Do you currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating registrations, such as seminars, group classes, not-for-profit fundraisers, marketing functions, or even a big event like a dance party, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Managing event registrations can be a time-consuming process. You may need to co-ordinate calendar schedules, dates, registration numbers, data collection and admin, payments and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to participants.
There are many advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily copy settings for previously-run events, give event managers more control, create a more enjoyable customer experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be very expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-powered digital presence, you can easily set up a very inexpensive and professional web-based event registration system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticketing Management Plugin
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WP allows you to easily create an event and start processing online bookings in a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online event bookings)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed software that gives you complete control of your event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize registration forms
You can employ a number of event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up selling tickets, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your participants, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and email marketing applications.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Note: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is considerably different than the older EE 3, as the software has been rebuilt using a different structure to accommodate future growth and expansion. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually move completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and advantages of using the plugin.
More info:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Automated Event Registration Management And Ticketing Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current website into a fully-featured event management website … 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 a web-based event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by practically doing away with the chore of processing registrations and signups manually.
Basically, you are facilitating participants to enrol themselves.
Letting your participants to do the data entry frees up your time and lets you focus more energy on organizing a memorable event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will discover shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and booking process that you want your customers to experience.
Some additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Less Costs: Event Espresso provides you with a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to developing your own system or using a 3rd party provider. This is made possible through a model where you buy the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and purchase addons when you need extra features.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online event signups outside traditional business hours. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social features (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event invite friends who may also be interested in attending.
- Green Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign-up process is performed wholly in digital form, significantly reducing typical paper waste from tasks related to administration.
- All Information Belongs To You. You own all the data acquired from your event attendees.
Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to its users through built-in features (these are included with the plugin) and additional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many built-in to website owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Ready to start accepting registrations in no time.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso lets you create as many different types of tickets as you need and set separate prices, number of tickets, and more.
- WordPress Event Calendar. Customers can easily find your upcoming events and add these to their schedule with a calendar.
- Ticket Selector. Present several ticket options to registrants so they can choose the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Smart Single Page Checkout Process. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is smart, fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary attendee’s registration information for any additional attendees.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow you to create new prices that adjust the base ticket pricing of the system-default ticket.
- In-App Documentation Systems. Event Espresso 4 comes with three built-in in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Manual Registration Option. you have the option of booking event attendees when they show up, or sending in paper-based forms for manual processing later.
- Waiting Lists. Prospective attendees can join a waiting list if your event is sold out. Additionally, you can specify that wait-list attendees pre-pay if you plan to add more capacity for your event.
- XML RSS Feeds. Automatically update users, bring in more visitors and reach a wider audience with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Works With The Most Up-To-Date WP Version. The Event Espresso 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you build beautifully-designed event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Your Organization Settings. you can configure your profile to be used throughout the software and your WordPress themes. Organization fields include: company name, address, city, state, country, zip code, email address, telephone, tax number, logo, Facebook URL, Twitter URL, LinkedIn URL, Pinterest URL, Google+ profile URL, Instagram URL.
- Import Event Data. Event Espresso 4 provides a CSV-based importing capability that lets you upload bulk event data all at one time. You can export, edit and upload data for events, datetimes, ticketing details, pricing, registration questions, venue info, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Venue Management. The venue manager in EE 4 allows details about venues to display throughout the Event Espresso admin and the public areas of your site to inform users of the location of your event. The venue record has many standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also includes information such as venue capacity, venue site URL, phone number, venue location details, Google map, etc. You can also display venue profiles on specific sections in your theme as well as on a venue archive page on your site where you can set up and publish venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have listed for a particular venue.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso lets you interact with a community of experienced event managers, developers, web designers, marketers and business owners who also use the plugin. You can interact with other Event Espresso users using their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Social Sharing. Event attendees and your site visitors can help spread the word about your event using social sharing buttons.
- Accurate Event Attendee Management. You control your attendees’ records; who has enrolled, for what event and what amount they have paid. With the attendee manager, you can get a quick overview of registered attendees and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export an event attendee list to a CSV file for additional reports, send customized payment reminders and receipts and send messages to your attendees on a person-by-person basis or as a group.
Additional features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This feature allows web-based software developers to have more control and options over your events and how your information displays to your visitors.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. EE 4 lets you create a log file with debugging data that can be helpful for web developers who are troubleshooting.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & Value: According to the mission statement on their site, Event Espresso’s goal is to “empower business and organization leaders with the event registration, ticketing and management tools that maximize the success of events.” To achieve their mission, the software has been built using a modular that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium version of Event Espresso also includes 40+ added features, including:
- Email shortcodes that includes registrant data in notification emails and email updates.
- Default surcharge (the same as applying a service tax to all tickets).
- Option to skip the confirmation page in registration.
Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow customers to significantly enhance the functionality 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 the upcoming events by location. 4 maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Template Addon: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize events with multiple datetimes into a dropdown list.
- Events Date Range Template Addon: The Date Range custom event list template allows your users to search for events that occur in a certain date range.
- Social Coupons Integration Add-on: If your 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.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on allows you to take advantage of the WordPress user system. With the WP User Integration addon you can give your users a special incentive by offering member prices and overriding event pricing when members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered users of the website will have access to these special events. Members can also input personal data into their profile page allowing them fast registration for events by auto-filling in their personal information on the event booking form. Your users can also look up event history and pay for new events.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Addon Editions: This add on lets you include staff in the event management process and give new users permission to create events or regional managers the ability 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 others create. You can customize roles so that a user does not have access to certain parts of your WP 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.
- Multi-Event Registration Add on: The Multiple Event registration add-on gives 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 shopping cart. With the Multiple 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 View Template Add-on: The Events Table Template add on gives you a simple and easy-to-use system that lets you edit 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 allows web developers to design custom templates using one of the included templates as a base template.
- JSON API Add on: The new Event Espresso JSON API addon permits other software applications, web tools, mobile apps, etc… to access your Event Espresso details through an Application Programming Interface (API).
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin, including new add-ons.
For more details about the newest Event Espreso features and add ons, check out the plugin here:
Testimonials
Here are some of the many testimonials that satisfied users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Broadcasting my support for Event Espresso will be a pleasure. I recently helped the Webmaster at a sister church configure your event manager for their site, so I can say with confidence and from experience, that Event Espresso is the best Event Manager plugin ever!” Philip Simpson, The Charlotte Church
”Probably the best event management plugin available.” Materia Inspiration Centre
“Love the plugin, we only use it once a year for a race we have in February. This saved us tons of time in data entry. In addition, we had more runners register than any other year. We attribute that to the ease of registering online. Thanks for your work.” Ed, Friends of Oscar Scherer Park
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, presenter, show promoter, or event professional, there are simply endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, spend a little time going through the user forum for new ideas and practical ways to streamline your event management and registration process or improve the experience of your customers.
Support
Event Espresso works with with other WP plugins and WordPress themes that follow standard WordPress coding rules. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent support, as so many of its clients attest:
”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 amazing support that includes access to support forums, comprehensive 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.
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 organize and manage your events.
Product Price
Event Espresso is available in a number of editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced software features, however, you should consider using one of the premium plugin versions below:
- Personal License Edition – This lets you set up Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This enables you to set up Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License Edition – This edition allows you to install Event Espresso on five domains. 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 depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the software is selling for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current price: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Management
Note: The above reflects the pricing when this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the plugin’s documentation tools for answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to a particular situation, or to notify developers about bugs and share feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product website.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing manager plugin, used and trusted by thousands of WP users.
If you own a WordPress-powered web site and you currently run events that require managing dates, times and venues, registering participants, or booking tickets, then you will probably not find a better WP plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Management Plugin
***