Event Espresso – WordPress Event Management Plugin

Event Espresso is a complete event registration and ticketing management automation software solution for WordPress …

Event Espresso - WordPress Event Management And Registration PluginDo you currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating bookings, such as seminars, group courses, not-for-profit fundraisers, networking events, or even a big event like a school concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?

Managing event registrations is a complex and time-consuming process. You may have to co-ordinate scheduling, event dates, participant numbers, data processing and storage, payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to attendees.

There are many benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower expenses, help you easily copy settings for recurring events, give you more control, improve client experience and increase your sales.

The problem is that setting this up can be costly.

The good news is that if you run a WordPress-based digital presence, you can easily set up an inexpensive and professional web-based event registration solution.

Event Espresso - WordPress Event Registration And Ticketing Manager System

Introducing …

Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticket Registration Plugin For WordPress

Event Espresso - WordPress Event Manager & Ticketing Registration Plugin

Plugin Description

The Event Espresso online event registration plugin lets you easily create multiple events and start processing online bookings in just minutes.

Event Espresso

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

Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed plugin that gives you full control over your event registration management process.

Event Espresso

Event Espresso lets you customize registration forms

You can use various event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your event participants, or integrating your event registration forms with social media sites like Facebook.

Event Espresso - Event Registration And Ticket Manager

View detailed information about event attendees

Note: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their software: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is considerably different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the software is being revamped using a different structure to enable future growth. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually phase out EE 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and features of this plugin.

Learn more about the plugin here:

Plugin Benefits

Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:

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 event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to maximum seating 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 eliminating the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.

Basically, you are making it easier for participants to register by themselves.

Letting your customers to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you focus more of your resources on delivering a memorable event.

Complete Control Over The User Experience

As you will discover shortly, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management and registration process that you want your users to experience.

Some additional benefits of the plugin include the following:

  • Less Costs: The Event Espresso plugin gives you a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to building your own software or using a 3rd party service. The cost is kept to a minimum by using a model where Event Espresso users start with the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then buy add ons only when you need added features.
  • Increased Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept new registrations any time of day or night. In addition, Event Espresso social and marketing add-ons (see below) let people interested in attending your event invite others who may be interested in attending.
  • Green And Paperless Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event booking process remains wholly online, reducing traditional paper waste from tasks associated with enrollment.
  • Own Your Information. You control all the data you acquire from event participants.

Event Espresso Features

The Event Espresso plugin provides functionality to end-users via built-in features (these are included with the software) and optional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.

Event Espresso - WordPress Event Management And Ticket Registration System

Event Espresso offers a number of features to website owners. Here are just a few:

  • Fast and simple to install and use. Ready to use in no time.
  • Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso allows you to configure as many different types of tickets as you need and specify separate pricing options, number of tickets, etc.
  • Event Calendar. Participants can easily find your events and add these to their schedule using the calendar.
  • Ticket Selector. Present several ticket options to registrants so they can purchase the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
  • Google Maps. Google Maps integration enables event managers to customize the display settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details sections.
  • Default Price Types. Price types allow event managers to create new prices that adjust the default ticket pricing of your system-default ticket.
  • Promotional Codes. Leverage promotion and discount codes to incentivize people to register immediately, or simply make your offerings more affordable for others. This is also practical for helping to increase sales of events close to deadlines.
  • Manual Registration. you have the option of registering event participants when they show up, or sending in paper-based registration forms for manual registration later.
  • Waiting Lists. Interested persons can join a waiting list if your event has reached maximum attendance. You can also make it a requirement waiting list members pre-pay if you plan to expand numbers for your event.
  • Public Commenting. Add social engagement to your events pages by encouraging potential attendees to ask questions about your event and previous customers to post feedback that can help others consider whether or not to sign up. Moderation settings for commenting are configured via the WordPress built-in commenting settings.
  • Keyword Rich Event Page URLs. Keyword rich event page URLs leverage your Permalinks configuration settings. “Pretty” urls with relevant keywords add to the context of your events and is favored by search engines, helping you drive more visitors to your site.
  • Country-specific Settings. Event managers can configure the country and currency settings that will be used for your events, including currency, currency signs, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, states or provinces, and so on.
  • Import Events. EE 4 provides a CSV-based importing capability that enables you to quickly upload bulk event data at once. You can export, edit and upload data for events, datetimes, tickets, pricing, custom registration questions, venues, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
  • Multiple Event Attendee. Event Espresso 4 allows one person or a group to buy multiple tickets and different ticket types at once. Event managers decide how many attendees can enrol in a single session by specifying either limits on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
  • Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso gives you access to a community of experienced event managers, web developers, web designers, marketers and businesses who also use the plugin. You can engage with other members of the Event Espresso community through their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
  • Social Sharing. Event registrants and your website visitors can help spread the word about your events using social media sharing buttons.
  • Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post type features such as custom fields, post meta data, taxonomies, etc. You can also customize your templates to display event information in your own unique way.

Extra features include:

  • Define Extra Meta Information. This feature allows web developers to have more control and options over your events and how the information displays to site visitors.
  • Metabox Management & Organization. Event Espresso lets you leverage the WP user interface, which brings the ability to reconfigure the user interface to suit your workflow. 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 company operates on a modular and effective model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.

The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes over 40 added features, including:

  • Live-filtering when you search for events within the Event Espresso admin.
  • Default surcharge (the same as adding a service tax to all tickets).
  • Category titles and descriptions on event listing pages.

Event Espresso - WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Manager System

Add ons

As well as a very large number of features, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow you to further enhance the capabilities of events.

Some of these addons include:

  • Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display your scheduled events by location. Four maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
  • Recurring Events Management Add-on: The Recurring Events management addon enables you to put events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months … even years in advance. You can schedule as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in advance as you need. Event Espresso will automatically open and close registrations for all recurring events.
  • Events Category Accordion Template Addon: The Category Accordion template shows event categories as a simple list. Clicking the category name shows the events associated with that category and closes any previously open categories.
  • Social Media Buttons Add on: The social media addon displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media add-on is included free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
  • WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on lets you take full advantage of the WordPress user system. With the WP User Integration add-on you can give your users a special incentive by offering member pricing and overriding event pricing when members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered site users can have access to your special events. Members can also input personal data into their profile page allowing them to quickly register for events by auto-filling in the personal information on the event booking form. Your users can also look up past events and pay for new events.
  • Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Add on Versions: This addon lets you involve others in the event management process and give new users permission to create events or regional managers permission to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WP users roles and give them different permissions with different capabilities, so others can help you manage your events or events that other people create. You can customize roles so that users do not have access to certain parts of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain areas of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to allow users to control factors geographically for events and users, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add-on.
  • EE4 Event Ticketing & Bar Scanning Add on: The Ticketing add on adds the ability to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on adds the capacity to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing add on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for handling check-in scans at the venue door. Attendees can either print out their tickets or display them on their mobile devices. The mobile app can be used for checking in or checking out attendees and to validate tickets.
  • EE4 Events Calendar Add-on: This addon uses the WP calendar to display events and categories of events using an attractive graphical calendar.
  • JSON API Add-on: The Event Espresso JSON API addon permits other software applications, web tools, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso data through an API (Application Programming Interface).

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

Event Espresso

For complete details about the newest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website here:

Customer Feedback

Here are a few of the testimonials that satisfied customers have written about Event Espresso:

”Thanks to you and the rest of the team for Event Espresso – Every time I get a signup for an event, I think about how much time EE saves me – and signups happen while I’m out on the water teaching kayaking, not answering the phone. :-)” Tue Brems Olesen, OnAdventure

”Customizing an Event Registration plugin for WordPress by @EventEspresso. Love the pro version. Highly Recommended!” Joshua Garity

”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 - Event Registration And Ticket Manager

Useful Tips

Whether you are an education services provider, presenter, show planner, or event professional, there are simply countless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.

After downloading the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, visit the user forum for tips and practical suggestions to streamline your event management workflow or improve the experience of your event registrants.

Event Espresso - Event Registration & Ticket Manager

Plugin Support

Event Espresso is fully compatible with most WordPress plugins and WP themes that follow WP coding standards. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent user support, as many of its end-users confirm:

”It’s magical. Support is amazing, plugin is simple to use, a 3 year old could use the iPhone app…it all is very impressive and professional.” David, House of Prayer

Event Espresso provides incredible support including access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, custom development 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 WordPress developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely software you can count on to manage your events.

Plugin Pricing

Event Espresso is available in a number of editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin options, however, you may want to consider downloading one of the ”Pro” plugin editions below:

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

Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software is selling for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticketing Management

Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time 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 Information

The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.

Look up the software’s documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to your specific 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 leading WordPress event booking and ticketing management plugin, used by thousands of companies.

If you own a WordPress-powered website and you intend to run events that require managing dates and venues (offline and online), registering participants, and/or reserving tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.

Event Espresso - Event Registration & Ticketing Management

For complete details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Manager & Ticket Registration Plugin

***