Does your business currently run or plan to run events that need managing bookings, such as workshops, group classes, non-profit fund raisers, social conferences, or even a big event such as an exhibition, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Managing event registrations is a time-consuming process. You will probably have to manage event schedules, date availability, registration numbers, data entry, collecting payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to attendees.
There are many benefits to setting up an automated web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily reproduce similar events, give event managers more control, create a better client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting up a web-based event registration system can be very costly.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-based digital presence, you can set up a very inexpensive and highly professional online event booking solution.
Announcing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Manager And Ticketing Registration Software
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WordPress software enables you to easily set up multiple events and begin accepting bookings in just minutes.
(Set up multiple events and take online registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed application that gives you complete control over the event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize registration forms
You can use a number of event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up ticket sales, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event attendees, or integrating your event bookings with social media and autoresponders.
View detailed information about 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 EE 4 is completely different than the older EE 3, as the software has been redeveloped using a different structure to enable future expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The developers aim to eventually transition completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and advantages of this plugin.
Learn more here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website or blog into a fully-featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by virtually doing away with the need to process registrations and bookings manually.
Basically, you are enabling attendees to enroll on their own.
Allowing your attendees to do all of the data themselves frees up your time and lets you concentrate more resources on creating a more enjoyable event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon see, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your clients to experience.
Additional benefits include:
- 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. This is made possible by using a model where Event Espresso users purchase the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then purchase addons when you need new features.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online event signups any time of day or night. In addition, Event Espresso social features (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event share your information with their friends who may be interested.
- Green And Paperless Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign-up process remains entirely in digital form, eliminating traditional paper consumption from tasks associated with enrollment.
- Own Your Information. You control all the data you collect from your event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to users via standard features (these come with the plugin) and optional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers a number of features to WP users. Here are just some of these:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- Customized Event Registration Form. With Event Espresso you can collect unique information using custom event registration forms on your site to prepare a customized experience for your attendees.
- Customizable Event Designs. Create a unique look and feel for your events and bookings page using Event Espresso’s limitless template options and parts, plus HTML or CSS.
- Tax Administration Options. Event Espresso 4 gives you several options to manage taxes for an event and report tax fees to registrants who purchase tickets. Event managers can configure taxes globally or on a per-ticket basis.
- Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your theme and display events data throughout other areas of your site.
- Spam Protection. Prevent the chance of spammers and bots making false registrations with reCAPTCHA features that authenticate human activity.
- Discount Codes. Offer promotion and discount codes to encourage prospects to register now, or simply make your offerings more appealing for price-sensitive customers. Also useful for helping to sell out events close to timelines.
- Event Check-In List. Generate an exportable list of event attendees and confirm everyone who attends.
- No-Ticket Events. You can promote events without requiring attendees to get tickets. Use Event Espresso for any type of event, not only when tickets are for sale.
- Event RSS Feeds. Keep your website visitors updated about your events, drive quality traffic and widen your content distribution with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events let you develop an event over time without publishing it to your website. You can continue building your event pages until you are ready to go live, or schedule to publish your event pages at a later time and date.
- Your Organization Settings. you can configure your organization’s profile to be used throughout the software and your front-end templates. Organization information include: business name, street address, city, state, country, zip code, email address, phone number, VAT/tax number, logo, Facebook profile URL, Twitter URL, LinkedIn profile URL, Pinterest profile URL, Google+ profile URL, Instagram URL.
- Default Tickets. If you create similar tickets for your events, you can automatically set one of those tickets as your default ticket for the next event simply by ticking a checkbox.
- Venue Management. The venue manager feature in Event Espresso 4 allows information about venues to appear throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front end of your site to inform registrants of the location of your event. The venue record has many of the standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also displays information like venue capacity, venue website, phone number, physical and virtual location, map, etc. You can also display venue profiles on various sections in your theme and 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 particular venue.
- Automatic Plugin Installation Updates. Event Espresso provides easy 1-click plugin updates to make sure that you have the latest features and to keep your plugin installation compatible with new versions of WordPress.
- Staff Management. Save time and keep your information organized by reusing staff profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in your event description.
- Categorize Events. If you have a number of types of events like free and paid, workshops and breakout sessions, different kinds of exercise classes, etc. you can categorize them to make it easier for your registrants to find 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 color-code your events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make these easier to find, in addition to suggesting other events in the categories that appeal to your existing customers.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming. Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical WP users, and also extremely robust and customizable for higher end users and web-based software developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, Event Espresso 4 facilitates more complex enhancements and customizations to the application.
- Maintenance Mode. Pause registration capabilities for normal website visitors whenever website maintenance is needed. You can still work on your event pages 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 mission, the company operates on 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 includes over 40 added features, including:
- Duplicating events – reduces the need to re-enter event information when creating new events.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing the same questions for similar events.
- Option to skip the confirmation page during the registration process.
Add ons
In addition to an incredible array of features, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow end-users to significantly expand the functionality of managing your event.
Some of these add-ons include:
- EE4 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 the event does not have a featured image available, it will use a default image.
- Recurring Events Drop-down Custom Template Add on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes many datetime events into a dropdown list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add-on: The Category Accordion template displays categories in a simple list. Clicking the category name shows all events associated with that category and closes previously open categories.
- Events Social Sharing Add on: This add-on adds social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that allows your registrants to share a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after booking.
- Custom Template Add-on: The Custom Template add on can display your event lists in a variety of exciting and interesting ways.
- Seating Chart Addon: The seating chart add on is 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 addon allows you to promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress website. The Seating Chart add-on lets you manage the experience for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to each seat.
- EE4 Event Ticketing And Bar Scanning Add on: The Ticketing add-on gives you the capacity to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on adds the capacity to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing add-on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for managing check-in scans at venues. People 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 Calendar Addon: This WordPress events calendar displays events and event categories using a nice graphical calendar.
- MailChimp Integration: The MailChimp addon lets you auto-register attendees to a specific autoresponder list or group within MailChimp.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software, including new add ons.
For more details about the newest Event Espreso features and add-ons, check out the plugin here:
User Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials that satisfied plugin users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso rocks! I use it for my dance class registrations. Unlike most dance studios where people have to call or send an email in advance, Event Espresso puts a registration form right there in front of the user and allows me to collect valuable information from the user during the registration process with custom questions such as “Do you have previous dance experience?” or “How did you hear about us?”. It also gives my site a professional look and feel.” Ral, Ral’eau Salsa Dance Company
”Your plugin rocks! Seriously, saved me hours on the phone setting up attendance manually. Kudos. :)” William, Petruzzo Photography
”Loving the functions and support from Event Espresso. One of the best plugins I’ve ever bought!” Nathan
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, trainer, conference promoter, or event management consultant, there are simply endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso plugin.
After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed user, go through the forums for inspiration and practical suggestions to streamline your event management process or improve the experience of your participants.
Support
Event Espresso works with with most WP plugins and themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent support, as many of its satisfied end-users attest:
”By far, the customer service experience with Event Espresso has been the best of any WordPress Theme or Paid Plugin that I’ve used in the past two years!” Megan Murray, Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe
The software provides incredible 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.
In addition, Event Espresso boasts an established team of experienced web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can rely on to manage your events.
Event Espresso Price
Event Espresso is available in a range of editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software options, however, you need to consider using one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal Licensing – This license allows you to set up Event Espresso on 1 site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License – This edition enables you to run Event Espresso on one site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This option enables you to set up Event Espresso on five domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Pricing details of the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin retails for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The pricing above was current when this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Plugin 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.
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 your particular 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 WP event registration and ticketing management plugin, used and trusted by thousands.
If you own a WordPress website and you plan to run any event that involves scheduling dates, times and venues, enrolling attendees, or selling tickets, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Management System
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