Does your business currently run or plan to run events that require managing registrations, such as seminars, training classes, not-for-profit fund-raisers, networking events, or even a big event like an art exhibition, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Co-ordinating event registrations is a time-consuming process. You will most likely need to co-ordinate event schedules, available dates and seating, attendee numbers, data entry, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and delivering tickets to event attendees.
There are a number of benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily duplicate similar events, give event managers more control, improve user experience and grow 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 easily set up a very inexpensive and highly professional online event booking solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticketing Manager
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin allows you to easily create your event and start processing bookings in just a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and process online bookings)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-rich software that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can use a number of event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up selling tickets, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your attendees, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing updates.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Note: Currently, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is considerably different than the older EE 3, as the plugin is being redeveloped using a different structure to allow for future growth. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually retire Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and advantages of this plugin.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website or blog into a fully-featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating limits, multiple price options 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 literally eliminating the chore of processing registrations and signups manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for event participants to perform the registration themselves.
Letting your clients to do all of the data entry frees up your time and lets you direct more energy on creating a better event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon learn, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management and registration process that you want your customers to experience.
Some additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Lower Costs: Event Espresso provides you with a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third party service. The cost is kept low through a model where Event Espresso users start with the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then buy optional add ons when you need added functionality.
- More Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online event sign-ups outside normal business hours. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing add ons (see below) let people interested in attending your event invite other people they know who may also be interested in attending.
- Green And Paperless Event Booking Process: With Event Espresso, your event registration process remains entirely in digital form, significantly reducing typical paper waste from tasks related to admin and record-keeping.
- All Data Belongs To You. You control all the information gathered from your event attendees.
Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to its users through built-in features (these come with the software) and optional features that users can buy for an additional cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many great features to WP users. Here are just some of these:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to start using in very little time.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso lets you create as many different types of tickets as you need and specify prices, limits on ticket quantities, etc.
- Customizable Event Page Designs. You can customize your events and registrations page using Event Espresso’s template options and elements, and HTML or CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present a number of ticket options to prospects so they can purchase the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration enables event managers to customize the display settings of Google Maps on your event listing and event details sections.
- Spam Protection. Prevent the risk of spammers and bot software programs making fake registrations with reCAPTCHA tools that confirm human activity.
- Promotional Codes. Leverage promotional and discount codes to encourage prospects to make a purchasing decision without delaying, or simply make your offerings more affordable for price-sensitive prospects. Also useful if you want to sell-out events close to timelines.
- Contact Profiles & Contact List. EE 4 lets you understand who your customers are and how they’ve done business with you.
- Waiting Lists. Prospective participants can join a waiting list if your event is full. You can also make it a requirement waiting list registrants pre-pay if you plan to add more capacity for the event.
- Event RSS Feeds. Provide automatic updates to your users, bring in more visitors and expand your content distribution with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events let you develop your event over multiple sessions without displaying it live on your website. You can work on your event until you are ready to publish it live on your website, or schedule to publish your event at a future date and time.
- Your Organization Settings. you can configure your profile to be deployed throughout the plugin and your front-end templates. Organization fields include: business name, street address, city, state, country, zip/postal code, primary contact email address, phone number, VAT/tax number, business logo, Facebook URL, Twitter profile URL, LinkedIn profile URL, Pinterest URL, Google+ URL, Instagram URL.
- Exportable Data. You can output all of your data gathered from your event attendees into Excel or CSV format for compiling reports, planning new marketing strategies, reviewing attendee statistics, and so on.
- WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the standard WP Visual editor, so you can quickly and easily add photos and stylize your event descriptions without knowing HTML or CSS, just like any WordPress post or page.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso provides users with access to a community of experienced event managers, developers, designers, web marketers and businesses who also use the software. You can network with other members of the Event Espresso community via their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event clients who have not paid yet for their registration with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click. Your invoices will address registered customers who have not paid their registration yet by name, display the amount they owe, and include links to the event, a payment url and a link where they can download the invoice.
- Accurate Event Participant Management. You have control of your participants’ details; who has enrolled, which event they have registered for and what amount they have paid. With the attendee manager, you can get a quick overview of registered attendees and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export a list of event attendees to a spreadsheet for additional uses, send customized payment reminders and receipts and communicate with your registrants individually or as a group.
Extra features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This feature allows web-based software developers to have more control and options over the content of your event page and how the information displays to your prospective customers.
- Control Box Management And Reorganization. Event Espresso leverages the WP user interface, which gives you the ability to organize the user interface to suit your workflow processes. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or entirely removed from the workflow configuration.
- Flexibility, Autonomy 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 modular and effective model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes 40+ added features, including:
- Duplicating events – simplifies the need to re-enter event data when adding new events.
- Default surcharge (the same as applying a service fee to each ticket).
- Option to skip the confirmation page in registration.
Add-Ons
In addition to an amazing range of features, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow plugin users to significantly enhance the capabilities of events.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Grid Template Add on: 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.
- Recurring Events Manager Addon: The Recurring Events manager addon allows you to put your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months … even years ahead. You can schedule as many events in advance as you like. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all of these recurring events.
- Events Calendar Table Template Addon: 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 lets your registrants to post a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after registration.
- Custom Template Add-on: The Custom Template addon is capable of displaying your events in a number of exciting and interesting ways.
- Seating Chart Addon: 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 add-on lets you promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress website. The Seating Chart add-on lets you manage the environment for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach single prices to each seat.
- Multiple Event Registration Add-on: The Multiple Event registration add-on gives your 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 cart. With the Multi-Event Registration addon, 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 event categories via an attractive graphical calendar.
- MailChimp Integration: The MailChimp addon lets you automatically register participants to a specific mailing autoresponder list or group within your MailChimp account.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin, including new addons.
For more details about the latest Event Espreso features and add ons, visit the plugin website here:
User Testimonials
Here are a few of the many testimonials that customers have posted about Event Espresso:
”Broadcasting my support for Event Espresso will be a pleasure. I recently helped the Webmaster at a sister church configure your event manager for their site, so I can say with confidence and from experience, that Event Espresso is the best Event Manager plugin ever!” Philip Simpson, The Charlotte Church
”You can tell that the Event Espresso team is really passionate about their work, and that they care and spend a lot of time helping people work with their plugin and use it with their events – it’s something every WordPress service should aim for.” Ryan Imel, WPCandy
”Thank you, we just did 2 sell out seminars of 50 attendees in 48 hours using Event Espresso and it was awesome. My wife was able to pick up on the processing backend with ease. You have done a great job on getting this system together – very simple, clear and well laid out With powerful functionality. I am so glad I dumped the old booking application we had and gave Event Espresso a go. Just wanted to say thanks, and thanks for the very patient, friendly and speedy assistance in helping me to get it all set up at the start. Many thanks to you and your team. A grateful customer.” Nicholas de Castella, Emotional Intelligence Trainings
Useful Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, trainer, seminar planner, or event consultant, there are simply countless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a registered user, spend a little time researching the forums for useful ideas and practical suggestions to streamline your event management workflow and enhance the experience of your customers.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with other WordPress plugins and themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you do need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent support, as many of its satisfied plugin clients attest:
”It’s magical. Support is amazing, plugin is simple to use, a 3 year old could use the iPhone app…it all is very impressive and professional.” David, House of Prayer
Event Espresso provides exceptional support with access to support forums, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledge base 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.
Additionally, Event Espresso boasts a well-staffed team of experienced WordPress developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can rely on to organize and manage your events.
Product Cost
Event Espresso is available in a range of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin options, however, you should consider using one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal License Edition – This lets you configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This 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. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License – This option lets you set up Event Espresso on five sites. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Price details for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the plugin is being retailed for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Management And Ticketing Registration System For WordPress
Note: The pricing above was current when this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller when you visit the site.
Additional 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.
Look up the plugin’s online documentation tools to find answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to your particular use-case, or to report issues and share feedback.
For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product information pages.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing management software, used and trusted by thousands.
If you own a WordPress-powered website and you plan to run events that require managing dates and venues, booking participants, or selling tickets, then you will probably not find a more suitable software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticketing Management Plugin
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