Does your company currently run or plan to run events that need handling bookings, such as workshops, community classes, non-profit fund-raisers, marketing functions, or even a big event like an arts & crafts, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Managing event registrations is a time-consuming process. You will probably have to co-ordinate calendar schedules, available dates and seating, attendee numbers, data administration, payments and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to event registrants.
There are many 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 copy settings for previously-run events, give you more control, improve client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-based website, you can easily set up a very inexpensive and highly professional online event booking system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WP software lets you easily schedule an event and start accepting online registrations in just a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and accept online event bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a feature-rich software that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
Customize registration forms
You can employ several event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event attendees, or integrating your event bookings with social media sites like Facebook.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is impressively different than the older Event Espresso 3, as it has been redeveloped using a different structure to accommodate future growth and expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually migrate completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and features of using the plugin.
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current digital presence into a fully-featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by practically doing away with the need to process registrations manually.
Basically, you are enabling participants to enrol on their own.
Allowing your attendees to do the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you concentrate more of your energy on planning a memorable event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will learn shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and registration process that you want your attendees to experience.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Significantly Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to building your own system or using a third 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 needs of most users) and then buy addons only when you need added features.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept online event sign-ups any time of day or night. In addition, Event Espresso social and marketing features (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event share your information with other people they know who may also be interested.
- Green Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, the event registration process remains entirely online, significantly reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks related to administration.
- Own Your Information. You own all the data obtained from event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to its users through built-in features (these come with the software) and optional features that users can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides a number of built-in to WP users. Here are just some:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Ready to use in minutes.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso lets you set up as many different types of tickets as you need and set different pricing options, limits on ticket quantities, etc.
- WordPress Event Calendar. Participants can easily see your events and add these to their schedule with the calendar.
- Ticket Selector. Present a number of ticket options to prospective attendees so they can purchase the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your WP theme and reuse venue details throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow you to create new prices that adjust the base ticket price of your system-default ticket.
- In-App Documentation Systems. Event Espresso 4 comes with 3 comprehensive in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Contact Profiles & Contact List. EE 4 provides you with the tools to gain a better understanding of who your customers are and how they’ve done business with you.
- Ticketless Events. Set up events without the requirement for participants to get tickets. Use Event Espresso for all types of events, not just those that require tickets.
- Public Commenting. Add social interactivity to your events by allowing potential attendees to ask questions about your event and past attendees to post feedback that can help others decide whether or not to register. Moderation settings for public commenting are configured via the WP commenting admin area.
- Optimized For The Most Up-To-Date Version Of WP. The EE 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you create aesthetically enhanced event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Country Settings. Event managers can configure the country and currency settings to be used throughout Event Espresso, such as currency name, currency signs, decimal characters and places, country codes, states or provinces, and so on.
- Default Tickets. If you find yourself creating similar tickets for your events, you can easily set one of those tickets as your default ticket for the next event simply by ticking a checkbox.
- Event Venue Management. The venue manager in Event Espresso 4 lets information about a venue to be made available throughout the Event Espresso admin and the public areas of your website to inform users of the location of your event. The venue profile displays many standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also lets you add venue information like venue capacity, venue website, phone number, venue location details, map, etc. You can also list all of your event venues throughout various areas on your theme and on a venue listing page on your site where you can set up and reuse venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have booked for a particular venue.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso lets you network with a community of experienced event managers, developers, designers, marketers and businesses who also use the software. You can engage with other members of the Event Espresso community using their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Social Sharing. Event registrants and site visitors can spread the word about your events using social media share buttons.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post type features such as custom fields, post meta data, taxonomies, etc. You can also customize the templates to display event information in your own custom way.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming. 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, EE 4 permits more complex extensions and customizations to the plugin.
- Metabox Management & Reorganization. Event Espresso lets you leverage the WP user interface, which gives you the ability to organize the user interface to suit your workflow processes. Each meta box can be collapsed, re-arranged or completely deleted from your page.
- 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 objectives, the software has been built using a modular and highly effective model 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 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 common set of questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow users to significantly enhance the capabilities of your event management process.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Grid Template Addon: Displays events in a pure CSS grid-like structure using the featured image. Hovering over the image will display further information. If an event does not have a featured image available, a default image will be used instead.
- Recurring Events Manager Addon: The Recurring Events manager addon allows you to put events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months … even years ahead. You can add as many future events as you like. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all of these recurring events.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add-on: The Category Accordion template shows event categories in a simple list. Clicking the category name shows the events related to that category and closes previously open categories.
- Social Media Buttons Addon: The social media addon displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media addon is included free with any of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration addon allows you to take full advantage of the WordPress user system. With the WP User Integration add-on you can give your users a special incentive by offering member pricing and overriding event pricing when members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered site users can have access to your special events. Members can also enter personal information into their profile page allowing them fast registration for events by auto-filling in their personal information on the event registration form. Users can also look up event history and make payment for new events.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Addon Editions: This add on lets you include others in the event management process and give new users the ability to create events or regional managers the ability to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WordPress users roles and give them different permissions with different privileges, allowing others to 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 parts of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain parts of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to create geographic regions for other people to manage events, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add on.
- Multiple Event Registration Addon: The Multi-Event registration add-on gives 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 cart. With the Multi-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.
- EE4 Events Calendar Add-on: This add-on uses the WordPress calendar to display events and event categories via an attractive graphical calendar.
- JSON API Add-on: The Event Espresso JSON API add on allows other applications, online tools, mobile apps, etc… to access your Event Espresso content through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin, including new add ons.
For full details about the newest Event Espreso features and add ons, visit the plugin website here:
Customer Feedback
Here are just some of the testimonials that customers have posted about Event Espresso:
”EventEspresso saves us money, saves our secretary 16-24 hours and looks so professionally done that people ask us how we do it; which we happily tell them, “Event Espresso, and be sure to get the ticketing add-on.”” David, House of Prayer
”Probably the best event management plugin available.” Materia Inspiration Centre
”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 an education services provider, presenter, seminar promoter, or event management consultant, there are simply unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, go through the user forum for inspiration and practical suggestions to improve your event management and registration process and enhance the experience of your participants.
Product Support
Event Espresso works with with all WordPress plugins and themes that follow standard WordPress development rules. If you do need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent support, as so many of its 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
The Event Espresso plugin provides amazing support that includes access to a support forum, 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.
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 run your events.
Plugin Price
Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software functionality, however, you will want to consider using one of the paid plugin versions below:
- Personal Edition – This edition allows you to configure Event Espresso on one site only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License – This enables you to install Event Espresso on 1 site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License Edition – This enables you to install Event Espresso on 5 domains. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons 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. When we last checked, the software sells for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticketing Manager
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding 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.
Use the plugin’s online documentation tools for answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to a specific situation, or to report errors and give feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product site.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event registration and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of WP site owners.
If you own a WordPress-powered site and you currently run events that involve managing dates and venues, booking participants, or selling seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticketing Manager Software
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