Do you currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating bookings, such as seminars, group courses, non-profit fund raisers, networking conferences, or even a big event like a trade exhibit, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Managing event registrations can be a complicated and time-consuming process. You need to manage calendar schedules, available dates and spaces, registration numbers, data collection and admin, payments and invoicing, confirmations, reminders and alerts, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to event attendees.
There are lots of advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower costs, help you easily duplicate previous events, give you more control, create a better client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting up an online event booking system can be very costly.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-powered site, you can easily set up a very inexpensive and professional web-based event booking system.
Announcing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Manager And Ticket Registration System
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software allows you to easily set up an event and start receiving online bookings in a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and process online bookings)
Event Espresso is a feature-rich software that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize registration forms
You can use several event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up selling tickets, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your event attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and email marketing solutions.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their software: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is fundamentally different than the older EE 3, as the software is being revamped using a different structure to accommodate future expansion. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually retire Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing online presence into an automated and fully featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to attendee limits, multiple pricing options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by literally eliminating the need to process registrations and signups manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for event attendees to enroll themselves.
Allowing your enrollees to do the data themselves frees you up from doing administration and lets you concentrate more of your energy on delivering a memorable event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon see, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your users to experience.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Less Costs: The Event Espresso plugin gives you an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to building your own software or using a third-party service. This is made possible by using a model where users start with the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy add ons only if you need extra functionality.
- Increased Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new event sign-ups 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing addons (see below) let people interested in attending your event share your information with friends who may be interested in attending.
- Paperless Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event booking process can remain wholly in digital form, eliminating typical paper consumption from tasks associated with enrollment.
- All Data Belongs To You. You control all the data collected from event attendees.
Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to its users via standard features (these are included with the plugin) and optional features that customers can buy for an added cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many great built-in to web site owners. Here are just some of these:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in no time.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso lets you set up as many types of tickets as you need and specify prices, maximum number of tickets, etc.
- Customizable Event Designs. Customize your events and bookings page using Event Espresso’s template options and elements, as well as HTML and/or CSS.
- Tax Administration Options. Event Espresso 4 provides a number of options to handle taxes for an event and provide reports of tax fee components to registrants who purchase tickets. Event managers can configure taxes globally or on a ticket-by-ticket basis.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your theme and display venue details throughout other areas of your site.
- Spam Protection. Reduce the chance of spamming and bots creating false registrations with reCAPTCHA option that provide human authentication.
- In-App Documentation. Event Espresso 4 includes three detailed in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. EE 4 lets you know who your clients are and how you have previously engaged with your customers. Your Contact Profile page stores updated records such as the name, biography, contact details, event registration data, private comments, and more about each registrant.
- Waiting Lists. Prospective attendees can join a waiting list if your event has reached capacity. You can also make it a requirement waiting list registrants pay for their spots if you plan to expand capacity for your event.
- Public Commenting. Add “social proof” by allowing potential prospects to interact with you online via commenting and past participants to post feedback that can help others choose whether or not to register. Moderation settings for commenting are specified in the WP default commenting system.
- Keyword-Rich Page URLs. Keyword-rich event page URLs take advantage of your WP site’s Permalinks configuration settings. Search engine friendly permalinks with topic-relevant keywords add to the context of your events and is favored by search engines, helping you get a more targeted audience to your events.
- Easy Event Management. Event Espresso puts you in full control of every aspect of an event’s registration and ticketing, and also lets you automate the process with event management tools that include staff and venue manager, custom event page designs, payment processing and handling, wait lists, limits on attendees, print-ready tickets and more.
- Exportable Information. You can output all the information collected from event participants into Excel or CSV format for compiling reports, planning marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, etc..
- Register Multiple Attendees. EE 4 allows an individual or a group to register multiple attendees at the same time. Event managers specify how many people are able to enroll in one booking session by specifying either limits on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso gives you access to a community of experienced event managers, software programmers, web designers, web marketers and businesses who also use the plugin. You can network with other Event Espresso users through their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Staff Member Management. Save time and keep your information organized by reusing staff profiles for multiple events or displaying profile information such as team member’s contact information, resume and photo using a shortcode in your event description.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post types. You can even customize your page templates to display event information in your own unique way.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These features allow developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso application that are compatible with the WordPress development platform.
- Full Logging & Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 lets you generate a log file with debugging data that can be useful for web developers when diagnosing plugin errors.
- Autonomy, Flexibility And Value For Money: 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 that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes 40+ added features, including:
- Duplicating events – reduces the need to re-enter event details when adding new events.
- Default surcharge (the same as applying a service fee to all tickets).
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow users to significantly expand the capabilities of the event management process.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Grid Template Addon: Displays events in a pure CSS grid-like structure using the featured image. Hovering over the image will display further information. If the event does not have a featured image, it will use a default image.
- Recurring Events Management Add-on: The Recurring Events management add on enables you to put your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months in advance. You can create as many events in the future as you need. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close bookings for all of your recurring events.
- Events Date Range Template Add-on: The Date Range custom event list template allows your users to browse for events that occur in a certain date range.
- Social Coupons Integration Add-on: If your web site is featured on Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can also specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- Custom Template Add-on: The Custom Template add-on is capable of displaying your event lists in a number of visually exciting ways.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Add on Editions: This addon lets you include staff in the event management process and give new users the capacity 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 assign them different permissions with different privileges, 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 WP dashboard and/or certain parts 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.
- Multiple Event Registration Add on: The Multiple Event registration addon gives 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 addon, 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 add-on uses the WordPress calendar to display events and categories of events in a nice graphical calendar.
- EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Add on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and marketing plugin add on, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture event attendee data, track bookings, and accept payments from your website.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin, including new addons.
For more details about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, check out the plugin here:
Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials that satisfied plugin users have written about Event Espresso:
”Congratulations on an absolutely fantastic plugin. I’m really impressed with its functionality and add on features and will definitely upgrade my client’s production site to the premium version (when ready for launch) to incorporate all the features. As I have told another client “this plugin is the cat’s meow”.” Pete Mansel
”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
”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, Improve Photography
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, presenter, concert planner, or event management professional, there are just endless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a licensed user, search the support forum for useful ideas and practical suggestions to streamline your event management process or improve the experience of your event participants.
Plugin Support
Event Espresso is compatible with most WordPress plugins and themes that follow standard WordPress development rules. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent customer support, as many of its end-users attest:
“I’m really impressed with not only the application itself but the support. I have rarely seen such a responsive support staff than at EE. They rock…I highly recommend this plugin!” sock2me
The Event Espresso plugin provides incredible support that includes access to a support forum, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledge base 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 web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely software you can rely on to manage your events.
Product Pricing
Event Espresso is available in a range of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software features, however, you should consider using one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal License Edition – This option allows you to run Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License – This license option lets you configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License Edition – This license option enables you to set up Event Espresso on five sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $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. Currently, the plugin is selling for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing 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 its software. Make sure to remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Look up the software’s documentation tools for answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to your particular use-case, or to report errors and share feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the preferred WP event registration and ticketing management plugin, used and trusted by thousands of event managers.
If you own a WordPress-powered site and you plan to run events that involve scheduling dates, times and venues, registering attendees, and/or booking tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better software for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso
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