Do you currently run or plan to run events that require handling bookings or registrations, such as seminars, community classes, charity fund raisers, corporate functions, or even a large-scale event such as a food fair, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event registrations is a time-consuming process. You may have to manage scheduling, availability, registration numbers, data entry, payments and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to participants.
There are many advantages to setting up an automated web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce costs, help you easily copy settings for repeat events, give you more control, create a more enjoyable client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting up a web-based event registration system can be quite expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-based website, you can download and install a very inexpensive and professional online event registration system.
Announcing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software allows you to easily set up an event and begin accepting registrations literally in a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online registrations)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed application that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize registration forms
You can employ a number of event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up selling tickets, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your event participants, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing notifications.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Please Note: Currently, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is significantly different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the platform has been redeveloped using a different structure to accommodate future expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually move completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.
Learn more about the plugin here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current digital presence into a fully-featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by literally doing away with the need to process registrations and bookings manually.
Basically, you are facilitating attendees to perform the registration process by themselves.
Letting your clients to do the data themselves frees you up from doing administration and lets you direct more of your energy on creating a more enjoyable event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will see in a moment, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and booking process that you want your customers to experience.
Additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Reduced Costs: Event Espresso gives you a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third party service provider. The cost is kept to a minimum through a model where you start with the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and purchase optional add ons only when you need added functionality.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept new event sign-ups 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features (see below) let people interested in attending your event share your information with others who may also be interested.
- Paperless Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, the event signup process can be kept entirely online, significantly reducing traditional paper waste from tasks associated with administration.
- Own Your Information. You control all the data you obtain from event participants.
Plugin Features
The Event Espresso software delivers functionality to its users via built-in features (these are included with the software) and additional features that users can buy for an additional cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers a number of built-in to website owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to use in minutes.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have many dates and times (datetimes), which these can be managed from one single event.
- Customizable Event & Registration Page Designs. Create the look and feel you want for your events and bookings page using Event Espresso’s limitless template options and elements, as well as HTML and CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present a number of ticket options to prospects so they can purchase the ticket(s) that best fits their needs.
- Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your theme and display attendee details throughout other areas of your site.
- Spam Protection. Reduce the risk of spammers and bots making fake registrations with reCAPTCHA tools that validate human activity.
- In-App Documentation. Event Espresso 4 provides 3 detailed in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Manual Registration Option. you have the option of booking event participants when they show up, or sending in paper-based forms for manual processing later.
- Administrative Pre-approval. Control who can participate in your events.
- Public Commenting. Add social a new level of social sharing to your events page by allowing potential prospects to ask questions about your event and previous customers to post comments that can help others decide whether or not to enroll. Moderation settings for commenting are specified in the WordPress built-in commenting admin area.
- Keyword-Rich URLs. Keyword-rich Web links leverage your Permalinks configuration settings. Search engine friendly web links with relevant keywords enhance the context of your content and is favored by search engines, helping you drive more visitors to your events.
- Country Settings. You can configure the country and currency settings that will be used throughout Event Espresso, including currency name, currency symbols, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, regions, etc.
- Bulk Edit Events. Event Espresso 4 provides an advanced importing feature that allows you to import a lot of event data all at one time. You can export, edit and import details about events, datetimes, tickets, prices, custom registration questions, venue info, terminology, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Venue Manager. The venue manager in Event Espresso 4 allows information about venues to appear throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front-end of your website to inform potential attendees of your event’s location. The venue profile displays many of the standard WordPress settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also includes details such as venue seating capacity, venue web address, phone number, physical and virtual location, map, etc. You can also display venues on different sections on your theme and on a venue listing page on your site where you can set up and display venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have booked for a given venue.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso provides users with access to a community of experienced event managers, developers, web designers, web marketers and businesses who also use the software. You can network with other Event Espresso users using their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential participants who have not made payment for their enrollment with a standard but personalized invoice with one click. Your invoices will address pre-registered participants who have not paid their registration in full by name, give them the amount owing, and include links to the event details, a payment url and a link to download a PDF invoice.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post type features such as custom fields, post meta data, taxonomies, etc. You can even customize the templates to display events in your own unique way.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for basic WP users, and also extremely robust and customizable for higher end users and web-based software developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, Event Espresso 4 makes possible more complex enhancements and customizations to the application.
- Control Box Management & Organization. Event Espresso leverages the WordPress user interface, which gives you the ability to reorder the user interface to suit your workflow process. Each meta box can be collapsed, re-arranged or deleted from your page.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & Value For Money: 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 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 edition of Event Espresso also provides you with over 40 additional features, including:
- Duplicating events – limits the need to re-enter event information when adding new events.
- Default surcharge (similar to adding a service tax to tickets).
- Default payment status.
Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow you to further expand the capabilities of events.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Grid Template Addon: Displays events in a pure CSS grid-like structure using the featured image. Hovering over the image will display further information. If the event does not have a featured image, a default image will be used.
- Recurring Events Manager Addon: The Recurring Events manager addon lets you put events on autopilot by scheduling repeated events weeks or months in advance. You can create as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in advance as you need. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close bookings for all recurring events.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add on: The Category Accordion template displays the categories in a simple list. Clicking on a category name displays all events associated with that category and closes any previously open categories.
- Social Coupons Integration Addon: If your website is featured on Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can even specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration addon allows you to take advantage of the WP user system. With the WP User Integration addon you can give your users a special incentive by offering member prices and overriding event pricing when members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered site users can have access to these special events. Members can also add personal details into their profile page allowing them fast registration for events by auto-filling in their personal information on the event booking form. Users can also look up previous events and pay for new 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 allows you to promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add-on lets you manage the experience for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach single prices to every seat.
- Multi-Event Registration Addon: The Multi-Event registration addon gives your potential customers the ability to book multiple events at once. In each event listing registrants will be given the option to either register for a single event or add multiple events to their cart. With the Multiple 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 Template Addon: The Events Table Template add on gives you an easy-to-use system that allows you to change the design of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also lets developers design custom templates using one of the included templates as a source template.
- Infusionsoft Integration Addon: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and marketing software add on, you can easily automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture registrant data, track registrations, and accept payments from your Event Espresso powered website.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software, including new add ons.
To learn more 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 satisfied plugin users have posted about Event Espresso:
”My hope with this whole integration is to be able to show other school districts an affordable and easy solution to these registrations. I cannot believe how much money they are charged for less by other companies. This has the potential to save schools tens of thousands, which is huge right now.” Kelly, College Station Independent School District
”Customizing an Event Registration plugin for WordPress by @EventEspresso. Love the pro version. Highly Recommended!” Joshua Garity
”Event Espresso is very nice and functional plugin. Set it up is not very easy for a beginner like me, but you have one of the best support team in your side. They answer all questions in a timely manor. I didn’t know anything about setting up the plugins, Thanks to Event Espresso Support team that now I can find my way around this plugin. Event Espresso helps our company to manage the workshops, keep track of our students, manage the emails, and much more. We upgrade from personal License to Business license in just two weeks of using Personal license. I strongly recommend the Business license.” Ted Karlsalr, Omnilargess
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, trainer, event promoter, or event management professional, there are just countless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a registered user, go through the user forum for inspiration and practical suggestions to improve your event management process or enhance the experience of your registrants.
Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with all WP plugins and themes that follow standard WP coding guidelines. If you do need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent end-user support, as so many of its plugin customers attest:
”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
Event Espresso provides amazing support including access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, priority 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 a well-staffed team of experienced web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely software you can count on to manage your events.
Software Price
Event Espresso is available in different plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin functionality, however, you may want to consider using one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal Edition – This license allows you to set up Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This license option allows you to run Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License – This license option allows you to configure Event Espresso on 5 sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
The price of the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin retails for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Management
Please 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 website.
Additional Plugin Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the plugin’s documentation tools for answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to your particular situation, or to notify developers about issues and share feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product website.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the leading WP event booking and ticketing management software, used by thousands of companies.
If you are a WordPress user and you intend to run events that require managing dates and venues, enrolling participants, and selling tickets, then you will probably not find a better plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Manager And Registration Plugin
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