Does your company currently run or plan to run events that need managing bookings, such as workshops, community classes, non-profit fund-raisers, corporate functions, or even a large-scale event like a music show, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Managing event registrations is a complicated and time-consuming process. You will probably have to co-ordinate event schedules, dates, registration numbers, data administration, collecting payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to event registrants.
There are a number of advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily replicate similar events, give you more control, create a better client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be very costly.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-powered web site, you can install an inexpensive and highly professional web-based event registration solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Management & Ticket Registration Software
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin lets you easily schedule an event and begin processing online registrations literally in a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and accept online event registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed software that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize your event registration forms
You can employ a number of event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your participants, or integrating your event bookings with social media and email marketing tools.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Note: Currently, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is completely different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the plugin has been rebuilt 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 company plans to eventually migrate completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and features of this plugin.
For more details go here:
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:
Automated Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website into a fully-featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by virtually doing away with the chore of processing registrations manually.
Essentially, you are enabling participants to perform the registration on their own.
Letting your customers to do all of the data entry frees you up from doing admin work and lets you direct more of your attention on delivering a better event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management process that you want your participants to experience.
Some additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Reduced Costs: The Event Espresso plugin provides you with a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third party service provider. The cost is kept to a minimum by using a model where you buy the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and purchase add-ons only when you need extra features.
- More Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online registrations 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social and marketing features and addons (see below) let people interested in attending your event invite their friends who may also be interested.
- Green Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event booking process can remain entirely in digital form, significantly reducing typical paper waste from tasks related to enrollment.
- Own Your Information. You own all the data you obtain from event participants.
Event Espresso Features
The Event Espresso plugin provides functionality to end-users through standard features (these are included with the software) and optional features that you can buy for an extra cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many built-in to site owners. Here are just some:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Ready to start using in no time.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have multiple dates and times (called datetimes), and these can be managed from one single event.
- Event Calendar. Attendees can easily find your upcoming events and add these to their schedule using a WordPress calendar.
- Tax Admin And Reporting Options. Event Espresso 4 gives you several options to manage taxes for your event and provide reports of 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 enables event managers to customize the look and control settings of Google Maps on your event listing and event details sections.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow event managers to create new prices that adjust the base ticket price of your default ticket.
- Discount & Promotional Codes. Leverage promotion and multiple discount codes to incentivize people to make a decision immediately, or make your events more affordable for others. This is also practical for helping to sell-out events close to deadlines.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of registering event participants when they show up, or send in paper forms for manual processing later.
- Admin Pre-approval. Control who can attend your events.
- Event RSS Feeds. Provide automatic updates to users, drive quality traffic and reach a wider number of prospects with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Optimized For The Latest WordPress Version. The Event Espresso 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you build aesthetically enhanced event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Country Settings. Event managers can configure the country and currency settings to be used for events, including currency, currency signs, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, regions, etc.
- Exportable Information. You can export all the data collected from your event participants into Excel or CSV format for producing reports, implementing new marketing strategies, reviewing attendee statistics, etc..
- Event Venue Profiles. The venue manager in EE 4 lets details about a venue to display throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front end of your site to inform potential registrants of the location of your event. The venue record has many standard WordPress settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also includes venue details such as venue capacity, venue web address, telephone number, venue location details, map, etc. You can also list venue profiles throughout different areas on your WP theme and on a venue archive page on your website where you can set up and display venue profiles for multiple events or display all the events for a given venue.
- Attendee Profiles. Manage each customer’s profiles and payment history and keep all of their data organized.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event registrants who have not paid yet for their admission with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click. Your invoices will reference registered participants who have not paid their registration yet by name, give them the balance they owe, and include a link to the event information, a payment link and a link to download a PDF invoice.
- Attendee Reports. Event reporting provides you with information of all the registrations and transactions, allowing you to track the performance of your events with the aggregate number of registrations and amount of revenue you’ve collected.
Extra features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These allow developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso software that are 100% compatible with the WordPress development platform.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 lets you generate a log file with debugging data which can be useful for developers who are troubleshooting.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & Value For Money: According to the mission statement on their web site, Event Espresso’s aim 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 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+ added features, including:
- Email shortcodes for including customer data in confirmation emails and newsletters.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing commonly asked questions for similar events.
- Category titles and descriptions on event listing pages.
Addons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow plugin users to further enhance the functionality of the event management system.
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 an event does not have a featured image, it will use a default image.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Custom Template Add on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes many datetime events into a dropdown list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add on: The Category Accordion template shows the categories in a simple list. Clicking on a category name displays all events related to that category and closes any previously open categories.
- Social Media Buttons Add on: 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.
- 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 pricing and overriding event pricing when members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered website users can have access to your special events. Members can also enter 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 view event history and make payment for future events.
- Seating Chart Add-on: 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 promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues directly from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add-on lets you manage the experience for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to each seat.
- EE4 Event Ticketing And Bar Scanning Add on: The Ticketing add-on adds the ability to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon adds 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 the venue door. Attendees 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.
- EE4 Events Table Template Addon: The Events Table Template add-on provides you with a simple and easy-to-use system that allows you to edit 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 their own custom templates using one of the included templates as a source template.
- JSON API Add on: The Event Espresso JSON API add-on permits other software applications, web sites, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso data through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin, including new addons.
For complete details about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, check out the plugin here:
Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials that users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso is one of the nicest Event Managers (WP Plugin) I have come across.” Joe Distefano, Citizen Joe
”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
”Thank you, we just did 2 sell out seminars of 50 attendees in 48 hours using Event Espresso and it was awesome. My wife was able to pick up on the processing backend with ease. You have done a great job on getting this system together – very simple, clear and well laid out With powerful functionality. I am so glad I dumped the old booking application we had and gave Event Espresso a go. Just wanted to say thanks, and thanks for the very patient, friendly and speedy assistance in helping me to get it all set up at the start. Many thanks to you and your team. A grateful customer.” Nicholas de Castella, Emotional Intelligence Trainings
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, trainer, seminar promoter, or event management professional, there are just countless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed user, spend a little time going through the user forum for useful ideas and practical suggestions to streamline your event management and registration process or enhance the experience of your event registrants.
Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with other WP plugins and themes that follow standard WordPress coding guidelines. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great end-user support, as so many of its end-users attest:
“I’m really impressed with not only the application itself but the support. I have rarely seen such a responsive support staff than at EE. They rock…I highly recommend this plugin!” sock2me
Event Espresso provides robust support including access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base 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.
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 solution you can count on to run your events.
Product Cost
Event Espresso is available in a number of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin functionality, however, you should consider downloading one of the premium plugin versions below:
- Personal License – This license option enables you to install Event Espresso on 1 site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This allows you to install Event Espresso on one domain only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License – This lets you install Event Espresso on five sites. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Current pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the plugin sells for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticketing Management
Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Additional Info
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the software’s online documentation tools to find answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to a specific use-case, or to notify developers about errors and leave feedback.
For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the leading WP event booking and ticketing management software, used and trusted by thousands of companies.
If you are a WordPress user and you currently run any event that involves managing dates, times and venues (offline and online), registering attendees, and booking tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Manager System
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