Do you currently run or plan to run events that require bookings, such as workshops, community classes, not-for-profit fund raisers, marketing events, or even a large-scale event such as a community festival, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Co-ordinating event bookings can be a complicated and time-consuming process. You need to co-ordinate event schedules, date availability, participant numbers, data collection and admin, payments and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to event registrants.
There are lots of advantages 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 repeat events, give event managers more control, improve customer experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite costly.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-powered website or blog, you can install an inexpensive and professional online event registration solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Manager And Ticket Registration System
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software enables you to easily set up your event and start processing online bookings in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and receive online registrations)
Event Espresso is a feature-rich software that gives you complete control over your event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize your event registration forms
You can use several event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up ticket sales, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing updates.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Please Note: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is completely different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the platform is being redeveloped using a different structure to accommodate future growth. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform 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 this plugin.
Learn more about the plugin here:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing web site into a fully-featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating 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 eliminating the chore of processing registrations manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for participants to enrol themselves.
Allowing your customers to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing administration and lets you concentrate more of your resources on organizing a more unique event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will discover shortly, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management and registration process that you want your participants to experience.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Reduced Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to building your own system or using a 3rd party provider. The cost is kept to a minimum through a model where you purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then purchase optional addons only when you need added functionality.
- Increased Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online bookings 24 hours a day. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing add-ons (see below) let people interested in attending your event invite their friends who may also be interested in attending.
- Green Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event signup process remains entirely in digital form, reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks associated with enrollment.
- Own Your Information. You own all the data obtained from your event participants.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to users through built-in features (these come with the plugin) and optional features that customers can buy for an extra cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides a number of great built-in to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in no time.
- Custom Event Registration Forms. Event Espresso lets you gather unique information using custom event registration forms on your website to prepare a unique experience for your attendees.
- Custom Notification Emails. Easily set up automated booking and payment notification emails to communicate with your customers.
- Ticket Selector. Present several ticket options to prospects and let them purchase the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- 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 details for any added attendees.
- Spam Protection. Reduce the chance of spammers and bots making fake registrations by using reCAPTCHA option to confirm human activity.
- In-App Documentation Systems. Event Espresso 4 comes with three detailed in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. Event Espresso 4 provides you with the tools to gain a better understanding of who your clients are and how they’ve done business with you.
- Admin Pre-approval. Control who can register for your events.
- 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.
- Search Engine Friendly Page URLs. Keyword-rich Web links leverage your WP site’s Permalinks configuration settings. SEO-friendly urls with relevant keywords add to the context of your content and is favored by search engines, helping you get more potential customers to your site.
- Your Organization Settings. Configure your profile to be deployed throughout Event Espresso and your WordPress themes. The organization fields include: business name, address, city, state, country, zip code, email address, phone, tax number, company logo, Facebook URL, Twitter URL, LinkedIn profile URL, Pinterest URL, Google+ profile URL, Instagram URL.
- Bulk Import Event Data. Event Espresso 4 provides a CSV-based importing feature that enables you to easily import bulk event data all at one time. You can export, edit and import information about events, datetimes, tickets, pricing, custom registration questions, venues, terminology, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Register Multiple Participants. EE 4 allows an individual or an organization to order multiple tickets and different types of tickets at the same time. Event managers specify how many people can enrol in one booking session by specifying either limits on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Registrant Profiles. You can manage your attendee’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their data organized.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential customers who have not fully paid for their admission with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click of a button. Your invoices will reference registered attendees 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 a PDF invoice.
- Event Reporting. Quick-view event reporting gives you data of all of your registrations and transactions, allowing you to analyze the performance of your events with the aggregate number of people who have registered and amount of revenue you’ve collected.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical WP users, and also robust and customizable for higher end users and web-based software developers. The bottom line is that by using Object-oriented programming (OOP), EE 4 permits more complex enhancements and customizations to the application.
- Full Logging & Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 allows you to output a log file with debugging data that can be useful for web developers who are potential problems.
- Autonomy, Flexibility And Value: According to the mission statement on their site, Event Espresso’s aim 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 version of Event Espresso also provides you with over 40 additional features, including:
- Email shortcodes for including customer data in notification emails and email updates.
- Default surcharge (the same as applying a service tax to every ticket).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
In addition to a comprehensive range of features, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow end-users to significantly expand the capabilities of managing an event.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display upcoming events by location. Four maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Management Add on: The Recurring Events management addon allows you to put your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months ahead. You can add as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in advance as you like. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all of your recurring events.
- Events Date Range Template Add on: The Date Range custom event list template lets your users to search for events that take place in a certain date range.
- Social Media Buttons Addon: The social media addon displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media add-on is included free with any of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on lets you take full advantage of the WP user system. With the WP User Integration add-on you can give users a special incentive by offering member pricing and overriding event pricing when your members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered users of the site can have access to these special events. Members can also add personal data into their profile page allowing them to quickly register for events by auto-filling in their personal information on the event registration form. Your users can also view event history and make payment for events.
- Seating Chart Addon: The seating chart add on is suitable for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart add on allows you to offer reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress website. The Seating Chart addon lets you manage the experience for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach single pricing to each seat.
- Multiple Event Registration Add on: The Multiple Event registration addon gives your potential customers the ability to book multiple events at once. In each event listing registrants will be given the option to either register for a single event or add multiple events to their shopping cart. With the Multiple Event Registration add-on, attendees can register for several events at once and even add additional attendees to any of the same events in the same checkout process.
- Events Calendar Add on: This add-on uses the WP calendar to display events and event categories using a nice graphical calendar.
- EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Add on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and business marketing plugin add-on, you can easily automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture registrant data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your Event Espresso powered website.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin, including new add-ons.
For more information about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, check out the plugin here:
User Feedback
Below are just some of the testimonials that users have written about Event Espresso:
”Broadcasting my support for Event Espresso will be a pleasure. I recently helped the Webmaster at a sister church configure your event manager for their site, so I can say with confidence and from experience, that Event Espresso is the best Event Manager plugin ever!” Philip Simpson, The Charlotte Church
”This really is a hell of a plugin. For me, it’s probably the final nail in the coffin for Joomla, as WP can now pretty much do EVERYTHING Joomla does, but better. Love the simplicity of this plugin!” Sam, Web Contempo
”I played around with the free version for a couple hours then purchased the Pro for a client. Love it and so do they! Sweetest Event plugin I have tried.” Bill Chambers, Bill Chambers Design
Plugin Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, presenter, festival planner, or event consultant, there are just endless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, visit the user forum for inspiration and practical suggestions to improve your event management workflow or improve the experience of your participants.
Support
Event Espresso works with with other WordPress plugins and WordPress themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent end-user support, as many of its clients 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
Event Espresso provides comprehensive support including access to a support forum, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, one-on-one 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 an established team of experienced WordPress developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can count on to manage your events.
Plugin Price
Event Espresso is available in different editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin features, however, you need to consider purchasing one of the ”Pro” plugin editions below:
- Personal Edition – This lets you set up Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This option lets you configure Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License – This lets you set up Event Espresso on five domains. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Price details for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin is being retailed for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current price: Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticketing Registration Plugin For WordPress
Note: The pricing above was current when this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Additional Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software. Make sure to remain 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 setup and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to your specific situation, or to report errors and leave feedback.
For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event registration and ticketing manager plugin, used by thousands of people.
If you are a WordPress user and you plan to run events that require managing dates and venues (offline and online), enrolling participants, and reserving seating, then you will probably not find a better WP plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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