Do you currently run or plan to run events that need handling bookings or registrations, such as workshops, community courses, charity fund raisers, corporate functions, or even a big event such as a rave party, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Co-ordinating event sign-ups is a complicated and time-consuming process. You will probably have to manage event schedules, availability, participant numbers, data collection, payments and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and providing tickets to event attendees.
There are many benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce costs, help you easily duplicate recurring events, give event managers more control, improve customer experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite expensive.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-based website or blog, you can easily install an inexpensive and professional online event registration solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WordPress software lets you easily schedule your event and begin receiving online bookings literally in a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and receive online event registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed plugin that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can employ various event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket-selling, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your attendees, or integrating your event bookings with social media and autoresponders.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Please Note: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is significantly different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the software is being revamped using a different structure to allow for future growth. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The developers aim to eventually transition completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the plugin.
Learn more about the plugin here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website or blog into a fully-featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by literally eliminating the need to process registrations and bookings manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for participants to enrol on their own.
Letting your customers to do all of the data entry frees you up from doing admin work and lets you direct more attention on creating a more enjoyable event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your participants to experience.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Significantly Lower Costs: Event Espresso is a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to developing your own solution or using a 3rd party service. This is made possible through a model where users pay for the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then purchase add ons when you need new functionality.
- More Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new event bookings 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social features (see below) let people interested in registering for your event invite others who may also be interested in attending.
- Green Event Booking Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign-up process can remain wholly in digital form, significantly reducing typical paper consumption from tasks associated with admin and record-keeping.
- Own Your Data. You control all the information obtained from your event attendees.
Features
The Event Espresso software delivers functionality to users via standard features (these come with the plugin) and additional features that customers can buy for an added cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers a number of great features to WP users. Here are just some:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso allows you to create as many different types of tickets as you need and specify different prices, number of tickets, etc.
- Event Calendar. Participants can easily find your events and add these to their schedule using a WordPress calendar.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso integrates with leading payment gateways, enabling you to collect booking fees prior to running your events.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration allows you to configure the settings of Google Maps on your event listing and event details pages.
- Spam Protection. Reduce the risk of spammers and bot software programs making fake registrations with reCAPTCHA settings to provide human authentication.
- In-App Documentation Systems. Event Espresso 4 provides 3 detailed in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Manual Registration Option. you have the option of registering event participants when they show up, or send in paper-based registration forms for manual inputting later.
- Event Manager Pre-approval. Control who can and cannot attend your events.
- Private Notes On Contacts. Keep comments about a contact on their profile and how you have interacted with your contacts. Private notes lets you keep records of when event registrants contacted you, your internal notes, and how you have interacted with your contacts.
- Optimized For The Latest Version Of WP. The EE 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you create visually enhanced event pages that are easier to use and mobile-friendly.
- Full Control Of Your Event Management. Event Espresso puts event managers in complete control of every aspect of an event’s registration and ticketing processes, and also lets you automate this process with event management tools that include staff and venue manager, custom event designs, payment processing, wait lists, limits on attendees, print-ready tickets and more.
- Upload Event Information. Event Espresso 4 provides a CSV-based importing feature that lets you import a lot of event data at once. You can export, edit and upload data for events, datetimes, ticketing information, pricing, registration questions, venues, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Venue Manager. The venue manager in EE 4 lets information about a venue to be made available throughout the Event Espresso admin and the public areas of your website to inform users of the location of your event. The venue profile has many standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also lets you reuse venue information such as venue seating capacity, venue site URL, venue phone number, physical, map, etc. You can also display venue profiles on different sections of your WP theme and on a venue listing page on your site where you can set up and reuse venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have booked for a particular venue.
- Automatic Plugin Upgrading. Event Espresso provides easy one-click software installation upgrading to ensure that you have the latest features and to keep your software installation compatible with new versions of WordPress.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event attendees who have not fully paid for their booking with a standard but personalized PDF invoice with just one click. Your invoices will reference registered participants who have not paid their registration in full by name, give them the amount they owe, and include a link to the event details, a payment url and a url where they can download the invoice.
- Categorize Events. If you have a number of event types such as free and paid, workshops and mastermind sessions, different types of programs and program modules, etc. you can categorize them to make it easier for your registrants to locate what they’re looking for. You can display all events in a category on an event category page, make events searchable by category, and colour-code events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make them easier to find, in addition to suggesting new events in the categories that appeal to your existing customers.
Additional features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This feature allows you to have more control and options over your event page content and how your information displays to your prospects.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. EE 4 allows you to create a log file with debugging data that can be helpful for web developers when troubleshooting.
- 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 objectives, the software has been built using a modular and highly efficient model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium version of Event Espresso also provides you with over 40 added features, including:
- Duplicating events – eliminates the need to re-enter event details when creating new events.
- Default surcharge (the same as adding a service tax to all tickets).
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow you to significantly enhance the capabilities of events.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display scheduled events by location. There are 4 maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Template Add on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize 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 also be customized to display the event thumbnail image instead of the date.
- Social Media Buttons Addon: The social media add-on displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media add-on comes free with any of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- Custom Files Add on: The Custom Files add on allows you to override certain aspects of the Event Espresso plugin.
- Seating Chart Add on: The seating chart addon is suitable 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 lets you promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart addon lets you control the environment for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach single prices to every seat.
- Event Ticketing And Bar Scanning Add on: The Ticketing add on adds the capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add-on gives you the capacity 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 barcode scanner can be used for checking in or checking out registrants and to validate tickets.
- Events Table View Template Add on: The Events Table Template addon provides you with an easy-to-use system that lets you change the design of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also lets web developers design custom templates using one of the templates included as a base template.
- JSON API Add-on: The new Event Espresso JSON API addon enables other applications, web tools, mobile apps, etc… to access your Event Espresso data through an Application Programming Interface (API).
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin, including new addons.
For complete details about the newest Event Espreso features and add ons, visit the plugin website:
User Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials that plugin users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso is so easy to use yet feature rich and stable. It is a cornerstone of our site and our success.” Fraser Barner, Speaker’s Lab
”…it really does blow everything else that’s out there out of the water.” Chris Reynolds, Arcane Palette Creative Design
“Love the plugin, we only use it once a year for a race we have in February. This saved us tons of time in data entry. In addition, we had more runners register than any other year. We attribute that to the ease of registering online. Thanks for your work.” Ed, Friends of Oscar Scherer Park
Plugin Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, trainer, workshop promoter, or event management consultant, there are simply unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed user, visit the user forum for inspiration and practical suggestions to improve your event management and registration workflow and improve the experience of your event participants.
Support
Event Espresso works with with all WP plugins and themes that follow standard WordPress coding rules. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive customer support, as so many of its customers attest:
”No complaints here. Satisfied customer. You can teach us all few things about customer service. Thanks!” Charles
The Event Espresso software provides incredible support that includes access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, priority 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.
Additionally, Event Espresso boasts an established team of experienced web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely software you can count on to manage your events.
Software Pricing
Event Espresso is available in different editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software features, however, you should consider downloading one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal License Edition – This allows you to install Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License – This enables you to run Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This allows you to install Event Espresso on 5 sites. It includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
The cost to purchase the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software is being retailed for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
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 website.
Additional Plugin Info
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the software’s documentation tools to find answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to your specific use-case, or to notify developers about bugs and share feedback.
For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event registration and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of users.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you currently run any event that involves managing dates and venues (offline and online), enrolling attendees, or reserving tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticketing Registration Software For WordPress
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