Does your business currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating bookings or registrations, such as workshops, group courses, not-for-profit fund-raisers, corporate conferences, or even a large-scale event like an exhibition, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?

Managing event bookings can be a time-consuming process. You will most likely have to manage calendar schedules, dates, attendee numbers, data administration, collecting payments and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to participants.

There are a number of benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower costs, help you easily reproduce similar events, give you more control, improve client experience and grow your sales.

The problem is that this can be very expensive.

Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-powered digital presence, you can install an inexpensive and professional online event registration solution.

Presenting …

Event Espresso

Plugin Description

The Event Espresso online event registration software lets you easily set up an event and begin accepting online bookings literally in a few minutes.

(Set up multiple events and receive online bookings with Event Espresso)

Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich plugin that gives you full control of the event registration management process.

Create custom registration forms

You can employ a range of event registration strategies, from simple online enrollments and straight up selling tickets, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your event attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and autoresponders.

Access detailed information about your event attendees

Note: Currently, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is significantly different than the older EE 3, as the platform is being revamped using a different structure to enable future growth. The Event Espresso 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 this plugin.

More info:

• Event Espresso

Benefits

Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website:

Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing Solution

Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current digital presence into a fully-featured and automated event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating 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 increase your business productivity by virtually eliminating the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.

Basically, you are making it easier for attendees to enrol themselves.

Letting your customers to do the data entry frees up your time and lets you concentrate more resources on creating a better 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 clients to experience.

Some additional benefits of the plugin include the following:

• Reduced Costs: The Event Espresso plugin provides you with 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 users buy the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and buy addons only when you need new functionality.
• Increased Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept new event sign-ups 24/7. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing features (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event share your information with friends who may also be interested.
• Green And Paperless Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign up process can remain wholly online, reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks associated with admin and record-storage.
• All Data Belongs To You. You control all the data obtained from event participants.

Event Espresso Features

Event Espresso delivers functionality to its customers through standard features (these come with the software) and additional features that you can buy for an additional cost, called add-ons.

Event Espresso offers many great features to WP users. Here are just some:

• Fast 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 many dates and times (datetimes), which these can be managed from a single event.
• Event Calendar. Attendees can easily see your upcoming events and add these to their schedule with the WordPress calendar.
• Ticket Selector. Present multiple ticket options to prospective registrants so they can choose the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
• Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your WordPress theme and display venue information throughout other areas of your site.
• Spam Protection. Prevent the likelihood of spamming and robots making bogus registrations with reCAPTCHA option to confirm human activity.
• Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system enables you to validate tickets, speed up door registrations, create various check-in “stations” and track participants.
• Contact Profiles & Contact List. Event Espresso 4 provides you with the tools to know who your clients are and how you’ve done past business with your clients. Your Contact Profile page records the name, biography, contact details, event registration history, comments, etc. about each client.
• Ticketless Events. You can set up events without requiring registrants to book tickets. Use Event Espresso for any kind of event, not just when tickets are required.
• XML RSS Feeds. Provide automatic updates to your customers, bring in more visitors and expand your content reach with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
• Optimized For The Latest WordPress Version. The EE 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you create highly aesthetic event pages that are easier to use and mobile-friendly.
• Country-specific Settings. Event managers can configure the country and currency settings to be used in events, such as currency, currency symbols, decimal characters and places, country codes, states or provinces, etc.
• Exportable Information. You can output all of your data gathered from your event customers into Excel or CSV format for creating reports, implementing marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, etc..
• Venue Management. The venue management feature in EE 4 lets details about a venue to be made available throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front end of your website to inform attendees of the location of your event. The venue record displays many of the standard WordPress settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also lets you reuse information like venue seating capacity, venue site URL, telephone number, physical, Google map, etc. You can also display all of your venues throughout different areas on your theme and on a venue archive page on your site where you can set up and display venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have booked for a specific venue.
• Attendee Profiles. Manage each customer’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their records organized and easily within reach.
• Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential attendees who have not paid in full for their registration with a standard but personalized invoice with one click of a button. Your invoices will address pre-registered participants who have not paid their registration in full by name, display the amount owing, and include a link to the event, a payment link and a link to download a PDF invoice.
• Event Reporting. Event reporting provides you with information of your registrations and transactions, enabling you to measure the performance of your events with the aggregate number of people who have registered and how much money you have collected.

Additional features include:

• Define Extra Meta Information. This allows you to have more control and options over your event page content and how the information displays to visitors.
• Full Logging, Remote Logging. EE 4 allows you to create a log file with debugging data which can be useful for developers when diagnosing software errors.
• Autonomy, Flexibility And Value For Money: 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 software has been built using a model 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+ added features, including:

• Duplicating events – simplifies the need to re-enter event details when creating new events.
• Question groups that make it easy to reuse a group of questions for similar events.
• Category titles and descriptions on event listings.

Add-Ons

As well as an amazing range of features, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow end-users to further expand the capabilities of events.

Some of these add-ons include:

• Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display scheduled events by location. There are four maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
• Recurring Events Management Addon: The Recurring Events manager add-on allows you to put your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months in advance. You can schedule as many events in advance as you like. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all of your 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 display the event thumbnail instead of a date.
• Events Social Sharing Addon: Add social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that lets your registrants to share a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after registration.
• Custom Template Addon: The Custom Template addon lets you display your events in a variety of visually exciting ways.
• 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 offer reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress website. The Seating Chart add on lets you control the environment for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach single pricing to each 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.
• Events Calendar Add-on: This WordPress events calendar displays events and event categories in a nice graphical calendar.
• EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Add on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft App and Merchant Account integration all-in-one sales and marketing plugin add-on, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture registrant data, track bookings, and accept payments from your web site.

Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software, including new addons.

For complete details about the newest Event Espreso features and addons, check out the plugin here:

• Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticket Manager Plugin

User Feedback

Below are some of the many testimonials that satisfied customers have written 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

”Your plugin rocks! Seriously, saved me hours on the phone setting up attendance manually. Kudos. :)” William, Petruzzo Photography

”I am in love with your product, I work with many educational institutions that hold classes/events and I will definitely recommend this to all of them, the only time I have seen a system this comprehensive and sophisticated is when an organization I worked with paid a programmer nearly $8,000 for a custom solution, and yet still there are features in your registration system that his didn’t have. Thank you so much for your help and patience.” Abdullah J.

Event Espresso Tips

Whether you are a gym owner, presenter, event promoter, or event management consultant, there are simply unlimited possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso plugin.

After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a registered owner, spend a little time going through the support forum for tips and practical suggestions to improve your event management workflow or enhance the experience of your attendees.

Product Support

Event Espresso is compatible with all WP plugins and themes that follow WP coding standards. If you find that you need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive user support, as many of its satisfied end-users confirm:

”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 incredible support including access to support forums, in-depth 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 a well-staffed team of experienced WordPress developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can depend on to organize and manage your events.

Software Pricing

Event Espresso is available in a range of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software features, however, you need to consider using one of the paid plugin versions below:

• Personal License Edition – This lets you install Event Espresso on one site only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
• Everything License – This option lets you run Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
• Developer Edition – This allows you to set up Event Espresso on 5 sites. It includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.

Price details for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the software is being retailed for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Manager & 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 seller when you visit the website.

Additional Plugin Information

Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.

Search the software’s documentation tools to find answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to a specific situation, or to report bugs and share feedback.

For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product information pages.

We Recommend

Event Espresso is the leading WP event booking and ticketing manager software, used and trusted by thousands of WP users.

If you are a WordPress user and you plan to run any event that requires scheduling dates, times and venues, registering attendees, or booking seating, then you will probably not find a better software for your needs than Event Espresso.

For more information, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Management

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