setting up an automated online event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower expenses, help you easily copy settings for similar events, give you more control, improve client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be costly.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-powered website or blog, you can easily install a very inexpensive and highly professional online event registration system.
Announcing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Management Software
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software allows you to easily schedule your event and begin receiving bookings literally in minutes.
(Set up multiple events and take online event bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed application that gives you full control over your event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can use various event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up selling tickets, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media sites like Facebook.
View detailed information about event attendees
Note: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is considerably different than the older Event Espresso 3, as it has been rebuilt using a different structure to enable future expansion. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually transition 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:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website:
Automated Event Registration Management And Ticketing Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current digital presence into an automated and fully featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to attendee limits, multiple price levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration solution 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 complete the enrollment process themselves.
Allowing your attendees to do the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you spend more attention on planning a more unique event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will discover shortly, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management process that you want your clients to experience.
Additional benefits include the following:
- Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a 3rd party service provider. This is made possible by using a model where users purchase the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and purchase optional add ons when you need added features.
- Increased Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online sign-ups outside traditional business hours. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing addons (see below) let people interested in attending your event share your information with their friends who may be interested.
- Green And Paperless Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, your event registration process can remain entirely in digital form, reducing typical paper waste from tasks associated with administration.
- All Data Belongs To You. You control all the information you obtain from event attendees.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to its customers through built-in features (these come with the software) and additional features that customers can buy for an added cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides a number of built-in to web site owners. Here are just some of these:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Multiple Dates and Times Per Event. In EE 4, events can have multiple dates and times (datetimes), and these can be managed from one single event.
- Customizable Event & Registration Page Designs. Customize your events and bookings page using Event Espresso’s limitless template options and components, as well as HTML and/or CSS.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso integrates with several payment gateways, enabling you to collect payments before running events.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration enables you to configure the settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details sections.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow event managers to create new prices that adjust the base ticket price of your default ticket.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system lets you authenticate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, set up multiple check-in “stations” and track participants.
- Event Check-In List. Generate a list of participants and check-in everyone who has attended.
- Admin Pre-approval. Control who can and cannot participate in your events.
- Event RSS Feeds. Keep your customers updated about your events, bring in more visitors and reach a wider audience with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events enable you to develop an event over multiple work sessions without publishing it to your site. You can keep working on your event until you are ready to take things live, or schedule to publish your event pages at a future time and date.
- Your Organization Settings. Configure your profile to be deployed throughout Event Espresso and your WordPress themes. Your organization fields include: organization name, street address, city, state, country, zip/postal code, email, phone, tax number, logo, Facebook URL, Twitter profile URL, LinkedIn URL, Pinterest profile URL, Google+ URL, Instagram profile URL.
- Bulk Edit Event Information. EE 4 provides an advanced importing feature that allows you to import bulk event data all at one time. You can export, edit and upload details about events, datetimes, ticketing information, pricing, custom registration questions, venues, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Venue Profiles. The venue manager in EE 4 allows information about venues to display throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front-end of your website to inform potential registrants of your event’s location. The venue profile displays many of the standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also includes information such as venue seating capacity, venue site URL, venue phone number, physical, location map, etc. You can also display venue profiles on various parts in your WP theme and on a venue archive page on your site where you can set up and publish venue profiles for multiple events or display all the events for a given venue.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso gives you access to an expert community of event managers and plugin users. You can interact with other members of the Event Espresso community via their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Staff Management. Save time and stay organized by reusing team member profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in any event description.
- Accurate Participant Manager. You control your customers’ information; who has registered, for what event and what amount they paid. With the attendee manager, you can get an overview of registered attendees and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export a list of attendees to an Excel spreadsheet for additional uses, send custom payment reminders and receipts and communicate with your participants individually or as a group.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming. Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical 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), Event Espresso 4 permits more complex extensions and customizations to the software.
- Metabox Management & Reorganization. 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 entirely removed from your page.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value: 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 model 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:
- Live-filtering when you search for events in the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing a common set of questions for similar events.
- Option to skip the confirmation page in registration.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow customers 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 allows you to display scheduled 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 your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months … even years ahead. You can add as many future events as you need. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all of these recurring events.
- Events Date Range Template Add-on: The Date Range custom event list template lets your users to browse for events that take place in a certain date range.
- Social Coupons Integration Add on: If your web site is featured on Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can even specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- Custom Template Add-on: The Custom Template add-on is capable of displaying your event lists in a number of exciting and interesting 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 ideal for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart add on lets you promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues directly from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add on lets you manage the environment for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach single pricing to each seat.
- Event Ticketing & Bar Scanning Addon: The Ticketing addon gives you the capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on adds the ability to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing add on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for managing check-in scans at the door. Customers 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 Calendar Add on: This WordPress events calendar displays events and event categories via an attractive graphical calendar.
- MailChimp Integration Add on: The MailChimp addon allows you to auto-register attendees to a specified mailing list or group within MailChimp.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software, including new add ons.
For more details about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website here:
Customer Feedback
Here are just some of the many testimonials that satisfied users have posted about Event Espresso:
”My clients have used Event Espresso for Transportation (Cadet Bus for leave), Parties (tailgates and brewery tours), and Horse-back riding lessons and camps. What a terrific plug-in and fantastic support from Seth!” Nina, Blue Iris Web Design
”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
”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
Plugin Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, presenter, event planner, or event management consultant, there are just countless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a registered user, visit the user forum for useful ideas and practical ways to streamline your event management process and enhance the experience of your event attendees.
Plugin Support
Event Espresso works with with most WP 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 so many of its plugin clients confirm:
“I’m really impressed with not only the application itself but the support. I have rarely seen such a responsive support staff than at EE. They rock…I highly recommend this plugin!” sock2me
The Event Espresso software provides exceptional support including access to a support forum, in-depth 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.
Additionally, Event Espresso boasts an established team of experienced WordPress developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can depend on to manage your events.
Software Price
Event Espresso is available in a range of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin options, however, you will want to consider downloading one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal License – This license option allows you to set up Event Espresso on 1 site only. It includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This edition lets you configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License – This enables you to set up Event Espresso on five domains. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Pricing details of the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin is selling for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The above reflects the pricing when this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Plugin Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Look up the software’s documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to a particular use-case, or to notify developers about bugs and give feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product information pages.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event booking and ticketing management software, used and trusted by thousands of event promoters.
If you are a WordPress user and you currently run any event that involves scheduling dates, times and venues, enrolling participants, and/or booking seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable software for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Management System
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