Do you currently run or plan to run events that need to accept registrations, such as seminars, training courses, charity fund raisers, networking conferences, or even a big event such as a concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event registrations is a complex process. You will probably have to co-ordinate event schedules, availability, registration numbers, data processing, collecting payments and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to attendees.
There are a number of advantages to setting up an automated web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily copy settings for previously-run events, give you more control, improve client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting up an online event registration system can be quite costly.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-powered web site, you can download and install a very inexpensive and highly professional web-based event registration solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – Event Management And Ticketing Registration Software For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WP lets you easily set up your event and begin processing online registrations in a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online bookings)
Event Espresso is a feature-rich software that gives you complete control of your event registration management process.
Customize your event registration forms
You can employ a number of event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up selling tickets, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your event attendees, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing notifications.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Note: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their software: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is fundamentally different than the older EE 3, as the plugin is being redeveloped using a different structure to enable future growth. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The developers aim to eventually migrate completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and features of this plugin.
Go here to learn more:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current digital presence into a fully-featured and automated event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by virtually doing away with the need to process registrations manually.
Essentially, you are facilitating participants to register on their own.
Letting your attendees to do all of the data themselves frees up your time and lets you focus more attention on organizing a more unique event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon discover, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and registration process that you want your customers to experience.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Significantly Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin provides you with a very low cost 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 buy the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and buy optional add ons only when you need extra features.
- More Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online event sign-ups 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social add ons (see below) let people interested in registering for your event share your information with others who may be interested in attending.
- Green Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign up process remains entirely in digital form, reducing typical paper consumption from tasks related to enrollment.
- All Data Belongs To You. You own all the data collected from event attendees.
Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to its users via built-in features (these are included with the software) and optional features that customers can buy for an additional cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many great features to WP users. Here are just some:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Ready to use in very little time.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso lets you configure as many different types of tickets as you need and set separate prices, ticket quantity limits, and more.
- WordPress Event Calendar. Customers can easily find your upcoming events and add these to their schedule with the calendar.
- Ticket Selector. Present several ticket options to prospects and let them purchase the ticket(s) that best fits their needs.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your WordPress theme and reuse attendee details throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Prices. Create events quickly and easily by pre-configuring default ticket pricing.
- Promotional Codes. Provide promotional and multiple discount codes to incentivize visitors to register immediately, or simply make your offers more appealing for price-sensitive customers. This is also practical for helping to sell-out events close to deadlines.
- Contact Profiles & Contact List. EE 4 provides you with the tools to gain a better understanding of who your clients are and how you’ve previously engaged with your clients. Your Contact Profile section stores updated records such as the name, biography, contact details, event registration information, comments, etc. about each attendee.
- Waiting Lists. Latecomers can subscribe to a waiting list if your event is full. Additionally, you can specify that waiting list registrants pay for their spots if you plan to add more capacity for the event.
- XML RSS Feeds. Provide automatic updates to your site readers, drive quality traffic and expand your content distribution with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Optimized For The Latest Version Of WP. The EE 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you build visually attractive event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Country Settings. Event managers can configure the country and currency settings to be used in events, including currency, currency signs, decimal characters and places, country codes, states or provinces, etc.
- Upload Events. Event Espresso 4 provides an advanced importing feature that enables you to quickly upload a lot of event data all at one time. You can export, edit and upload data for events, datetimes, tickets, pricing, custom registration questions, venue info, terminology, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- WP Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the standard WP Visual editor, allowing you to quickly and easily insert images and create your event descriptions without having to learn HTML or CSS, just like any WP post.
- Automatic Upgrading. Event Espresso offers simple one-click software installation updating to make sure that you have the newest features and to keep your installation compatible with new versions of WordPress.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event participants who have not paid in full for their enrollment with a standard but personalized PDF invoice with just one click of a button. Your invoices will reference registered attendees who have not paid their registration yet by name, give them the amount owing, and include links to the event information, a payment url and a link where they can download a PDF invoice.
- Transaction Reporting. Event reporting gives you data of all the registrations and transactions, enabling you to track the performance of your events with the aggregate number of people who have registered and amount of revenue you’ve collected.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These allow web-based software developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso plugin that are compatible with the WordPress development platform.
- Metabox Management & Organization. Event Espresso leverages the WP user interface, which gives you the ability to organize the user interface to suit your workflow process. Each meta box can be collapsed, re-arranged or deleted from the page.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value: 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 goals, the software has been built using a model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium version of Event Espresso also includes 40+ added features, including:
- Live-filtering when searching for events within the Event Espresso admin.
- Default surcharge (the same as applying a service fee to tickets).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Add-Ons
As well as an incredible number of features, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow end-users to further expand the capabilities of the event management system.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display all upcoming events by location. 4 maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Manager Add on: The Recurring Events manager addon lets you put your events on autopilot by scheduling repeated events weeks or months … even years ahead. You can add as many future events as you want. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close bookings for all recurring events.
- Events Date Range Template Add-on: The Date Range custom event list template lets your users to search for events that take place within a certain date range.
- Social Coupons Integration Add on: If your web site uses Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can even specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- Custom Template Add-on: The Custom Template add-on is capable of displaying your events in a number of visually exciting ways.
- Seating Chart Addon: The seating chart addon is great for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is ideal for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart add-on lets you offer reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues right from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add on lets you manage the environment for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to every 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 registrants will be given the option to either register for a single event or add multiple events to their 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 Table Template Addon: The Events Table Template add-on provides event managers with an easy-to-use system that allows you to modify 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 developers to design their own custom templates using one of the included templates as a base template.
- Infusionsoft Integration Addon: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and marketing plugin addon, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture customer data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your web site.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software, including new addons.
For complete details about the latest Event Espreso features and add ons, check out the plugin here:
User Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials that customers have written about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso is one of the nicest Event Managers (WP Plugin) I have come across.” Joe Distefano, Citizen Joe
”When you can get a company to expend more money switching systems just to use your plugin…you’ve really accomplished something.” David, House of Prayer
”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
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, trainer, festival planner, or event management consultant, there are just endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a licensed user, spend a little time visiting the support forum for tips and practical suggestions to improve your event management and registration workflow or improve the experience of your registrants.
Plugin Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with other WP plugins and themes that follow WP coding standards. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent user support, as many of its satisfied end-users confirm:
”By far, the customer service experience with Event Espresso has been the best of any WordPress Theme or Paid Plugin that I’ve used in the past two years!” Megan Murray, Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe
Event Espresso provides robust support including access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, email 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 a well-staffed team of experienced WordPress web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely software you can rely on to manage your events.
Product Price
Event Espresso is available in different plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced software features, however, you will want to consider purchasing one of the paid plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This license option lets you set up 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 license option enables you to set up Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This edition lets you install Event Espresso on 5 domains. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Pricing details of the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin is being retailed for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Please Note: The pricing above was current at the time this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author 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 remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the software’s online documentation tools to find answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to your particular use-case, or to report issues and leave feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product site.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event registration and ticketing management plugin, used and trusted by thousands of WP site owners.
If you are a WordPress user and you intend to run events that involve managing dates and venues (offline and online), enrolling attendees, and selling seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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