Does your company currently run or plan to run events that require handling bookings or registrations, such as seminars, community classes, charity fund-raisers, marketing functions, or even a large-scale event such as a festival, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Managing event bookings is a time-consuming process. You will probably have to manage calendar schedules, available dates and spaces, participant numbers, data collection and admin, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to participants.
There are a number of advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower expenses, help you easily duplicate similar events, give event managers more control, improve client experience and increase 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 a very inexpensive and highly professional online event registration system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticket Manager System
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software lets you easily create an event and begin receiving online bookings in a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and receive online event bookings)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich plugin that gives you full control over your event registration management process.
Create custom event registration forms
You can employ a number of event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up ticket sales, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event participants, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing updates.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Note: Currently, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is completely different than the older EE 3, as the software is being redeveloped using a different structure to allow for future growth and expansion. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually phase out Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and advantages of this plugin.
Learn more here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing digital presence into a fully-featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by literally eliminating the need to process registrations and bookings manually.
Essentially, you are facilitating participants to enrol themselves.
Letting your clients to do the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you focus more energy on creating a more unique event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management and registration process that you want your customers to experience.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Lower Costs: Event Espresso is a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to developing your own solution or using a third-party service. This is made possible by using a model where Event Espresso users buy the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and purchase add ons when you need extra features.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept new event bookings outside normal business hours. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social addons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event invite friends who may be interested in attending.
- Green & Paperless Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign-up process can be conducted entirely in digital form, significantly reducing typical paper consumption from tasks associated with enrollment.
- Own Your Data. You control all the data acquired from event participants.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to its users through built-in features (these are included with the software) and optional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many built-in to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Ready to start using in very little time.
- Multiple Dates and Times Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have many dates and times (called datetimes), that these can be managed from one single event.
- Event Calendar. Participants can easily find your events and add these to their schedule with the calendar.
- Tax Admin And Reporting. Event Espresso 4 gives you a number of ways to manage taxes for an event and provide reports of tax fee components to customers when purchasing tickets. You can configure taxes globally or on a ticket-by-ticket basis.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your theme and display registrant information throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Prices. Create events quickly by pre-configuring system-default ticket prices.
- Discount & Promotional Codes. Leverage promotion and multiple discount codes to encourage visitors to take action without delays, or simply make your offers more appealing for others. Also useful for helping to sell out events close to deadlines.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of booking event attendees at the door, or send in paper-based forms for manual submission later.
- Waiting Lists. Prospective participants can join a waiting list if your event is full. Additionally, you can make it a requirement wait-listed attendees pay for their spots if you plan to expand numbers for the event.
- Private Comments On Contacts. Keep observations about contacts on their profile. Private commenting allows you to keep records of when users contacted you, your internal comments, and how you’ve interacted with your contacts.
- Works With The Most Recent WP Version. The EE 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you build visually attractive event pages that are easier to use and mobile-friendly.
- 15+ Languages. Event Espresso is being translated into 15+ languages, and more translations are being added all the time.
- Default Tickets. If you find yourself creating similar tickets for your events, you can easily set up as your default ticket for your new events simply by ticking a checkbox.
- WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the built-in WP WYSIWYG editor, so you can quickly and easily add photos and stylize your content without knowing HTML or CSS, just like any WP post.
- Registrant Records. You can manage each attendee’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their records organized.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event attendees who have not fully paid for their admission with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click of a button. Your invoices will reference registered attendees who have not paid their registration in full by name, give them the balance owing, and include links to the event, a payment url and a link where they can download a PDF invoice.
- Accurate Event Participant Management. You have control of your attendees’ details; who has registered, for what event and how much they paid. With the attendee manager, you can get a quick overview of registered attendees and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export an event attendee list to an Excel spreadsheet for additional uses, send customized payment reminders and receipts and communicate with your clients individually or as a group.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These allow you to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso software that are compatible with WordPress.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 allows you to create a log file with debugging data which can be helpful for web developers when potential application problems.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & Value For Money: According to the philosophy stated on their web site, 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 company operates on a modular and efficient 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:
- Email shortcodes that includes attendee data in confirmation emails and updates.
- Default surcharge (similar to applying a service tax to tickets).
- Default payment status.
Addons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow customers to further expand the functionality of managing an event.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display the upcoming events by location. 4 maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Drop-down Template Addon: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes many datetime events into a drop-down list.
- Events Date Range Template Add-on: The Date Range custom event list template lets your users to search for events that take place in a certain date range.
- Social Coupons Integration Addon: If your site uses Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can also specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on lets you take advantage of the WP user system. With the WP User Integration add-on you can give your users a special incentive by offering member prices and overriding event pricing when your members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered users of the website can have access to your special events. Members can also enter personal information into their profile page allowing them fast registration for events by auto-filling in the personal information on the event registration form. Your users can also view previous events and make payment for events.
- Seating Chart Addon: The seating chart add on is 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 lets you offer reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues directly from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add-on lets you control the experience for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach single prices to each seat.
- Multiple Event Registration Add on: The Multi-Event registration add-on gives your potential customers the ability to register for 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 cart. With the Multi-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 View Template Add on: The Events Table Template addon gives event managers a simple and easy-to-use system that lets you edit the design of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also allows developers to design custom templates using one of the templates included as a source template.
- JSON API Add-on: The new Event Espresso JSON API add on gives permission for other applications, web sites, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso information through an Application Programming Interface (API).
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin, including new addons.
To learn more about the newest Event Espreso features and add ons, check out the plugin here:
User Feedback
Here are some of the testimonials that satisfied customers have written about Event Espresso:
”I want to commend you on a fabulous product which is just the right price for a small non-profit. People are happy with the registration process, as are we! …Thank you SO much for a great product.” Sandra Forero Bush, World Trade Center Tacoma
”I searched long and hard to find something that would serve my needs. This is, by far, the most complete and comprehensive solution I have found.” Bill Hepper, We Teach Live
“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, presenter, event promoter, or event consultant, there are just endless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a registered owner, visit the forums for useful ideas and practical ways to streamline your event management and registration workflow and improve the experience of your event customers.
Support
Event Espresso works with with all WP plugins and WP themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive customer support, as so many of its satisfied clients attest:
”These guys are right on any problem or issue or even general questions. You can’t really put a value high enough on the kind of support these guys offer.” Mark Wigston, Muskoka Graphics
Event Espresso provides comprehensive support that includes access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, premium 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.
Additionally, Event Espresso boasts an established team of experienced web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can count on to run your events.
Software Price
Event Espresso is available in a number of editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software features, however, you need to consider purchasing one of the premium plugin versions below:
- Personal License Edition – This lets you install Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License – This edition enables you to install Event Espresso on one domain only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License – This enables you to install Event Espresso on five domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the plugin retails for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Management And Ticketing Registration System For WordPress
Please Note: The pricing above was current when this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site.
Event Espresso – Additional Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the software’s online documentation pages for answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to your specific situation, or to notify developers about errors and share feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event booking and ticketing manager plugin, used and trusted by thousands of companies.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you intend to run an event that involves scheduling dates and venues (offline and online), enrolling participants, and/or reserving tickets, then you will probably not find a more suitable solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticketing Management Software
***