Does your company currently run or plan to run events that require handling registrations, such as seminars, community courses, charity fund raisers, corporate events, or even a large-scale event such as an art exhibition, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Co-ordinating event sign-ups is a complex and time-consuming process. You will probably need to manage calendar schedules, dates, attendee numbers, data processing, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to event registrants.
There are lots of benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower expenses, help you easily copy settings for previous events, give event managers more control, improve user experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting up a web-based event registration system can be expensive.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-powered web site, you can easily install an inexpensive and professional web-based event registration solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software allows you to easily create an event and start processing online registrations in minutes.
(Set up multiple events and accept online bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed application that gives you full control over your event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize your event registration forms
You can employ several event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up ticket-selling, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your attendees, or integrating your event bookings with social media sites like Facebook.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Please Note: Currently, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is considerably different than the older Event Espresso 3, as it is being revamped using a different structure to allow for 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 transition completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and features of using this plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just some of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current digital presence into a feature-rich and professional event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple price levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Increased 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 manually.
Basically, you are enabling participants to perform the registration on their own.
Letting your clients to do all of the data entry frees up your time and lets you spend more resources on planning a more enjoyable event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management and registration process that you want your participants to experience.
Some additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Significantly Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin provides you with a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to building your own software or using a 3rd-party service provider. This is made possible by using a model where you pay for the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then purchase add-ons only when you need extra features.
- Increased Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept new event registrations any time of day or night. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social and marketing features (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event invite their friends who may also be interested.
- Green And Paperless Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign up process can remain wholly in digital form, reducing typical paper waste from tasks related to administration.
- All Data Belongs To You. You own all the data acquired from your event participants.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to its users via built-in features (these are included with the software) and additional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many great features to WP users. Here are just some of these:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso allows you to create as many different types of tickets as you need and specify prices, limits on ticket quantities, etc.
- Custom Notification Email Message. Easily set up customized automated registration and payment notification email messages to communicate with event participants.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso integrates with several payment gateways, enabling you to collect booking payments before running your events.
- Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your theme and reuse events information throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Price Types. Price types let event managers create new prices that adjust the base ticket price for the system-default ticket.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system allows you to authenticate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, set up multiple check-in “stations” and track participants.
- Event Check-In List. Generate an exportable list of attendees and check in everyone who has attended.
- No-Ticket Events. List events without requiring registrants to select tickets. Use Event Espresso for all types of events, not only when tickets are for sale.
- Public Commenting. Add social interactivity to your events by encouraging potential attendees to ask questions about your event and previous participants to post comments that can help others choose whether or not to register. Moderation settings for comments are set in the WP native commenting system.
- Draft Events. Draft events let you build your event over time without displaying it live on your site. You can continue building your events until you are ready to go live, or schedule your event to publish at a future date and time.
- Country Settings. You can configure the country and currency settings to be used to host your events, such as currency, currency signs, decimal signs, characters and places, country codes, states or provinces, and so on.
- Exportable Data. You can output all the information collected from your event customers into Excel or CSV format for producing reports, devising marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, and so on.
- WP WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the built-in WordPress Visual editor, allowing you to quickly and easily insert images and stylize your event descriptions without having to know HTML or CSS, just like any standard WordPress post or page.
- Registrant Profiles. You can manage each attendee’s profiles and payment history and keep all of their records organized and easily within reach.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential registrants who have not paid in full for their registration with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click. Your invoices will address pre-registered attendees who have not paid their registration yet by name, display the balance they owe, and include links to the event, a payment link and a link where they can download a PDF invoice.
- Categorize Events. If you have a number of event types such as free and paid, conference speakers and breakout sessions, different kinds of exercise classes, etc. you can categorize them to make it easier for your participants to locate what they’re looking for. You can display all the events in a category on an event category page, make events searchable by category, and colour-code events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make these easier to find, as well as suggesting other events in the categories that interest your visitors.
Additional features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical users, and also robust and customizable for higher end users and developers. The bottom line is that by using Object-oriented programming (OOP), EE 4 permits more complex extensions and customizations to the application.
- Full Logging & Remote Logging. EE 4 allows you to create a log file with debugging data which can be helpful for developers when potential application problems.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value: 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 mission, the company operates on a modular and highly efficient model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also provides you with over 40 additional features, including:
- Live-filtering when searching for events in the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse a common set of questions for similar events.
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow end-users to significantly expand the capabilities of the 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 Drop-down Custom Template Add on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes events with multiple datetimes into a drop-down list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Addon: The Category Accordion template shows event categories as a simple list. Clicking the category name displays all events related to 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 comes free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration addon allows you to take advantage of the WP user system. With the WP User Integration addon you can give your users a special incentive by offering member pricing and overriding event pricing when your members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered users of the site can have access to these special events. Members can also add 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 event history and make payment for future events.
- Seating Chart Addon: The seating chart add on is for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is perfect for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart addon lets you offer reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress website. The Seating Chart addon lets you manage the experience for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to each seat.
- Multiple Event Registration Addon: The Multi-Event registration add-on gives your potential attendees the ability to register for 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 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.
- EE4 Events Table Template Addon: The Events Table Template add-on gives event managers a simple and easy-to-use system that lets you change the design of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also lets developers design their own custom templates using one of the templates included as a source template.
- Infusionsoft Integration Add on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft App and Merchant Account integration all-in-one sales and marketing software add on, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture customer data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your web site.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin, including new add-ons.
To learn more about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website:
User Feedback
Below are some of the many great testimonials that satisfied plugin users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso rocks! I use it for my dance class registrations. Unlike most dance studios where people have to call or send an email in advance, Event Espresso puts a registration form right there in front of the user and allows me to collect valuable information from the user during the registration process with custom questions such as “Do you have previous dance experience?” or “How did you hear about us?”. It also gives my site a professional look and feel.” Ral, Ral’eau Salsa Dance Company
”I searched long and hard to find something that would serve my needs. This is, by far, the most complete and comprehensive solution I have found.” Bill Hepper, We Teach Live
”Event Espresso is very nice and functional plugin. Set it up is not very easy for a beginner like me, but you have one of the best support team in your side. They answer all questions in a timely manor. I didn’t know anything about setting up the plugins, Thanks to Event Espresso Support team that now I can find my way around this plugin. Event Espresso helps our company to manage the workshops, keep track of our students, manage the emails, and much more. We upgrade from personal License to Business license in just two weeks of using Personal license. I strongly recommend the Business license.” Ted Karlsalr, Omnilargess
Plugin Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, presenter, concert promoter, or event management consultant, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, go through the user forum for inspiration and practical ways to improve your event management workflow and enhance the experience of your participants.
Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with all WordPress plugins and WordPress themes that follow standard WordPress development guidelines. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent support, as so many of its satisfied customers 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
Event Espresso provides amazing support with access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base 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.
Additionally, Event Espresso boasts a well-staffed team of experienced WordPress web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can rely on to run your events.
Event Espresso Cost
Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin options, however, you should consider purchasing one of the premium plugin editions below:
- Personal Edition – This license enables you to set up Event Espresso on one domain only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This option lets you run Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License – This allows you to run Event Espresso on five domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the software sells for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Please Note: The pricing above was current at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site.
Additional Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the software’s online documentation tools to find answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to a particular use-case, or to report issues and share feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product information pages.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the leading WP event registration and ticketing management plugin, used by thousands of people.
If you own a WordPress-powered site and you currently run events that require managing dates and venues, registering participants, and selling tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better WP plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticket Registration Software For WordPress
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