Do you currently run or plan to run events that require handling registrations, such as workshops, training courses, charity fundraisers, corporate events, or even a big event such as a school concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Co-ordinating event registrations is a complex process. You will probably need to manage event schedules, availability, attendee numbers, data entry, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to event participants.
There are many benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower expenses, help you easily copy settings for similar events, give you more control, create a more enjoyable customer experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite expensive.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-based digital presence, you can set up a very inexpensive and professional online event registration system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticketing Manager
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WP allows you to easily set up your event and begin processing registrations in a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and accept online event registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a feature-rich software that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize your event registration forms
You can use a number of event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your event attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing notifications.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is completely different than the older Event Espresso 3, as it has been revamped using a different structure to enable future growth. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually transition completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits 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 website into a feature-rich and professional event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to attendee limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by virtually doing away with the chore of processing registrations and sign-ups manually.
Essentially, you are enabling participants to enroll on their own.
Letting your participants to do all of the data themselves frees up your time and lets you direct more of your time on delivering a memorable event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon discover, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your clients to experience.
Some additional benefits include:
- Reduced Costs: Event Espresso is a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a 3rd party provider. The cost is kept to a minimum by using a model where Event Espresso users buy the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and buy optional add-ons only if you need additional functionality.
- More Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new event registrations any time of day or night. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features and add-ons (see below) let people interested in attending your event share your information with other people they know who may also be interested.
- Green Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, your event signup process is transacted wholly online, significantly reducing traditional paper waste from tasks associated with enrollment.
- All Information Belongs To You. You control all the information collected from event participants.
Event Espresso Features
The Event Espresso software provides functionality to users through built-in features (these are included with the software) and optional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many great built-in to website owners. Here are just some:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to start using in very little time.
- Multiple Dates and Times Per Event. In EE 4, events can have many dates and times (datetimes), and these can be managed from a single event.
- Customized Notification Email Message. Easily set up customized automatic booking and payment notification email messages to communicate with event attendees.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso integrates with payment gateways, enabling you to collect payments before running events.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout Process. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is smart, fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary attendee’s registration information for any additional registrants.
- Spam Protection. Prevent the chance of spammers and bots creating bogus registrations by using reCAPTCHA settings that validate human activity.
- In-App Documentation. Event Espresso 4 provides 3 detailed in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Event Check-In List. Generate a list of event participants and check in everyone who attends.
- Ticketless Events. You can promote events without the requirement for attendees to get tickets. Use Event Espresso for all kinds of events, not only when tickets are required.
- RSS Feeds. Keep your customers up-to-date about your events, bring in more visitors and widen your content reach with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Works With The Most Up-To-Date Version Of WP. The Event Espresso 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you create highly aesthetic event pages that are easier to use and mobile-friendly.
- Your Organization Settings. you can configure your organization’s profile to be deployed throughout Event Espresso and your WordPress themes. The organization fields include: organization name, street address, city, state, country, zip code, email, phone, VAT/tax number, your logo, Facebook URL, Twitter profile URL, LinkedIn profile URL, Pinterest URL, Google+ URL, Instagram URL.
- Exportable Data. You can output all of your data collected from your event customers into Excel or CSV format for creating reports, planning new marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, and so on.
- Multiple Attendee Registration. Event Espresso 4 allows one person or a group to enroll multiple attendees at the same time. Event managers decide how many attendees are able to enroll in one registration by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso gives you access to a community of experienced event managers, web developers, web designers, web marketers and businesses who also use the plugin. You can network with other members of the Event Espresso community through their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Staff Member Management. Save time and keep your business organized by reusing staff profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in any event description.
- Categorize Events. If you have multiple event types such as free and paid, conference speakers and breakout sessions, different types of courses, etc. you can categorize these to make it easier for your attendees to find what they’re searching for. You can list all events in a category on an event category page, make the events searchable by category, and color-code 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 visitors.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for general WP users, and also robust and customizable for higher end users and web developers. The bottom line is that by using Object-oriented programming (OOP), EE 4 makes possible more complex developments and customizations to the software.
- Full Logging & Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 lets you generate a log file with debugging data that can be helpful for developers when troubleshooting.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And 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 mission, the software has been built using a modular and highly 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 provides you with over 40 added features, including:
- Email shortcodes that includes participant data in emails and newsletters.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse the same questions for similar events.
- Option to skip the confirmation page during registration.
Add-Ons
As well as a very large range of features, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow you to further expand the functionality of events.
Some of these add-ons include:
- 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 an event does not have a featured image available, a default image will be used instead.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Template Add on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize multiple datetime events into a drop-down list.
- Events Calendar Table Template Addon: The Calendar Table template is a list template with a bold date and customizable “register now” button. The template can be customized to display the event thumbnail image instead of the date.
- Social Media Buttons Add on: The social media add-on displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media addon is included free with any of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- Custom Template Addon: The Custom Template addon lets you display your event lists in a variety of exciting and interesting ways.
- Seating Chart Add-on: The seating chart add-on is suitable 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 website. The Seating Chart add-on lets you manage the experience for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to every seat.
- Multi-Event Registration Add on: The Multiple Event registration add-on gives 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 shopping 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.
- EE4 Events Table Template Add on: The Events Table Template add on provides event managers with an easy-to-use system that allows you to 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 lets web developers build custom templates using one of the templates included as a source template.
- MailChimp Integration: The MailChimp add on allows you to automatically register participants to a particular mailing autoresponder list or group within your MailChimp account.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin, including new addons.
For full details about the newest Event Espreso features and add-ons, check out the plugin here:
User Feedback
Here are some of the many great testimonials that plugin users have written about Event Espresso:
”Congratulations on an absolutely fantastic plugin. I’m really impressed with its functionality and add on features and will definitely upgrade my client’s production site to the premium version (when ready for launch) to incorporate all the features. As I have told another client “this plugin is the cat’s meow”.” Pete Mansel
”Your plugin rocks! Seriously, saved me hours on the phone setting up attendance manually. Kudos. :)” William, Petruzzo Photography
”Just bought an Event Espresso license for an upcoming conference website we are working on. The custom registration forms functionality rocks!” Eric Sopp, Inside Design
Useful Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, presenter, workshop planner, or event management professional, there are just endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, spend a little time going through the forums for inspiration and practical ways to streamline your event management process or enhance the experience of your event registrants.
Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with other WP plugins and WP themes that follow standard WP coding rules. If you do need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive end-user support, as many of its satisfied end-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 software provides amazing support that includes access to a support forum, in-depth 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.
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 depend on to manage your events.
Product Cost
Event Espresso is available in various editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software features, however, you need to consider using one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal Licensing – This option enables you to run Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This lets you install Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This enables you to install Event Espresso on 5 domains. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Price details for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software is being retailed for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Management And Ticket Registration Software For WordPress
Note: The pricing above was current when this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the plugin’s documentation pages for answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to a particular situation, or to report problems and share feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event booking and ticketing management software, used by thousands of users.
If you are a WordPress user and you currently run events that require managing dates, times and venues (offline and online), registering attendees, and/or booking seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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