Do you currently run or plan to run events that require managing bookings, such as workshops, group classes, non-profit fund raisers, networking conferences, or even a large-scale event like a concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Managing event registrations is a complex process. You may need to manage calendar schedules, dates, registration numbers, data processing and storage, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders and alerts, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to participants.
There are lots of benefits to setting up an online event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce costs, help you easily duplicate similar events, give event managers more control, improve customer experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be very costly.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-powered site, you can easily install an inexpensive and professional online event booking solution.
Announcing …
Event Espresso – Event Manager And Ticketing Registration System For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WP software enables you to easily schedule multiple events and begin accepting registrations in just minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and accept online event bookings)
Event Espresso is a feature-rich application that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.
Customize event registration forms
You can use various event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your event participants, or integrating your event bookings with social media and email marketing solutions.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is considerably different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the platform is being rebuilt using a different structure to accommodate future growth. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually retire Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and features of using this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing online presence into a fully-featured and automated event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple pricing options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by practically doing away with the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for participants to enroll by themselves.
Letting your enrollees to do the data themselves frees up your time and lets you spend more of your resources on planning a memorable event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon discover, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management process that you want your clients to experience.
Some additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Reduced Costs: Event Espresso gives you an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a 3rd-party service provider. This is made possible by using a model where Event Espresso users purchase the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and buy add-ons only if you need additional features.
- More Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept online event bookings any time of day or night. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing add ons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event share your information with their friends who may also be interested in attending.
- Paperless Event Booking Process: With Event Espresso, the event booking process is kept entirely online, reducing typical paper waste from tasks associated with enrollment.
- All Information Belongs To You. You control all the information you collect from event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to its customers through built-in features (these come with the software) and optional features that customers can buy for an additional cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers a number of features to WP users. Here are just some:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Custom Event Registration Form. Event Espresso lets you gather specific data using custom event registration forms on your site to prepare a tailored experience for your users.
- Customizable Event Designs. Create the look and feel you want for your events and registrations page using Event Espresso’s template options and components, plus HTML and/or CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present several ticket options to prospects and let them choose the ticket(s) that best suits their needs.
- Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your theme and display contact details throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Price Types. Price types let you create new prices that adjust the default ticket price for your default ticket.
- Discount And Promotional Codes. Leverage promotional and multiple discount codes to encourage visitors to register without delays, or make your offers more appealing for others. This is also practical if you want to sell-out events close to timelines.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of booking event attendees when they show up, or sending in paper registration forms for manual registration later.
- Waiting Lists. Prospective attendees can join a waiting list if your event is completely sold out. Additionally, you can specify that waiting list members pre-pay if you plan to expand capacity for the event.
- Private Notes On Contacts. Record notes about event registrants on their profile. Private commenting helps you keep a record of when event attendees contacted you, your internal observations, and how you’ve interacted with them.
- Works With The Latest Version Of WordPress. The Event Espresso 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you create beautiful event pages that are easier to use and mobile-friendly.
- Easy Event Management. Event Espresso puts you in complete control of all aspects of an event’s registration and ticketing processes, and allows you to automate the process with event management tools that include staff and venue manager, custom event page designs, payment processing, wait lists, attendee limits, print-ready tickets and more.
- Exportable Data. You can export all the information collected from event participants into Excel or CSV format for compiling advanced reports, devising new marketing strategies, reviewing attendee statistics, and so on.
- Multiple Participant Enrollments. Event Espresso 4 allows a single person or a group to register multiple attendees at the same time. You specify how many attendees can register in a single registration by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso lets you engage with an expert community of experienced event managers and plugin users. You can engage with other members of the Event Espresso community using their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential clients who have not made payment for their enrollment with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click of a button. Your invoices will reference pre-registered attendees who have not paid their registration in full by name, display the balance they owe, and include links to the event details, a payment link and a url where they can download the invoice.
- Attendee Reporting. Event reporting gives you data of all of your registrations and transactions, enabling 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 users, and also robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and developers. The bottom line is that by using Object-oriented programming (OOP), Event Espresso 4 enables more complex extensions and customizations to the plugin.
- Metabox Management & Organization. Event Espresso leverages the WP user interface, which brings the ability to reorder the user interface to suit your workflow processes. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or entirely removed from your workflow configuration.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & 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 modular and highly efficient 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 over 40 additional features, including:
- Duplicating events – simplifies the need to re-enter event details when adding new events.
- Default surcharge (the same as adding a service fee to tickets).
- Option to skip the confirmation page in the registration process.
Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow you to significantly expand the capabilities of managing your event.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display all scheduled events by location. There are four maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Custom Template Addon: 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 also be customized to display an 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 addon comes free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- Custom Files Addon: The Custom Files add on allows you to bypass certain aspects of the plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Add on Editions: This addon lets you involve other users in the event management process and give new users the ability to create events or regional managers the capacity to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WordPress users roles and allow them different permissions with different privileges, allowing others to help you manage your events or the events that other people create. You can customize roles so that a user does not have access to certain sections of your WP dashboard and/or certain sections 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 addon.
- Event Ticketing Add-on: The Ticketing addon gives you the ability to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add-on adds the capacity to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing addon includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for managing check-in scans at the door. Registrants 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.
- EE4 Events Table View Template Add on: The Events Table Template add-on provides event managers with a simple and easy-to-use system that lets you 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 web developers to design custom templates using one of the included templates as a source template.
- JSON API Add on: The new Event Espresso JSON API addon permits other software applications, websites, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso content through an Application Programming Interface (API).
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software, including new add-ons.
For more information about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website:
Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials that plugin users have posted about Event Espresso:
”EventEspresso saves us money, saves our secretary 16-24 hours and looks so professionally done that people ask us how we do it; which we happily tell them, “Event Espresso, and be sure to get the ticketing add-on.”” David, House of Prayer
”Over the next 5-6 years we should be able to claim that we saved the company over $100,000 – Thanks Event Espresso!” David Waterman, KT Benefits & InkItDigital.com
”Hello. I wanted to say that I’ve purchased Event Espresso twice now for two different organizations and have had great success with the purchases. Outside of photography, I also build small websites with WordPress as the CMS. I built two websites for two different martial arts organizations who host yearly seminars and tournaments. The plug in has provided a way for attendees to sign up online from both Canada and the United States with ease, and also allowed the organizations to easily manage payments, attendee lists, and many other aspects of the events. Thanks to Seth for creating such a great plug in, and for your constant support!” James Zedd, James Zedd Photography
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, presenter, seminar planner, or event management consultant, there are simply unlimited possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a registered owner, spend a little time researching the user forum for inspiration and practical ways to streamline your event management and registration process or enhance the experience of your event customers.
Support
Event Espresso is compatible with other WordPress plugins and themes that follow standard WordPress development guidelines. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great support, as so many of its plugin users 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 Event Espresso plugin provides incredible support that includes 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.
Additionally, 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 count on to run and manage your events.
Product Pricing
Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin options, however, you should consider purchasing one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal Licensing – This license allows you to run Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This license option allows you to set up Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on 5 sites. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 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. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site.
Event Espresso – Additional Info
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the plugin’s documentation pages for answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to a specific situation, or to report errors and leave feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the leading WP event registration and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of users.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you intend to run events that require scheduling dates, times and venues (offline and online), enrolling participants, and/or selling seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – Event Management & Registration Plugin For WordPress
***