Does your organization currently run or plan to run events that need handling registrations, such as seminars, group courses, charity fund raisers, social events, or even a large-scale event like a trade exhibit, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Co-ordinating event registrations is a complicated and time-consuming process. You will most likely need to manage event schedules, event dates, registration numbers, data processing and storage, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to event registrants.
There are many benefits to setting up an online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily reproduce similar events, give you more control, improve customer experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite costly.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-powered website or blog, you can download and install an inexpensive and highly professional web-based event registration system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticketing Management
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin enables you to easily set up your event and begin processing bookings in just minutes.
(Set up multiple events and accept online event bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-rich plugin that gives you full control over your event registration management process.
Create custom event registration forms
You can employ various event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up selling tickets, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event attendees, or integrating your event bookings with social media and email marketing tools.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Please Note: Currently, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is impressively different than the older EE 3, as the software has been revamped using a different structure to enable future expansion. 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 the benefits and advantages of using this plugin.
Go here to learn more:
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current online presence into an automated and feature-rich event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to attendee limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by virtually doing away with the chore of processing registrations manually.
Basically, you are enabling participants to complete the registration process themselves.
Letting your customers to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you spend more resources on creating a memorable event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will learn in a moment, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management and booking process that you want your participants to experience.
Additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Reduced Costs: Event Espresso is a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to developing your own system or using a third party service provider. The cost is kept low through a model where Event Espresso users purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy addons only if you need new functionality.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online event signups outside normal business hours. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social and marketing add-ons (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event invite friends who may also be interested.
- Paperless Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign up process remains wholly online, reducing typical paper consumption from tasks associated with administration.
- Own Your Information. You own all the information you obtain from your event attendees.
Features
The Event Espresso software delivers functionality to its users via standard features (these come with the plugin) and additional features that users can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides a number of great features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Customized Event Registration Form. Event Espresso lets you collect specific data using custom event registration forms on your web site to prepare a unique experience for your customers.
- Custom Notification Emails. Easily configure customized automatic registration and payment confirmation emails to communicate with event registrants.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso seamlessly integrates with several payment gateways, allowing you to collect money prior to running your events.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration enables event managers to customize the settings of Google Maps on your event listing and event details pages.
- Default Price Types. Price types let event managers create new prices that adjust the base ticket pricing of your system-default ticket.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system enables you to validate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, set up multiple check-in “stations” and track participants.
- Event Check-In List. Generate a list of event attendees and check in those who have attended.
- Admin Pre-approval. Control who can and can’t attend your events.
- Private Notes On Contacts. Keep notes about contacts on their profile and how you have assisted your customers. Private notes allows you to keep records of when users contacted you, your internal observations, and how you’ve assisted your customers.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events let you build an event page in your own timeframe without displaying it live on your site. You can work on your events until you are ready to take things live, or schedule your event to publish at a later time and date.
- Country Settings. Event managers can configure the country and currency settings to be used when promoting events, such as currency, currency signs, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, states or provinces, etc.
- Exportable Information. You can output all of your information collected from your event participants into Excel or CSV format for compiling advanced reports, devising new marketing strategies, reviewing attendee statistics, and so on.
- Multiple Event Participant. EE 4 allows a single person or an organization to register multiple participants simultaneously. Event managers specify how many attendees can enrol in a single session by specifying either limits on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso lets you network with an expert community of event managers and plugin users. You can interact 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+.
- Social Sharing. Event participants and your site visitors can spread the word about your event using social media sharing buttons.
- 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 event information in your own custom way.
Additional features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This feature allows you to have more control and options over your event page content and how the information displays to readers.
- Full Logging & Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 allows you to generate a log file with debugging data which can be useful for web developers who are troubleshooting.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & Value: According to the philosophy stated on their 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 goals, the company operates on 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 provides you with 40+ additional features, including:
- Duplicating events – reduces the need to re-enter event details when creating new events.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse a common set of questions for similar events.
- Option to skip the confirmation page in the registration process.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
In addition to an incredible number of features, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow you to significantly expand the functionality of events.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display scheduled events by location. There are four maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Drop-down Custom Template Addon: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes multiple 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 image instead of the date.
- Social Media Buttons Add-on: The social media addon displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media add on comes free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration addon allows you to take advantage of the WordPress user system. With the WP User Integration add-on you can give your users a special incentive by offering member pricing and overriding event prices when members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered users of the site will have access to these special events. Members can also input personal information into their profile page allowing them to quickly register for events by auto-filling in the personal information on the event booking form. Users can also view event history and make payment 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 for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart addon allows you to promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues right from your WordPress website. The Seating Chart add-on lets you control the environment for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach single prices to every seat.
- Multiple Event Registration Add on: The Multi-Event registration add-on gives potential customers the ability to book 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 Calendar Add on: This WordPress events calendar displays events and categories of events using a nice graphical calendar.
- Infusionsoft Integration Addon: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft App and Merchant Account integration all-in-one sales and business marketing plugin add on, you can easily automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture customer data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your Event Espresso powered website.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software, including new add-ons.
For more information about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, check out the plugin here:
User Testimonials
Here are just some of the many testimonials that satisfied plugin users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Tri-South, Inc is using Event Espresso to manage the course catalog, event ticketing, and class registration. [As their developer] I have customized a few items to make the site and plugin a seamless integration. The client is very pleased!” Jenifer Design
“I just completed my first event using Event Espresso. I really believe without Event Espresso my event would not have been the success it was.” Cathy Earle, Women Only Weekend
”I’m so excited to fire Eventbrite! Event Espresso has an amazing WP plugin for event management. We’re testing it now & are very impressed! In a nutshell Event Espresso saves us money & does everything Eventbrite did before. :)” Dustin Nay
Useful Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, presenter, event promoter, or event management consultant, there are simply countless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a registered user, go through the forums for tips and practical ways to improve your event management and registration workflow or improve the experience of your event registrants.
Support
Event Espresso works with with most WordPress plugins and themes that follow standard WordPress development guidelines. If you do need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent end-user support, as so many of its end-users 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 with access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, custom development 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.
In addition, Event Espresso boasts an established team of experienced web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can count on to manage your events.
Product Price
Event Espresso is available in a range of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin options, however, you need to consider downloading one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This lets you configure Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License – This enables you to install Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This allows you to run Event Espresso on five domains. It includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one 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 specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin is selling for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Event Espresso – Event Management & Registration Plugin For WordPress
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing when this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Additional Plugin 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 online documentation tools for answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to your particular use-case, or to report errors and share feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the leading WP event registration and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of WP users.
If you are a WordPress user and you plan to run any event that involves scheduling dates, times and venues, enrolling attendees, and/or selling seating, then you will probably not find a better WordPress plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – Event Manager & Ticketing Registration System For WordPress
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