Does your company currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating registrations, such as workshops, community courses, not-for-profit fundraisers, marketing functions, or even a big event such as a trade show, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Managing event registrations can be a complicated and time-consuming process. You have to manage event schedules, date availability, registration numbers, data collection and storage, collecting payments and invoicing, confirmations, reminders and alerts, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and providing tickets to event participants.
There are many benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce costs, help you easily copy settings for similar events, give you more control, improve user experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite costly.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-based site, you can easily install an inexpensive and professional online event booking system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Management
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software lets you easily set up multiple events and begin processing registrations in a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and process online registrations)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-rich software that gives you complete control of your event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can employ various event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media sites like Facebook.
View detailed information about event attendees
Please Note: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is fundamentally different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the platform is being redeveloped using a different structure to accommodate future growth. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually retire Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and advantages of this plugin.
For more details go here:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the 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 web site into a fully-featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by literally eliminating the chore of processing registrations and sign-ups manually.
Basically, you are facilitating event participants to complete the registration process on their own.
Letting your clients to do the data entry frees up your time and lets you invest more of your attention on organizing a more enjoyable event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will discover shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your clients to experience.
Some additional benefits include:
- Lower Costs: Event Espresso is a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third-party service provider. This is made possible by using a model where you purchase the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and purchase add ons when you need added functionality.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept online registrations 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event invite others who may be interested in attending.
- Paperless Event SignUp Process: With Event Espresso, your event registration process remains wholly online, significantly reducing traditional paper waste from tasks associated with enrollment.
- Own Your Information. You control all the data you obtain from event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
The Event Espresso software provides functionality to users through standard features (these come with the software) and additional features that customers can buy for an extra cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many great built-in to WP users. Here are just some:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Dates and Times Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have multiple dates and times (datetimes), and these can be managed from a single event.
- Customized Notification Emails. Set up automatic registration and payment notification email messages to communicate with event customers.
- Ticket Selector. Present a number of ticket options to prospective registrants and let them purchase the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Smart Single Page Checkout Process. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically copy the primary attendee’s registration details for any additional participants.
- Default Price Types. Price types let you create new prices that adjust the base ticket pricing of your system-default ticket.
- Mobile Registration And Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system lets you validate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, create various check-in “stations” and track your attendees.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. EE 4 provides you with the tools to know who your clients are and how you’ve done business with them. Your Contact Profile page stores the name, biography, contact information, event registration history, private comments, etc. about each customer.
- Waiting Lists. Latecomers can join a waiting list if your event is full. You can also specify that wait-list attendees pay for their spots if you plan to expand capacity for the event.
- Private Notes On Contacts. Keep notes about a contact on their profile. Private commenting helps you keep records of when users contacted you, your internal observations, and how you’ve helped them.
- Works With The Most Recent WP Version. The Event Espresso 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you build visually enhanced event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Country-specific Settings. Event managers can configure the country and currency settings to be used throughout Event Espresso, such as currency, currency symbols, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, regions, and so on.
- Exportable Data. You can export all of your information collected from your event customers into Excel or CSV format for producing advanced reports, planning marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, and so on.
- Multiple Event Attendee. EE 4 allows one person or an organization to book multiple participants at the same time. You can control how many people are allowed to register in a single booking session by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso lets you engage with a community of experienced event managers, developers, designers, digital marketers and business owners who also use the software. You can interact with other Event Espresso users through their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Staff Manager. Save time and keep your business organized by reusing team member profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in any event description.
- Transaction Reports. Quick-view event reports gives you data of all of your registrations and transactions, allowing you to analyze the performance of your events with the aggregate number of people who have registered and how much money has been collected.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming. Event Espresso is simple enough for general WP users, and also robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, Event Espresso 4 enables more complex extensions and customizations to the application.
- Metabox Management & Organization. Event Espresso leverages the WP user interface, which gives you the ability to reorganize the user interface to suit your workflow processes. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or removed from the workflow configuration.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value: According to the mission statement on their website, 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 version of Event Espresso also comes with over 40 added features, including:
- Duplicating events – simplifies the need to re-enter event data when adding new events.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse a common set of questions for similar events.
- Category titles and descriptions on event listing pages.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow users to significantly expand the functionality of events.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display all scheduled events by location. Four maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Custom Template Add-on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes many datetime events into a dropdown 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 the event thumbnail instead of the date.
- Social Media Buttons Add-on: The social media add-on 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 Template Addon: The Custom Template add on lets you display your events in a variety of visually exciting ways.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Add-on Versions: This add on lets you include other users in your organization to help manage your events and give new users permission 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 assign them different permissions with different privileges, so others can help you manage your events or events that others create. You can customize roles so that a user does not have access to certain sections of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain areas of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to create geographic regions for other people to manage events, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add on.
- EE4 Event Ticketing Add-on: The Ticketing add-on gives you the ability to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon gives you the capacity to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing add on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for handling check-in scans at the venue door. Customers 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 attendees and to validate tickets.
- Events Table View Template Addon: The Events Table Template add-on provides event managers with a simple and easy-to-use system that allows you to 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 web developers to build custom templates using one of the included templates as a source template.
- MailChimp Integration: The MailChimp add-on lets you automatically register participants to a selected autoresponder list or group within your MailChimp account.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software, including new addons.
For more details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website here:
Users – Feedback
Below are just some of the testimonials that satisfied customers have posted about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso rocks! I use it for my dance class registrations. Unlike most dance studios where people have to call or send an email in advance, Event Espresso puts a registration form right there in front of the user and allows me to collect valuable information from the user during the registration process with custom questions such as “Do you have previous dance experience?” or “How did you hear about us?”. It also gives my site a professional look and feel.” Ral, Ral’eau Salsa Dance Company
”Event Espresso event management plugin for WordPress is really an awesome plugin.” Cheryl Smithem, Charleston PR & Design
”Just bought an Event Espresso license for an upcoming conference website we are working on. The custom registration forms functionality rocks!” Eric Sopp, Inside Design
Plugin Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, trainer, conference planner, or event professional, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a registered owner, spend a little time going through the forums for new ideas and practical suggestions to improve your event management workflow or improve the experience of your registrants.
Plugin Support
Event Espresso works with with all WP plugins and WordPress themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you find that you need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive support, as so many of its clients confirm:
”Your plugin saved our client nearly $9000 in development costs because it handled the majority of the functionality we were looking for at a much lower cost. EventEspresso’s staff have been very responsive to our needs when we have them (which has been rare, because the plugin is so well coded). Great job on a great plugin!” Brandon P., Experience Farm
The plugin provides great 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 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 web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can rely on to run your events.
Product Price
Event Espresso is available in a range of editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin options, however, you need to consider purchasing one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This enables you to set up Event Espresso on 1 site only. It includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on one domain only. It includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on 5 sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest 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 pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the website.
Additional Information
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 plugin’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to a specific situation, or to report issues and share feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product web site.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event registration and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of WP website owners.
If you own a WordPress-powered site and you currently run events that involve scheduling dates and venues (offline and online), registering participants, or booking tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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