Do you currently run or plan to run events that require managing registrations, such as workshops, group courses, non-profit fund-raisers, social functions, or even a large-scale event such as a dance party, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Managing event bookings can be a time-consuming process. You need to co-ordinate event schedules, dates, participant numbers, data processing and storage, payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and delivering tickets to event registrants.
There are many advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce costs, help you easily duplicate repeat events, give you more control, improve client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite costly.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-powered website, you can easily install a very inexpensive and professional online event booking solution.
Announcing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Management And Ticketing Registration Plugin
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WP allows you to easily schedule multiple events and begin processing online bookings literally in a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and accept online bookings)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich software that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
Customize event registration forms
You can employ various event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up ticket-selling, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and autoresponders.
View detailed information about event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their software: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is impressively different than the older EE 3, as the platform has been revamped using a different structure to allow for future expansion. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually move completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
Go here to learn more:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current online presence into a fully-featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple price levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by virtually eliminating the chore of processing registrations and sign-ups manually.
Basically, you are enabling event participants to enroll themselves.
Letting your customers to do the data themselves frees up your time and lets you focus more of your resources on planning a better event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon see, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and booking process that you want your participants to experience.
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 third-party service. The cost is kept to a minimum by using a model where you start with the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then purchase add-ons when you need extra features.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online bookings 24 hours a day. In addition, Event Espresso social and marketing addons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event invite their friends who may also be interested in attending.
- Green And Paperless Event SignUp Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign up process is performed entirely online, eliminating typical paper consumption from tasks related to enrollment.
- Own Your Information. You control all the information you obtain from event attendees.
Features
The Event Espresso software delivers functionality to end-users through built-in features (these come with the plugin) and optional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers a number of great features to site owners. Here are just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have many dates and times (called datetimes), and these can be managed from a single event.
- Custom Notification Emails. Configure automatic registration and payment notification email messages to communicate with event registrants.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso integrates with payment gateways, enabling you to collect payments before running the events.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration enables event managers to configure the settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details pages.
- Spam Protection. Eliminate the chance of spamming and bot software programs creating fake registrations on your website by using reCAPTCHA option that provide human authentication.
- Mobile Registration & Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system lets you authenticate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, set up multiple check-in “stations” and track attendees.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. Event Espresso 4 lets you know who your clients are and how they have done business with you.
- Administrative Pre-approval. Control who can and cannot participate in your events.
- Event RSS Feeds. Keep your customers up-to-date about your events, drive quality traffic and widen your content distribution with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Optimized For The Latest Version Of WordPress. The EE 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you create aesthetically enhanced event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Country Settings. Event managers can configure the country and currency settings to be used throughout Event Espresso, such as currency name, currency signs, decimal characters and places, country codes, states or provinces, and so on.
- Default Tickets. If you create identical tickets for most of your events, you can automatically set up as your default ticket for all new events simply by ticking a checkbox.
- Venue Manager. The venue manager feature in Event Espresso 4 allows information about a venue to appear throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front-end of your website to inform users of your event’s location. The venue record displays many standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also displays venue information such as venue capacity, venue site URL, telephone number, physical and/or virtual location, map, etc. You can also display venues on various sections of your WordPress theme as well as on a venue listing page on your site where you can set up and reuse venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have listed for a given venue.
- Attendee Profiles. You can manage your registrant’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their records organized and easily within reach.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event clients who have not made payment for their admission with a standard but personalized PDF invoice with one click of a button. Your invoices will reference pre-registered attendees who have not paid their registration in full by name, give them the balance owing, and include a link to the event information, a payment link and a url where they can download the invoice.
- Accurate Event Participant Manager. You have control of your customers’ records; who has enrolled, which event they have registered for and what amount they have paid. With the attendee manager, you can get an overview of registered attendees and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export an event attendee list to a spreadsheet for additional uses, send custom payment reminders and receipts and communicate with your customers individually or collectively.
Additional features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This allows developers to have more control and options over the content of your event page and how your information displays to your site visitors.
- Full Logging & Remote Logging. EE 4 lets you create a log file with debugging data which can be useful for developers who are troubleshooting.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & Value: Event Espresso states on their website that their mission 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 company operates on a modular and effective model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium version of Event Espresso also comes with 40+ added features, including:
- Live-filtering when you search for events within the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse the same group of questions for similar events.
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow end-users to significantly enhance the functionality of managing an event.
Some of these add ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display the upcoming events by location. Four maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Manager Add on: The Recurring Events management add-on lets you put your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months ahead. You can add as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in the future as you like. Event Espresso will automatically open and close registrations for all of your recurring events.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add on: The Category Accordion template shows categories as a simple list. Clicking the category name displays all events related to that category and closes any previously open categories.
- Events Social Sharing Add-on: This add on adds 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 registration.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration addon 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 pricing and overriding event pricing when your members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered website users will have access to your special events. Members can also store personal data into their profile page allowing them to quickly register for events by auto-filling in the personal information on the event booking form. Your users can also look up past events and make payment for events.
- Seating Chart Add-on: The seating chart addon is for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart add on lets you promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues directly from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart addon lets you control the environment for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to each seat.
- EE4 Event Ticketing & Bar Scanning Addon: The Ticketing addon adds the capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on gives you the capacity to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing add on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for handling check-in scans at venues. People can either print out their tickets or display them on their mobile devices. The mobile app can be used for checking in or checking out registrants and to validate tickets.
- Events Calendar Add-on: This WordPress events calendar displays events and categories of events using an attractive graphical calendar.
- Infusionsoft Integration Add on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft App and Merchant Account integration all-in-one sales and business marketing software add-on, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture customer data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your website.
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 newest Event Espreso features and addons, check out the plugin here:
Testimonials
Below are just some of the many testimonials that plugin users 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
”When you can get a company to expend more money switching systems just to use your plugin…you’ve really accomplished something.” David, House of Prayer
”You guys have done an AWESOME job with this system…promise me to keep up the excellent work you guys are doing, for as long as you can… Respect!” Robert Jarnroth, Jarnroth Digital Productions
Useful Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, teacher, event promoter, or event management consultant, there are simply endless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a registered user, visit the forums for tips and practical suggestions to streamline your event management process and enhance the experience of your attendees.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso works with with all WP plugins and themes that follow standard WP development rules. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great user support, as many of its customers confirm:
”Your plugin saved our client nearly $9000 in development costs because it handled the majority of the functionality we were looking for at a much lower cost. EventEspresso’s staff have been very responsive to our needs when we have them (which has been rare, because the plugin is so well coded). Great job on a great plugin!” Brandon P., Experience Farm
The software provides robust support that includes access to a support forum, 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 web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can depend on to run and manage your events.
Plugin Pricing
Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin functionality, however, you will want to consider purchasing one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This license option lets you configure Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This lets you run Event Espresso on one site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License – This edition enables you to configure Event Espresso on five domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Pricing for 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 retails for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The pricing above was current at the time this article was written. This 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 the plugin. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the plugin’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to your specific situation, or to notify developers about bugs and give feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product site.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event registration and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of companies.
If you own a WordPress-powered website and you currently run an event that involves scheduling dates, times and venues (offline and online), registering attendees, and/or booking seating, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso
***