Do you currently run or plan to run events that require handling bookings or registrations, such as workshops, community courses, non-profit fund-raisers, social conferences, or even a big event such as an arts & crafts, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Co-ordinating event sign-ups can be a time-consuming process. You will probably have to co-ordinate event schedules, dates, participant numbers, data processing, payments and invoicing, confirmations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and delivering tickets to attendees.
There are many advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower expenses, help you easily duplicate similar events, give you more control, create a better user experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be costly.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-based site, you can install an inexpensive and professional web-based event registration system.
Introducing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin lets you easily schedule multiple events and begin receiving bookings in just minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and receive online bookings)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich application that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can use various event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up selling tickets, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and email marketing software.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Please Note: Currently, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is fundamentally different than the older EE 3, as the software has been rebuilt using a different structure to allow for future growth. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually migrate completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just some of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current web site into an automated and feature-rich event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple pricing options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Increased 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 facilitating event attendees to perform the registration themselves.
Allowing your participants to do all of the data themselves frees up your time and lets you spend more energy on planning a better event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will learn in a moment, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your customers to experience.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Reduced Costs: Event Espresso gives you a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to developing your own system or using a 3rd-party provider. The cost is kept low through a model where you start with the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and buy addons when you need new features.
- Increased Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online bookings outside traditional business hours. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing features (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event invite their friends who may also be interested.
- Green Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign-up process can be performed entirely in digital form, reducing traditional paper waste from tasks associated with enrollment.
- Own Your Data. You control all the data you obtain from event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to users via standard features (these are included with the software) and optional features that customers can buy for an additional cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many features to site owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Custom Event Registration. With Event Espresso you can gather unique information using a custom event registration form on your website to prepare a customized experience for your customers.
- Custom Notification Email Message. Set up automatic registration and payment confirmation emails to communicate with your clients.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso integrates with leading payment gateways, enabling you to collect registration fees before running your events.
- Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your WP theme and display attendee information throughout other areas of your site.
- Spam Protection. Prevent the risk of spammers and robots creating false registrations with reCAPTCHA features that provide human authentication.
- Mobile Registration And Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system enables you to authenticate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, create multiple check-in “stations” and track participants.
- Event Check-In List. Generate an exportable list of registrants and confirm everyone who attends.
- Waiting Lists. Latecomers can subscribe to a waiting list if your event is sold out. Additionally, you can specify that wait-listed registrants pre-pay if you plan to expand capacity for your event.
- XML RSS Feeds. Keep your users updated about your events, bring in more visitors and reach a wider number of potential customers with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events allow you to build your event page at your own leisure without publishing it to your site. You can continue developing your event pages until you are ready to go live, or schedule your event page to publish at a later date and time.
- Multi-Language Software. Event Espresso is currently available in 15+ languages, and more translations are being added all the time.
- Import Event Information. Event Espresso 4 provides a CSV-based importing feature that enables you to quickly upload bulk event data all at one time. You can export, edit and upload data for events, datetimes, ticketing information, pricing, registration questions, venues, terminology, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the standard WordPress Visual editor, allowing you to quickly and easily insert photos and format your event descriptions without knowing HTML or CSS, just like any WordPress post or page.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso gives you access to an expert community of experienced event managers and plugin users. You can network with other members of the Event Espresso community through their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Staff Management. Save time and stay organized by reusing staff profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in your event description.
- Categorize Events. If you have several different types of events like free and paid, conference speakers and mastermind sessions, different kinds of programs and program modules, etc. you can categorize them to make it easier for event participants to locate what they’re searching for. You can list all the events in a category on a custom event category page, make all events searchable by category, and colour-code your events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make them easier to find, in addition to suggesting other events in the categories that interest your existing customers.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These features allow developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso application that are compatible with the WordPress software platform.
- Full Logging & Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 lets you generate a log file with debugging data that can be useful for web developers who are troubleshooting.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value: According to the philosophy stated on their web site, Event Espresso’s objective 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 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+ added features, including:
- Email shortcodes that includes customer data in emails and newsletters.
- Default surcharge (similar to applying a service fee to tickets).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow customers to significantly expand the functionality of managing an event.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display upcoming events by location. There are 4 maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Custom Template Add on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize many datetime events into a drop-down list.
- Events Calendar Table Template Add-on: The Calendar Table template is a list template with a bold date and customizable “register now” button. The template can also be customized to show the event thumbnail instead of the date.
- Social Media Buttons Add-on: The social media addon displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media add-on comes free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- Custom Files Add-on: The Custom Files addon lets you override certain aspects of the plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Add on Versions: This add on lets you include others in the event management process and give new users permission to create events or regional managers the ability to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WP users roles and assign them different permissions with different capabilities, allowing others to help you manage your events or events that other people create. You can customize roles so that a user does not have access to certain areas of your WP dashboard and/or certain sections 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.
- Multiple Event Registration Add-on: The Multiple Event registration add-on gives potential customers the ability to book 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 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 categories of events in a nice graphical calendar.
- MailChimp Integration Add on: The MailChimp add on allows you to automatically register participants to a selected mailing autoresponder list or group within MailChimp.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software, including new add-ons.
For full details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, check out the plugin here:
User Feedback
Below are just some of the many testimonials that customers have posted 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
”I have to say that it has been the right choice for me…I’ve been extremely pleased with the way my site is working.” Robin, RobinTime
”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
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, trainer, show promoter, or event consultant, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, search the user forum for useful ideas and practical suggestions to streamline your event management workflow and enhance the experience of your event attendees.
Support
Event Espresso works with with other WP plugins and WordPress themes that follow standard WP coding rules. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great user support, as many of its satisfied plugin 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 great support that includes access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, one-on-one 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 WordPress web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely software you can count on to manage your events.
Event Espresso Price
Event Espresso is available in a number of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software options, however, you need to consider downloading one of the paid plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This option allows you to configure Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License – This allows you to run Event Espresso on 5 sites. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
The cost to purchase the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current price: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Please Note: The pricing above was current at the time this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the site.
Event Espresso – Additional Info
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the plugin’s documentation pages for answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to your particular situation, or to report problems and leave feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product information pages.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event registration and ticketing management software, used by thousands of event managers.
If you own a WordPress-powered website and you plan to run any event that involves managing dates, times and venues (offline and online), booking attendees, and selling tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticket Manager Plugin
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