Does your business currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating bookings or registrations, such as seminars, community courses, non-profit fund-raisers, networking conferences, or even a big event such as a dance party, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Managing event registrations is a complex process. You may have to manage calendar schedules, availability, attendee numbers, data entry, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations, reminders, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and providing tickets to event registrants.
There are many advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily duplicate previous events, give you more control, improve client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite costly.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-based website or blog, you can download and install a very inexpensive and professional web-based event registration system.
Introducing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software lets you easily set up multiple events and start processing online bookings literally in a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and process online bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a feature-packed application that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize your event registration forms
You can employ a range 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 sites like Facebook.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Please Note: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their software: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is significantly different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the software has been rebuilt using a different structure to allow for future expansion. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The developers aim to eventually phase out EE 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.
To learn more about the plugin go 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
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website into an automated and feature-rich event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by practically doing away with the chore of processing registrations manually.
Basically, you are enabling attendees to enrol by themselves.
Allowing your attendees to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing administration and lets you concentrate more of your resources on planning a more unique event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will discover shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and registration process that you want your attendees to experience.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Less Costs: The Event Espresso plugin gives you a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third-party service provider. The cost is kept low by using a model where you start with the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then purchase addons only when you need new functionality.
- More Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept new event bookings 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social and marketing features (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event share your information with others who may be interested in attending.
- Green Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign up process can be transacted wholly online, significantly reducing typical paper consumption from tasks associated with enrollment.
- Own Your Information. You own all the data you collect from event participants.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to end-users through built-in features (these are included with the software) and optional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Customized Event Registration Forms. With Event Espresso you can gather unique information using custom event registration forms on your site to plan a tailored experience for your attendees.
- Custom Notification Emails. Easily configure custom automated booking and payment notification emails to communicate with your customers.
- Tax Admin & Reporting. Event Espresso 4 provides a number of options to administer taxes for your event and report tax fee components to registrants who purchase tickets. Event managers can configure taxes globally and on a per-ticket basis.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration allows you to configure the look and control settings of Google Maps on your event listing and event details pages.
- Spam Protection. Eliminate the chance of spammers and robots making bogus registrations on your site with reCAPTCHA option to authenticate human activity.
- Discount And Promotional Codes. Offer promotional and discount codes to encourage prospects to register immediately, or make your events more affordable for others. This is also practical if you want to sell-out events close to timelines.
- Manual Registration Option. you have the option of booking event participants at the door, or sending in paper-based forms for manual inputting later.
- Event Manager Pre-approval. Control who can participate in your events.
- XML RSS Feeds. Keep your users up-to-date about your events, bring in more visitors and reach a wider number of potential customers with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Keyword-Rich Page URLs. Keyword rich event page URLs leverage your Permalinks configuration settings. Search engine friendly urls that include relevant keywords add to the context of your pages and improves your search rankings, helping you drive more potential customers to your website.
- Country-specific Settings. You can configure the country and currency settings that will be used to promote your events, such as currency, currency signs, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, states or provinces, etc.
- Default Tickets. If you create similar tickets for your events, you can automatically set one of those tickets as your default ticket for all new events simply by ticking a checkbox.
- Venue Profiles. The venue management feature in Event Espresso 4 allows information about venues to be made available throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front end of your site to inform visitors of your event’s location. The venue profile displays many of the standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also displays venue details such as venue capacity, venue website, venue phone number, physical and virtual location, map, etc. You can also list venue profiles in various parts of your WordPress theme and on a venue listing page on your website where you can set up and display venue profiles for multiple events or display all the events for a particular venue.
- Automatic Plugin Updates. Event Espresso provides easy 1-click plugin updates to ensure that you have the latest features and to keep your software installation working with new versions of WordPress.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event customers who have not made payment for their booking with a standard but personalized PDF invoice with one click. Your invoices will reference registered customers who have not paid their registration yet by name, give them the amount they owe, and include links to the event details, a payment link and a url to download the invoice.
- Categorize Events. If you have multiple event types such as free and paid, conference speakers and breakout sessions, different types of programs and program modules, etc. you can categorize these to help your participants to locate what they’re looking for. You can list all events in a category on an 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, as well as suggesting other events in the categories that appeal to your existing customers.
Additional features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This feature allows you to have more control and options over your content and how the information displays to your prospective customers.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. EE 4 lets you create a log file with debugging data which can be useful for developers when diagnosing application errors.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & Value: According to the mission statement on their website, Event Espresso’s goal 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 software has been built using a modular 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+ additional features, including:
- Duplicating events – eliminates the need to re-enter event information when adding new events.
- Default surcharge (the same as applying a service fee to all tickets).
- Option to skip the confirmation page in registration.
Addons
As well as a comprehensive array of features, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow customers to significantly expand the functionality of events.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display upcoming events by location. There are four maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Manager Addon: The Recurring Events management add-on lets you put events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months … even years ahead. You can add as many events in the future as you like. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close bookings for all of these recurring events.
- Events Date Range Template Add-on: The Date Range custom event list template enables your users to browse for events that take place in a certain date range.
- Social Coupons Integration Addon: 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 Template Add on: The Custom Template add-on can display your events in a range of visually exciting ways.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Add-on Editions: This add-on lets you include staff in the event management process and give new users permission 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 privileges, 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 parts of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to allow users to have geographic responsibilities for events and users, use the Roles and Permissions Pro addon.
- EE4 Event Ticketing And Bar Scanning Add-on: The Ticketing add-on gives you the capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on gives you the capacity to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing add-on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for handling check-in scans at the venue door. 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 Table View Template Add-on: The Events Table Template add on provides you with an easy-to-use system that allows you to change 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 lets developers build custom templates using one of the templates included as a base template.
- MailChimp Integration Addon: The MailChimp addon allows you to auto-register attendees to a specific autoresponder list or group within MailChimp.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software, including new addons.
For full details about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website here:
User Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials that users have written about Event Espresso:
“It is a very, very slick plugin. It’s one of those plugins where you install it, change a couple of settings, and boom you’re selling tickets.” Brad Williams, WebDevStudios
”I have been using Event Espresso to run my festival and have been very happy with how it has worked out. They have provided tremendous support and their iPhone app is amazing and easy to use. I suggest using it for your event.” Alex Grant, Byron Spirit Festival
“Love the plugin, we only use it once a year for a race we have in February. This saved us tons of time in data entry. In addition, we had more runners register than any other year. We attribute that to the ease of registering online. Thanks for your work.” Ed, Friends of Oscar Scherer Park
Useful Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, trainer, workshop planner, or event consultant, there are simply endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a licensed user, go through the forums for inspiration and practical suggestions to streamline your event management process or enhance the experience of your participants.
Support
Event Espresso works with with other WordPress plugins and WP themes that follow standard WP development guidelines. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent end-user support, as many of its clients confirm:
”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
Event Espresso provides comprehensive support including access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, premium 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 rely on to manage your events.
Plugin Pricing
Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced software features, however, you should consider downloading one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal Edition – This license option enables you to configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. It includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This edition enables you to configure Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License – This lets you set up Event Espresso on 5 sites. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
The cost of purchasing the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin is being retailed for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Manager & Registration Software For WordPress
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 developer when you visit the site.
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.
Look up the plugin’s documentation tools for answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to a particular situation, or to report problems and share feedback.
For all 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 and trusted by thousands of people.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you plan to run any event that requires scheduling dates, times and venues (offline and online), enrolling attendees, and/or reserving seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Manager & Ticket Registration System
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