Does your business currently run or plan to run events that need co-ordinating bookings, such as seminars, training classes, charity fund raisers, corporate events, or even a big event such as a food fair, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Co-ordinating event registrations can be a time-consuming process. You may need to manage event schedules, date availability, registration numbers, data processing and storage, payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and providing tickets to attendees.
There are lots of benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower costs, help you easily duplicate similar events, give you more control, create a better customer experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite expensive.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-based website or blog, you can easily set up an inexpensive and professional online event registration system.
Announcing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WP plugin allows you to easily schedule multiple events and start accepting online registrations in a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and take online event registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed software that gives you complete control of your event registration management process.
Customize event registration forms
You can employ a range of event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your participants, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing notifications.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Please Note: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is completely different than the older EE 3, as it has been redeveloped using a different structure to accommodate future expansion. The EE 4 plugin platform 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 learn more about this plugin.
More info:
Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:
Automated Event Registration Management And Ticketing Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing digital presence into an automated and fully featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to attendee limits, multiple price levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by literally doing away with the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for event participants to enroll on their own.
Allowing your participants to do all of the data themselves frees up your time and lets you concentrate more of your attention on organizing a more enjoyable event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and registration process that you want your users to experience.
Additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Reduced Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to developing your own software or using a third-party service. The cost is kept low through a model where you pay for the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then purchase add ons only when you need new features.
- More Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online event signups 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social features and addons (see below) let people interested in attending your event invite their friends who may also be interested in attending.
- Green & Paperless Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign-up process can be conducted entirely online, reducing traditional paper waste from tasks associated with administration.
- Own Your Information. You own all the data you acquire from event participants.
Event Espresso Features
The Event Espresso software provides functionality to its customers through built-in features (these come with the plugin) and optional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides a number of features to website owners. Here are just some:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In EE 4, events can have multiple dates and times (called datetimes), which these can be managed from a single event.
- Customized Notification Email Message. Set up automatic booking and payment confirmation email messages to communicate with your clients.
- Ticket Selector. Present a number of ticket options to prospects so they can purchase the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically copy the primary registrant’s information for any additional registrants.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow you to create new prices that adjust the default ticket pricing for your default ticket.
- Discount Codes. Leverage promotion and discount codes to encourage people to take action now, or simply make your offers more attractive for others. Also useful for helping to sell-out events close to deadlines.
- Event Check-In List. Generate a list of event attendees and check-in everyone who attends.
- Event Manager Pre-approval. Control who can and can’t register for your events.
- Private Comments On Contacts. Record notes about contacts on their profile and how you’ve helped them. Private notes lets you keep a record of when event attendees contacted you, your internal observations, and how you’ve assisted your contacts.
- Search Engine Friendly Event Page URLs. Keyword-rich event page URLs take advantage of your WordPress site’s Permalinks configuration settings. SEO-friendly permalinks with relevant keywords enhance the context of your pages and is favored by search engines, helping you get a more targeted audience to your site.
- Easy Event Management. Event Espresso puts event managers in full control of all aspects of an event’s registration and ticketing, and also allows you to automate this process with event management tools that include staff and venue manager, customizable event page designs, payment processing, wait lists, limits on attendees, print-ready tickets and more.
- Exportable Data. You can output all the data gathered from your event customers into Excel or CSV format for creating advanced reports, implementing new marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, and so on.
- WordPress WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the built-in WordPress WYSIWYG editor, allowing you to quickly and easily insert photos and format your event descriptions without knowing HTML or CSS, just like any typical WP post or page.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso lets you interact with a community of experienced event managers, web developers, designers, marketers and business owners who also use the software. You can interact 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+.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential registrants who have not made payment for their booking with a standard but personalized invoice with one click of a button. Your invoices will reference registered participants who have not paid their registration in full by name, display the amount owing, and include a link to the event, a payment link and a url where they can download the invoice.
- Categorize Events. If you have several different types of events like free and paid, workshops and mastermind sessions, different kinds of exercise classes, etc. you can categorize them to help your registrants to find what they’re searching for. You can display all the events in a category on a custom event category page, make events searchable by category, and color-code events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make these easier to find, in addition to suggesting other events in the categories that interest your visitors.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for most users, and also extremely robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and developers. The bottom line is that by using Object-oriented programming (OOP), Event Espresso 4 makes possible more complex extensions and customizations to the software.
- Metabox Management & Organization. Event Espresso lets you leverage the WordPress user interface, which brings the ability to reorganize the user interface to suit your workflow process. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or removed from your workflow configuration.
- Autonomy, Flexibility And Value: According to the mission statement on their 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 objectives, the software has been built using a modular that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes over 40 additional features, including:
- Duplicating events – reduces the work of re-entering event details when adding new events.
- Default surcharge (the same as adding a service tax to tickets).
- Option to skip the confirmation page during the registration process.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow end-users to further expand the capabilities of managing an event.
Some of these add-ons include:
- EE4 Events Grid Template Add-on: 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, a default image will be used.
- Recurring Events Management Add-on: The Recurring Events management add-on allows you to put your events on autopilot by scheduling repeated events weeks or months ahead. You can schedule as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in the future as you need. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all of your recurring events.
- Events Date Range Template Addon: The Date Range custom event list template enables your users to browse for events that occur within a certain date range.
- 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 all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- Custom Template Add on: The Custom Template add on is capable of displaying your event lists in a number of visually exciting ways.
- Seating Chart Addon: The seating chart addon is suitable for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is ideal for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart add on allows you to promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues right from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add on lets you manage the experience for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach single prices to each seat.
- Multi-Event Registration Add on: The Multiple Event registration add-on gives your 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 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 Table Template Addon: The Events Table Template addon gives event managers a simple and easy-to-use system that lets you modify the look and feel of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also allows web developers to build their own custom templates using one of the included templates as a source template.
- JSON API Addon: The new Event Espresso JSON API add on enables other software applications, websites, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso content through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software, including new add-ons.
For complete details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, check out the plugin here:
Testimonials
Here are just some of the testimonials that users have written about Event Espresso:
”Broadcasting my support for Event Espresso will be a pleasure. I recently helped the Webmaster at a sister church configure your event manager for their site, so I can say with confidence and from experience, that Event Espresso is the best Event Manager plugin ever!” Philip Simpson, The Charlotte Church
“I just completed my first event using Event Espresso. I really believe without Event Espresso my event would not have been the success it was.” Cathy Earle, Women Only Weekend
”Loving the functions and support from Event Espresso. One of the best plugins I’ve ever bought!” Nathan
Useful Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, trainer, conference planner, or event professional, there are simply endless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a registered user, search the forums for inspiration and practical suggestions to streamline your event management and registration workflow or enhance the experience of your customers.
Plugin Support
Event Espresso works with with other 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 plugin customers confirm:
”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 plugin provides robust support that includes access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, one-on-one 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 a well-staffed team of experienced WordPress web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can depend on to organize and manage your events.
Software Cost
Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin functionality, however, you need to consider purchasing one of the ”Pro” plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This license option allows you to configure Event Espresso on one domain only. It includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This lets you 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 license option lets you install Event Espresso on five sites. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Current pricing for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software sells for the prices 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 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
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 documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to your specific use-case, or to notify developers about bugs and share feedback.
For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing manager plugin, used by thousands of WordPress website owners.
If you are a WordPress user and you intend to run an event that requires scheduling dates and venues, booking attendees, or selling tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Manager
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