Does your organization currently run or plan to run events that require managing registrations, such as seminars, community courses, charity fund-raisers, corporate events, or even a large-scale event like a food fair, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Managing event bookings is a complicated and time-consuming process. You will most likely need to manage scheduling, date availability, attendee numbers, data collection and admin, collecting payments and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and delivering tickets to participants.
There are a number of advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce costs, help you easily duplicate previous events, give event managers more control, improve client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting up a web-based event booking system can be quite costly.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-powered website, you can install an inexpensive and professional online event registration system.
Announcing …
Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticketing Registration Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin allows you to easily create multiple events and start receiving online bookings in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online registrations)
Event Espresso is a feature-packed software that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
Create custom event registration forms
You can employ a range of event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up ticket sales, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your participants, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and autoresponders.
View detailed information about event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is fundamentally different than the older EE 3, as the plugin has been 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 company plans to eventually phase out Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
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 website:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current online presence into a fully-featured and automated event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to attendee limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by virtually eliminating the chore of processing registrations and signups manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for participants to enroll themselves.
Allowing your participants to do all of the data themselves frees up your time and lets you direct more of your time on creating a more enjoyable event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will see in a moment, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your clients to experience.
Some additional benefits include:
- Less Costs: The Event Espresso plugin provides you with a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to developing your own system or using a 3rd party service provider. This is made possible by using a model where you buy the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and buy optional add-ons only when you need extra features.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online sign-ups outside normal business hours. In addition, Event Espresso social and marketing features and add ons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event share your information with others who may also be interested.
- Paperless Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign up process can be kept entirely in digital form, eliminating typical paper waste from tasks related to administration.
- Own Your Data. You control all the information gathered from your event participants.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to its customers through built-in features (these are included with the software) and optional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many unique built-in to site owners. Here are just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to start accepting registrations in minutes.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In EE 4, events can have multiple dates and times (called datetimes), and these can be managed from one single event.
- Customizable Event And Registration Page Designs. You can customize your events and signup page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and parts, plus HTML or CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present multiple ticket options to registrants and let them purchase the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Smart Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is smart, fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary attendee’s registration details for any added participants.
- Default Price Types. Price types let you create new prices that adjust the default ticket pricing of your system-default ticket.
- In-App Documentation Systems. Event Espresso 4 comes with 3 comprehensive in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of registering event attendees at the door, or send in paper forms for manual inputting later.
- Waiting Lists. Latecomers can join a waiting list if your event has reached maximum capacity. You can also make it a requirement waiting list members pay for their spots if you plan to add more capacity for your event.
- Event RSS Feeds. Provide automatic updates to website visitors, bring in more visitors and reach a wider number of prospects with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events let you build an event over multiple work sessions without publishing it to your site. You can work on your event until you are ready to publish it on your website, or schedule to publish your event at a later time and date.
- Country-specific Settings. You can configure the country and currency settings to be used to host your events, including currency name, currency symbols, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, regions, etc.
- Default Tickets. If you find yourself creating identical tickets for your events, you can set one of those tickets as your default ticket for any new events simply by checking a box.
- Event Venue Profiles. The venue manager in Event Espresso 4 allows details about venues to be made available throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front end of your website to inform attendees of your event’s location. The venue record has many of the standard WordPress settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also lets you add venue information like venue capacity, venue web address, telephone number, physical and/or virtual location, map, etc. You can also list venue profiles in various sections in your WP theme as well as on a venue archive page on your website where you can set up and reuse venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have listed for a given venue.
- Attendee Records. You can manage your registrant’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their data organized.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event registrants 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 pre-registered attendees who have not paid their registration yet by name, display the amount they owe, and include links to the event, a payment link and a link where they can download the invoice.
- Event Reports. Quick-view event reports provides you with data of your registrations and transactions, allowing you to measure the performance of your events with the aggregate number of registrations and amount of revenue you’ve collected.
Additional features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This allows you to have more control and options over the content of your event pages and how your information displays to visitors.
- Maintenance Mode. Pause registration capabilities for normal site traffic when website maintenance is required. You can still work on the back-end of your site during maintenance mode.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & 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 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 comes with over 40 added features, including:
- Duplicating events – eliminates the work of re-entering event data when creating new events.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse a series of questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Add ons
In addition to a very large range of features, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow users to significantly expand the capabilities of your event management process.
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 an event does not have a featured image, it will use a default image.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Custom Template Addon: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize events with multiple datetimes into a dropdown list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Addon: The Category Accordion template displays categories in a simple list. Clicking the category name displays all events associated with that category and closes any previously open categories.
- Social Coupons Integration Addon: If your web site uses Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can also specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on lets you take full advantage of the WP user system. With the WP User Integration addon you can give your users a special incentive by offering member prices and overriding event prices when members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered site users can have access to these special events. Members can also add personal details into their profile page allowing them to quickly register for events by auto-filling in their personal information on the event booking form. Your users can also look up previous events and make payment for new events.
- Seating Chart Addon: The seating chart add on is suitable 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 from your WordPress website. The Seating Chart add on lets you control the experience 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 register for 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 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 Table Template Addon: The Events Table Template add on gives you an easy-to-use system that lets you modify the design 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 custom templates using one of the templates included as a source template.
- JSON API Add on: The new Event Espresso JSON API add-on permits other software applications, websites, mobile apps, etc… to access your Event Espresso content through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software, including new add ons.
For more details about the latest Event Espreso features and add ons, visit the plugin website:
User Feedback
Here are a few of the many testimonials that satisfied customers have written about Event Espresso:
”I can’t even imagine what I would want the plugin to do that it doesn’t already do. I’m really happy with the features.” Jim Harmer
”…it really does blow everything else that’s out there out of the water.” Chris Reynolds, Arcane Palette Creative Design
”You guys have done an AWESOME job with this system…promise me to keep up the excellent work you guys are doing, for as long as you can… Respect!” Robert Jarnroth, Jarnroth Digital Productions
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, teacher, show promoter, or event management professional, there are simply unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, search the user forum for tips and practical ways to streamline your event management and registration process and enhance the experience of your participants.
Plugin Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with all WP plugins and themes that follow standard WP coding guidelines. If you do need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great support, as many of its end-users confirm:
”These guys are right on any problem or issue or even general questions. You can’t really put a value high enough on the kind of support these guys offer.” Mark Wigston, Muskoka Graphics
The Event Espresso software provides incredible support including access to a support forum, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledge base 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.
In addition, Event Espresso boasts a well-staffed team of experienced web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can count on to run and manage your events.
Software Cost
Event Espresso is available in a range of editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin options, however, you will want to consider purchasing one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal License – This license option lets you set up Event Espresso on 1 site only. It includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This edition allows you to install Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on five domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
The cost of purchasing the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the software retails for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The above reflects the pricing when this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Plugin Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding 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.
Search the plugin’s online documentation tools to find answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to your specific situation, or to notify developers about errors and leave feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing management plugin, used and trusted by thousands of event promoters.
If you own a WordPress website and you currently run events that require managing dates, times and venues, enrolling attendees, or booking tickets, then you will probably not find a better WordPress plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Management And Ticketing Registration Plugin
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