Does your business currently run or plan to run events that require handling registrations, such as workshops, training courses, non-profit fundraisers, social conferences, 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 or participate?
Co-ordinating event registrations is a time-consuming process. You will probably need to manage scheduling, date availability, attendee numbers, data collection and storage, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and providing tickets to event attendees.
There are a number of benefits to setting up an automated online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower expenses, help you easily replicate repeat events, give event managers more control, improve client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be very costly.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-based website or blog, you can set up an inexpensive and professional online event booking solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticketing Management System
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WP lets you easily set up an event and start accepting bookings literally in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and receive online bookings)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed software that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.
Customize registration forms
You can use a number of event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket sales, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event participants, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing updates.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Note: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their software: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is significantly different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the software has been rebuilt using a different structure to accommodate future growth and expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually transition completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.
To learn more about the plugin go here:
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
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing online presence into an automated and feature-rich event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by virtually doing away with the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for participants to register themselves.
Allowing your participants to do the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you invest more resources on organizing a better event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will discover in a moment, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management process that you want your clients to experience.
Additional benefits include the following:
- Lower Costs: Event Espresso gives you a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third party service provider. This is made possible through a model where Event Espresso users pay for the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and buy optional addons when you need additional features.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept new event registrations any time of day or night. In addition, Event Espresso social features and add-ons (see below) let people interested in registering for your event invite their friends who may also be interested.
- Green Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign-up process remains entirely online, eliminating typical paper waste from tasks associated with administration.
- All Information Belongs To You. You control all the information acquired from event attendees.
Features
The Event Espresso plugin provides functionality to users via built-in features (these are included with the software) and additional features that customers can buy for an additional cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many great features to website owners. Here are just some:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. 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 want and specify prices, ticket quantity limits, etc.
- Event Calendar. Customers can easily find your events and add these to their schedule with a calendar.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso seamlessly integrates with payment gateways, enabling you to collect payments prior to running your events.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your WP theme and display registrant information throughout other areas of your site.
- Spam Protection. Reduce the likelihood of spamming and bot software programs making bogus registrations by using reCAPTCHA settings to authenticate human activity.
- In-App Documentation. Event Espresso 4 provides three comprehensive in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of booking event attendees when they show up, or send in paper-based forms for manual inputting later.
- Waiting Lists. Interested persons can join a waiting list if your event has reached maximum capacity. You can also specify that wait-list members pay for their spots if you plan to expand capacity for your event.
- Private Commenting On Contacts. Keep observations about users on their profile and how you’ve helped them. Private notes enables you to keep records of when users contacted you, your internal comments, and how you have interacted with them.
- Works With The Latest Version Of WordPress. The EE 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you create aesthetically beautiful event pages that are easier to use and mobile-friendly.
- 15+ Languages. Event Espresso can be run in 15+ languages, and more languages are being added all the time.
- Exportable Information. You can output all of your information gathered from event participants into Excel or CSV format for creating advanced reports, devising new marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, etc..
- WP Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the default WP Visual editor, so you can quickly and easily add images and write your content without knowing HTML or CSS, just like any standard WP post or page.
- Attendee Records. Manage each registrant’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their data organized and easily within reach.
- Social Sharing. Event attendees and site visitors can help promote your event using social share 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 allows web-based software developers to have more control and options over your events and how the information displays to site visitors.
- Maintenance Mode. Pause registration capabilities for regular website visitors whenever website maintenance is required. You can still work on your content during maintenance mode.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & Value For Money: According to the philosophy stated on their website, Event Espresso’s aim 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 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 additional features, including:
- Email shortcodes that includes attendee data in notification emails and newsletters.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse the same group of questions for similar events.
- Option to skip the confirmation page in the registration process.
Add ons
In addition to an incredible number of features, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow customers to significantly expand the capabilities of the event management system.
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 an event does not have a featured image available, it will use a default image.
- Recurring Events Manager Addon: The Recurring Events manager add-on enables you to put events on autopilot by scheduling repeated events weeks or months … even years ahead. You can add as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in the future as you want. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close bookings for all of your recurring events.
- Events Calendar Table Template Addon: The Calendar Table template is a list template with a bold date and customizable “register now” button. The template can be customized to show the event thumbnail instead of the date.
- 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 any of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on lets you take advantage of the WordPress user system. With the WP User Integration add-on you can give 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 users of the website can have access to these special events. Members can also store personal data 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 event history and make payment for new events.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Add on Versions: 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, allowing staff to help you manage your events or the 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 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 add-on.
- EE4 Event Ticketing Addon: The Ticketing add-on adds the ability to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on adds the capacity to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing add-on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for handling check-in scans at the 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.
- Events Table Template Add-on: The Events Table Template add-on gives event managers a simple and easy-to-use system that allows you to 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 lets web developers build custom templates using one of the included templates as a base template.
- MailChimp Integration Addon: The MailChimp add-on allows you to auto-register participants to a selected autoresponder list or group within your MailChimp account.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software, including new addons.
For more details about the newest Event Espreso features and add ons, check out the plugin here:
User Testimonials
Here are just some of the many great testimonials that customers have posted 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
”You can tell that the Event Espresso team is really passionate about their work, and that they care and spend a lot of time helping people work with their plugin and use it with their events – it’s something every WordPress service should aim for.” Ryan Imel, WPCandy
”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
Plugin Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, presenter, workshop planner, or event professional, there are just countless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a registered owner, visit the user forum for tips and practical ways to streamline your event management and registration workflow and improve the experience of your participants.
Plugin Support
Event Espresso works with with other WordPress plugins and themes that follow WP coding standards. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive 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
Event Espresso provides comprehensive support including access to a support forum, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, email 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 an established team of experienced WordPress developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can depend on to run your events.
Software Cost
Event Espresso is available in a number of editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin functionality, however, you should consider downloading one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal License Edition – This enables you to run Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This lets you configure Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This enables you to install Event Espresso on five sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
The cost of purchasing the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the software sells for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The pricing above was current when this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Plugin Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Look up the software’s documentation tools to find answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to your particular use-case, or to notify developers about problems and give feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product website.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the leading WP event booking and ticketing manager plugin, used by thousands of WordPress site owners.
If you are a WordPress user and you plan to run any event that involves scheduling dates and venues (offline and online), enrolling attendees, and reserving tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticketing Manager
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