Do you currently run or plan to run events that require managing registrations, such as workshops, group classes, non-profit fund raisers, networking functions, or even a big event such as a music show, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event sign-ups is a time-consuming process. You will probably have to co-ordinate scheduling, available dates and spaces, participant numbers, data entry, payments and invoicing, confirmations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to participants.
There are a number of advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower expenses, help you easily replicate similar events, give you more control, improve customer experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be costly.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-based site, you can easily set up a very inexpensive and professional web-based event booking solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Manager And Registration System
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WordPress allows you to easily set up your event and begin processing registrations in just minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online bookings)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-rich application that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
Customize event registration forms
You can use a number of event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up selling tickets, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your attendees, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing updates.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Please Note: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is completely different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the plugin 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 migrate completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.
Go here to learn more:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just a few of the benefits 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 or blog into an automated and fully featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating limits, multiple price levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and 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 eliminating the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for participants to enrol themselves.
Letting your participants to do the data themselves frees up your time and lets you focus more of your attention on organizing a more unique event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will see in a moment, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management and registration process that you want your attendees to experience.
Additional benefits include:
- Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin gives you 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 Event Espresso users purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and purchase add-ons when you need extra features.
- Increased Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept new event sign-ups 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social and marketing features (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event share your information with others who may also be interested.
- Paperless Event Booking Process: With Event Espresso, your event signup process is kept wholly in digital form, significantly reducing typical paper consumption from tasks related to enrollment.
- Own Your Information. You own all the information gathered from event participants.
Features
The Event Espresso software provides functionality to end-users through built-in features (these are included with the plugin) and additional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many unique features to web site owners. Here are just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Customized Event Registration Form. With Event Espresso you can collect specific data using custom event registration forms on your site to prepare a great experience for your customers.
- WordPress Event Calendar. Attendees can easily see your upcoming events and add these to their schedule using a WordPress calendar.
- Ticket Selector. Present several ticket options to registrants so they can purchase the ticket(s) that best fits their needs.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration allows event managers to customize the look and control settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details sections.
- Spam Protection. Prevent the risk of spamming and bots creating false registrations on your site with reCAPTCHA features that validate human activity.
- Promotional Codes. Set up promotion and discount codes to encourage people to make a decision now, or simply make your offerings more attractive for others. This is also practical for helping to sell out events close to deadlines.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of registering event attendees when they show up, or sending in paper registration forms for manual processing later.
- Administrative Pre-approval. Control who can attend your events.
- Public Commenting. Add social a new level of engagement to your events by allowing potential registrants to interact with you online via commenting and previous participants to post feedback that can help others consider whether or not to enroll. Moderation settings for public commenting are configured via the WordPress commenting section.
- Optimized For The Most Up-To-Date WordPress Version. The EE 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you create visually attractive event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Full Control Of Your Event Management. Event Espresso puts you in full control of every aspect of your event’s registration and ticketing, and lets you automate this process with event management tools that include staff and venue management, custom event page designs, payment processing, wait lists, limits on attendees, print-ready ticketing and more.
- Default Tickets. If you create identical tickets for your events, you can set one of those tickets as your default ticket for all new events simply by ticking a checkbox.
- WP Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the default WP Visual editor, so you can quickly and easily add images and create your event descriptions without knowledge of HTML or CSS, just like any WP post.
- Automatic Plugin Updating. Event Espresso provides easy one-click plugin installation upgrades to ensure that you have the latest features and to keep your installation up-to-date with new versions of WordPress.
- Staff Manager. Save time and stay organized by reusing team member profiles for multiple events or displaying profile information such as team member’s contact information, resume and photo using a shortcode in an event description.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post types. You can also customize the page templates to display event information in your own unique way.
Additional features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This feature allows developers to have more control and options over your event page and how the information displays to your visitors.
- Metabox Management And Reorganization. Event Espresso leverages the WP user interface, which brings the ability to reorder the user interface to match your workflow processes. Each meta box can be collapsed, re-arranged or deleted from the workflow configuration.
- 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 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 comes with 40+ additional features, including:
- Duplicating events – eliminates the work of re-entering event details when adding new events.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing a series of questions for similar events.
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow customers to further expand the capabilities of managing an event.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display your upcoming events by location. 4 maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Drop-down Custom Template Add-on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes many datetime events into a drop-down list.
- Events Calendar Table Template Add on: The Calendar Table template is a list template with a bold date and customizable “register now” button. The template can be customized to show an event thumbnail instead of a date.
- Events Social Sharing Add on: Add social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that allows your attendees to post a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after booking.
- Custom Files Add-on: The Custom Files add on provides PHP files that let you bypass certain aspects of the plugin.
- 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 perfect for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart add-on allows you to offer 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 attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach single pricing to each seat.
- Multiple Event Registration Add-on: The Multi-Event registration add-on gives your potential attendees the ability to register for 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 shopping 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 Calendar Addon: This addon uses the WordPress calendar to display events and event categories using a nice graphical calendar.
- JSON API Add-on: The new Event Espresso JSON API add-on allows other applications, web sites, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso details through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software, including new add ons.
For more information about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website:
Testimonials
Below are just some of the many great testimonials that satisfied customers have posted 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
”…it really does blow everything else that’s out there out of the water.” Chris Reynolds, Arcane Palette Creative Design
”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 a gym owner, teacher, event planner, or event professional, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed user, go through the forums for inspiration and practical suggestions to improve your event management and registration workflow and enhance the experience of your customers.
Product Support
Event Espresso works with with most 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 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
The plugin provides comprehensive support with access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, one-on-one 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 an established team of experienced WordPress web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can depend on to run and manage your events.
Product Cost
Event Espresso is available in a number of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin functionality, however, you need to consider downloading one of the paid plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This allows 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 Edition – This option enables you to set up Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License – This edition enables you to configure Event Espresso on five domains. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (addons 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 specials being offered. Presently, the plugin sells for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticketing Registration Plugin For WordPress
Note: The pricing above was current when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer 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 remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the plugin’s documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to a particular use-case, or to notify developers about errors and give feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WP event booking and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of event managers.
If you are a WordPress user and you intend to run any event that involves managing dates and venues (offline and online), enrolling participants, or selling seating, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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