Do you currently run or plan to run events that need to accept registrations, such as workshops, training courses, non-profit fund-raisers, social events, or even a large-scale event like a school concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Co-ordinating event bookings is a complex and time-consuming process. You will probably need to manage scheduling, available dates and spaces, attendee numbers, data collection, collecting payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to event attendees.
There are a number of benefits to setting up an online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce costs, help you easily copy settings for similar events, give you more control, create a better client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be costly.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-based site, you can easily set up an inexpensive and highly professional web-based event registration solution.
Announcing …
Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticketing Management
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin allows you to easily schedule an event and begin receiving registrations in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and accept online event registrations)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed software that gives you complete control over the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can employ several event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up ticket-selling, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your event participants, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing updates.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Please Note: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their software: EE 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is considerably different than the older Event Espresso 3, as it has been rebuilt using a different structure to allow for future 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 Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and features of this plugin.
More info:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website or blog into an automated and fully featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to attendee limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and 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 practically doing away with the need to process registrations and signups manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for event attendees to complete the sign-up process themselves.
Letting your customers to do all of the data themselves frees up your time and lets you spend more of your time on delivering a more enjoyable event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon see, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management and registration process that you want your participants to experience.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Less Costs: Event Espresso is a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a 3rd party service. This is made possible by using a model where you buy the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and buy add-ons when you need additional functionality.
- Increased Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online bookings any time of day or night. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social features and addons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event invite other people they know who may be interested in attending.
- Green Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, the event registration process can be completed wholly in digital form, reducing typical paper consumption from tasks related to admin and record-keeping.
- All Information Belongs To You. You control all the information you collect from your event participants.
Event Espresso Features
The Event Espresso plugin delivers functionality to end-users through standard features (these are included with the plugin) and additional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many unique built-in to site owners. Here are just some of these:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Ready to use in no time.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In EE 4, events can have multiple dates and times (called datetimes), and these can be managed from a single event.
- Customizable Event Designs. You can customize your events and registrations page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and components, as well as HTML and CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present multiple ticket options to registrants and let them choose the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is smart, fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary registrant’s details for any added registrants.
- Spam Protection. Prevent the likelihood of spammers and bots creating false registrations on your website by using reCAPTCHA features that confirm human activity.
- Discount Codes. Provide promotional and discount codes to encourage prospects to make a purchasing decision now, or make your offerings more affordable for price-sensitive customers. Also useful for helping to increase sales of events close to timelines.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. Event Espresso 4 lets you understand who your clients are and how you have done business with them. Your Contact Profile page records the name, biography, contact information, event registration data, comments, and more about each client.
- Waiting Lists. Prospective participants can join a waiting list if your event is sold out. Additionally, you can make it a requirement wait-list members pre-pay if you plan to expand numbers for the event.
- XML RSS Feeds. Keep your site visitors up-to-date about your events, drive quality traffic and widen your content distribution with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Search Engine Friendly Event Page Web Links. Keyword rich URLs take advantage of your Permalinks configuration settings. SEO-friendly urls that have topic-relevant keywords enhance the context of your events and improves your search rankings, helping you get a more targeted audience to your events.
- 15+ Languages. Event Espresso has been translated into 15+ languages, and more translations are being added all the time.
- Exportable Information. You can output all the information gathered from your event participants into Excel or CSV format for producing advanced reports, devising marketing strategies, reviewing attendee statistics, and so on.
- WP Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the default WP WYSIWYG editor, so you can quickly and easily add photos and format your event descriptions without knowledge of HTML or CSS, just like any WordPress post.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso provides users with access to an expert community of experienced event managers and plugin users. You can interact with other members of the Event Espresso community using their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Social Sharing. Event participants and website visitors can help publicize your events using social media share buttons.
- Attendee Reports. Event reporting gives you data of all registrations and transactions, enabling you to analyze the performance of your events with the aggregate number of people who have registered and how much money has been collected.
Additional features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This feature allows web-based software developers to have more control and options over the content of your events and how your information displays to prospects.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. EE 4 allows you to generate a log file with debugging data which can be helpful for developers when troubleshooting.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value: According to the philosophy stated on their web 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 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 over 40 added features, including:
- Email shortcodes for including attendee data in emails and email newsletters.
- Default surcharge (the same as applying a service tax to all tickets).
- Default payment status.
Addons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow customers to significantly enhance the capabilities of the event management system.
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, it will use a default image.
- Recurring Events Drop-down Custom Template Addon: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize many datetime events into a drop-down list.
- Events Date Range Template Addon: The Date Range custom event list template lets your users to search for events that occur within a certain date range.
- Events Social Sharing Add on: Add social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that lets your attendees to post a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after booking.
- Custom Files Addon: The Custom Files add-on allows you to override certain aspects of the Event Espresso plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Addon Versions: This addon lets you include other users in the event management process and give new users the ability to create events or regional managers permission to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WP users roles and allow them different permissions with different capabilities, so others can help you manage your events or the events that other people 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 create geographic regions for other people to manage events, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add-on.
- Multiple Event Registration Addon: The Multiple Event registration addon gives potential customers the ability to register for 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 addon, 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 WordPress events calendar displays events and categories of events using a nice graphical calendar.
- JSON API Addon: The Event Espresso JSON API add-on lets other applications, web tools, mobile apps, etc… to access your Event Espresso details through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin, including new add-ons.
For complete details about the newest Event Espreso features and addons, check out the plugin here:
User Feedback
Here are a few of the testimonials that satisfied plugin users have written about Event Espresso:
”My hope with this whole integration is to be able to show other school districts an affordable and easy solution to these registrations. I cannot believe how much money they are charged for less by other companies. This has the potential to save schools tens of thousands, which is huge right now.” Kelly, College Station Independent School District
”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, KT Benefits & InkItDigital.com
”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, Improve Photography
Useful Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, teacher, concert planner, or event management professional, there are simply countless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso plugin.
After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a registered owner, go through the support forum for inspiration and practical ways to streamline your event management process or enhance the experience of your attendees.
Support
Event Espresso works with with all WP plugins and themes that follow standard WP development rules. If you find that you need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive support, as many of its satisfied plugin end-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 incredible support including access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, email 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 plugin you can count on to manage your events.
Software Price
Event Espresso is available in various editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin options, however, you need to consider downloading one of the premium plugin editions below:
- Personal License Edition – This license lets you configure Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This enables you to install Event Espresso on 1 domain only. It includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Edition – This enables you to run Event Espresso on five sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Current pricing for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software is selling for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Management
Note: The pricing above was current when this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the website.
Additional Plugin Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the plugin’s online documentation tools for answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to your particular situation, or to report issues 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 preferred WP event booking and ticketing management plugin, used and trusted by thousands of users.
If you own a WordPress-powered site and you intend to run an event that involves managing dates and venues (offline and online), enrolling participants, or reserving tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable WordPress plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – Event Management And Registration Plugin For WordPress
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