Do you currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating bookings, such as seminars, community courses, charity fundraisers, social conferences, or even a large-scale event like a rave party, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Co-ordinating event registrations can be a complex and time-consuming process. You will probably have to co-ordinate scheduling, availability, attendee numbers, data collection, collecting payments and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and providing tickets to attendees.
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 replicate similar events, give you more control, improve client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite costly.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-based digital presence, you can install an inexpensive and professional web-based event booking solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticket Registration Software For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WP plugin lets you easily schedule an event and start receiving online registrations in just minutes.
(Set up multiple events and accept online registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-rich software that gives you complete control over the event registration management process.
Create custom event registration forms
You can use a number of event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up ticket-selling, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your event participants, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing notifications.
View detailed information about event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is impressively different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the platform is being revamped 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 phase out Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and features of this plugin.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing web site into a fully-featured and automated event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by virtually eliminating the need to process registrations manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for event participants to enroll themselves.
Letting your clients to do all of the data themselves frees up your time and lets you invest more of your attention on delivering a memorable event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon see, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management and registration process that you want your users to experience.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin gives you a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to building your own software or using a third-party service. This is made possible through a model where Event Espresso users buy the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and purchase optional addons when you need added features.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online sign-ups outside normal business hours. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social and marketing add-ons (see below) let people interested in attending your event invite others who may be interested in attending.
- Green Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event booking process can remain wholly in digital form, eliminating typical paper waste from tasks related to enrollment.
- Own Your Data. You own all the information you collect from event participants.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to users through standard features (these come with the software) and additional features that users can buy for an added cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many built-in to WP users. Here are just some of these:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to use in very little time.
- Multiple Dates and Times Per Event. In EE 4, events can have multiple dates and times (datetimes), and these can be managed from one single event.
- Customized Notification Email Message. Configure automated registration and payment confirmation email messages to communicate with your attendees.
- Tax Admin & Reporting Options. Event Espresso 4 provides a number of options to handle taxes for an event and report tax fee components to registrants who purchase tickets. Event managers can configure taxes globally or on a per-ticket basis.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary attendee’s registration details for any additional attendees.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow event managers to create new prices that adjust the default ticket price of your default ticket.
- In-App Documentation. Event Espresso 4 comes with three comprehensive in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Event Check-In List. Generate an exportable list of participants and check-in everyone who attends.
- Admin Pre-approval. Be selective about who can register for your events.
- XML RSS Feeds. Keep your customers up-to-date about your events, drive quality traffic and expand your content reach with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events allow you to develop your event page at your own leisure without displaying it live on your site. You can keep editing your events until you are ready to publish it on your website, or schedule your event to publish at a later time and date.
- Country-specific Settings. Event managers can configure the country and currency settings to be used when running your events, including currency, currency signs, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, states or provinces, and so on.
- Upload Event Information. EE 4 provides an advanced importing capability that allows you to upload bulk event data at once. You can export, edit and upload details about events, datetimes, ticketing information, pricing, registration questions, venues, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Multiple Event Participant. EE 4 allows an individual or an organization to enroll multiple participants at the same time. Event managers specify how many people can enrol in a single session by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Attendee Profiles. Manage each 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 registrants who have not paid in full for their admission with a standard but personalized invoice with one click of a button. Your invoices will reference registered participants who have not paid their registration in full by name, give them the amount owing, and include a link to the event, a payment link and a url where they can download a PDF invoice.
- Categorize Events. If you have a number of event types such as free and paid, conference speakers and breakout sessions, different types of exercise classes, etc. you can categorize these to help event participants to find what they’re looking for. You can display all events in a category on a custom event category page, make events searchable by category, and color-code events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make them easier to find, as well as suggesting other events in the categories that interest your visitors.
Extra features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These allow you to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso application that are completely compatible with the WordPress development platform.
- Maintenance Mode. You can pause registrations for regular website traffic whenever you need to perform maintenance on your website. You can still work on the back-end of your site during maintenance mode.
- Autonomy, Flexibility And 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 model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes over 40 added features, including:
- Live-filtering when you search for events inside the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse commonly asked questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
In addition to an incredible array of features, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow end-users to further expand the functionality of events.
Some of these addons 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 available, a default image will be used instead.
- Recurring Events Drop-down Template Addon: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize the events with many datetimes into a drop-down list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add-on: The Category Accordion template displays categories in a simple list. Clicking on a category name displays all events associated with 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 add on is included free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- Custom Files Add-on: The Custom Files add-on lets you bypass certain aspects of the plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Add-on Editions: This add on lets you include other users in the event management process and give new users the ability to create events or regional managers the ability to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WordPress users roles and give them different permissions with different capabilities, allowing staff to help you manage your events or the events that others create. You can customize roles so that a user does not have access to certain parts of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain areas of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to allow users to control factors geographically for events and users, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add on.
- Event Ticketing & Bar Scanning Add on: The Ticketing addon adds the ability to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on gives you the ability to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing add on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for handling check-in scans at the door. 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 attendees and to validate tickets.
- EE4 Events Table Template Addon: The Events Table Template addon provides event managers with a simple and easy-to-use system that lets you change 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 enables developers to design custom templates using one of the templates provided as a base template.
- MailChimp Integration: The MailChimp add on allows you to automatically register participants to a specified mailing autoresponder list or group within MailChimp.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software, including new add ons.
For complete details about the newest Event Espreso features and add ons, check out the plugin here:
User Feedback
Here are some of the many testimonials that 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
”Over the next 5-6 years we should be able to claim that we saved the company over $100,000 – Thanks Event Espresso!” David Waterman, KT Benefits & InkItDigital.com
”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
Plugin Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, trainer, concert planner, or event consultant, there are just endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, visit the support forum for inspiration and practical ways to streamline your event management workflow or enhance the experience of your event attendees.
Support
Event Espresso works with with other WP plugins and WordPress themes that follow standard WP development guidelines. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive end-user 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
The plugin provides amazing support including 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.
In addition, 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 rely on to run your events.
Software Price
Event Espresso is available in a number of editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin options, however, you need to consider purchasing one of the premium plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This license enables you to configure Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This allows you to set up Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This option enables you to run Event Espresso on five domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software sells for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
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 site.
Event Espresso – Additional Plugin Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Look up the software’s online documentation tools 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 specific situation, or to report issues and leave feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product website.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event registration and ticketing management software, used and trusted by thousands of people.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you currently run events that require managing dates and venues (offline and online), enrolling attendees, 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 – Event Manager And Ticketing Registration Plugin For WordPress
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