Does your business currently run or plan to run events that need co-ordinating bookings, such as workshops, group classes, charity fund raisers, networking events, or even a big event such as a music concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Co-ordinating event registrations is a time-consuming process. You need to manage event schedules, available dates and spaces, participant numbers, data entry, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to event participants.
There are lots of advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower expenses, help you easily duplicate previously-run events, give you more control, create a better user experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-based website or blog, you can easily set up a very inexpensive and highly professional online event registration solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – Event Manager & Ticketing Registration System For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WP allows you to easily create your event and start accepting registrations literally in a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and process online registrations)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed application that gives you complete control of your event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can use multiple event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up selling tickets, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your event attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and autoresponders.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is considerably different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the software has been rebuilt using a different structure to allow for future growth and expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The developers aim to eventually retire Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and advantages of this plugin.
Learn more about the plugin here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing online presence into a fully-featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Increased 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 and sign-ups manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for attendees to enrol themselves.
Letting your participants to do all of the data entry frees up your time and lets you spend more energy on organizing a better event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will discover shortly, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management process that you want your customers to experience.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Reduced Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to building your own software or using a 3rd-party service provider. This is made possible through a model where Event Espresso users pay for the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then buy addons only if you need added features.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new event bookings 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features (see below) let people interested in registering for your event share your information with others who may also be interested.
- Green And Paperless Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign-up process is performed wholly in digital form, reducing traditional paper waste from tasks related to admin and record-storage.
- Own Your Data. You own all the information obtained from your event participants.
Plugin Features
The Event Espresso software delivers functionality to its users via standard features (these come with the software) and optional features that customers can buy for an extra cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many features to WP users. Here are just some:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Ready to start accepting registrations in very little time.
- Multiple Dates and Times Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have many dates and times (called datetimes), which these can be managed from one single event.
- Customized Confirmation Email Message. Set up automatic booking and payment notification emails to communicate with event participants.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso integrates with payment gateways, allowing you to collect registration fees before running events.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout Process. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is smart, fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically copy the primary attendee’s registration information for any added registrants.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow you to create new prices that adjust the base ticket pricing for your system-default ticket.
- Promotional Codes. Set up promotion and discount codes to incentivize prospects to make a decision immediately, or make your events more attractive for price-sensitive prospects. Also useful if you want to increase sales of events close to timelines.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of registering event participants when they show up, or send in paper forms for manual submission later.
- Ticketless Events. List events without the requirement for registrants to get tickets. Event Espresso can be used for any form of event, not just those that require tickets.
- Public Commenting. Add social interactivity to your event by allowing potential registrants to interact with you online via commenting and past customers to post feedback that can help others choose whether or not to sign up. Moderation settings for commenting are set using the WP built-in commenting settings.
- Works With The Latest WordPress Version. The Event Espresso 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you build highly aesthetic event pages that are easier to use and mobile-friendly.
- Easy Event Management. Event Espresso puts event managers in full control of all aspects of your event’s registration and ticketing, and lets you automate the process with event management tools that include staff and venue manager, custom event page designs, payment processing, list waiting, attendee limits, printable ticketing and more.
- Exportable Information. You can export all the information collected from your event participants into Excel or CSV format for compiling reports, planning marketing strategies, reviewing attendee statistics, and so on.
- Venue Manager. The venue manager feature in EE 4 lets details about venues to appear throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front end of your site to inform potential registrants of the location of your event. The venue record displays many standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also lets you add information like venue seating capacity, venue web address, venue phone number, physical and virtual location, Google map, etc. You can also list all of your venues on different locations on your WordPress theme as well as on a venue listing page on your site where you can set up and publish venue profiles for multiple events or display all the events for a specific venue.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso provides users with access to an expert community of experienced event managers and plugin users. You can network with other members of the Event Espresso community using their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Staff Management. Save time and keep your data organized by reusing staff member profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in an event description.
- Event Reporting. Quick-view event reporting gives you data of the registrations and transactions, enabling you to track the performance of your events with the aggregate number of people who have registered and amount of revenue you’ve collected.
Extra features include:
- Hooks, Actions And Filters. These features allow you to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso software that are compatible with the WordPress development platform.
- Maintenance Mode. You can pause registrations for regular website traffic whenever website maintenance is required. 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 goals, the company operates on a modular and highly efficient model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes 40+ added features, including:
- Duplicating events – streamlines the work of re-entering event information when creating new events.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse a common set of questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow you to significantly expand the functionality of the event management system.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display your scheduled events by location. There are four maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Template Addon: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes multiple datetime events into a dropdown list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Addon: The Category Accordion template shows the categories in a simple list. Clicking a category name shows all events related to that category and closes any previously open categories.
- Social Coupons Integration Add-on: If your website is featured on Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can also specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- Custom Files Add-on: The Custom Files add on allows you to bypass certain aspects of the plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Add-on Editions: This add-on lets you include your staff in the event management process and give new users the capacity 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 capabilities, so others can help you manage your events or events that others create. You can customize roles so that a user does not have access to certain parts of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain areas of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to allow users to control factors geographically for events and users, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add-on.
- Multi-Event Registration Add-on: The Multi-Event registration addon gives potential attendees the ability to register for multiple events at once. In each event listing attendees will be given the option to either register for a single event or add multiple events to their 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.
- EE4 Events Table View Template Add-on: The Events Table Template add-on provides you with an easy-to-use system that lets you change the design of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also enables web developers to build custom templates using one of the included templates as a source template.
- JSON API Add on: The Event Espresso JSON API addon allows other applications, websites, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso data through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin, including new add ons.
For complete details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website:
Testimonials
Below are some of the many great testimonials that plugin users 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
”I searched long and hard to find something that would serve my needs. This is, by far, the most complete and comprehensive solution I have found.” Bill Hepper, We Teach Live
”Loving the functions and support from Event Espresso. One of the best plugins I’ve ever bought!” Nathan
Useful Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, presenter, festival planner, or event management professional, there are just endless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a registered owner, search the support forum for inspiration and practical ways to improve your event management and registration workflow or improve the experience of your attendees.
Plugin Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with most WP plugins and WP themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you find that you need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive user support, as many of its satisfied users 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 plugin provides robust support including access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, priority 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 web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can count on to run and manage your events.
Event Espresso Price
Event Espresso is available in different editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin functionality, however, you should consider downloading one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This lets you install Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This lets you configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License – This license option enables you to install Event Espresso on five domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Current pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin sells for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Information
Event Espresso regularly adds 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 setting up and using Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to a particular use-case, or to notify developers about problems and leave feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the leading WP event booking and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of WordPress website owners.
If you own a WordPress-powered website and you plan to run events that require scheduling dates and venues (offline and online), registering attendees, or reserving tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Manager And Registration Software
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