Does your company currently run or plan to run events that require bookings or registrations, such as seminars, community courses, not-for-profit fund-raisers, networking conferences, or even a large-scale event such as a concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event bookings can be a complex process. You may need to co-ordinate scheduling, date availability, participant numbers, data collection, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to attendees.
There are lots of advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower costs, help you easily duplicate previous events, give event managers more control, improve client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be very expensive.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-based website or blog, you can install an inexpensive and professional online event booking system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WP plugin enables you to easily set up an event and start accepting bookings literally in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and process online event bookings)
Event Espresso is a feature-rich plugin that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can use a range of event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing updates.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Note: Currently, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is completely different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the plugin 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 company plans to eventually move completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and features of this plugin.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current web site into a fully-featured and automated event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to attendee limits, multiple pricing options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by literally doing away with the chore of processing registrations manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for event attendees to perform the enrollment process themselves.
Letting your customers to do all of the data themselves frees up your time and lets you spend more of your attention on creating a better event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management process that you want your clients to experience.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin gives you a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a 3rd-party provider. This is made possible through a model where Event Espresso users start with the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and buy addons only if you need extra functionality.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept new bookings outside traditional business hours. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social and marketing addons (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event share your information with others who may also be interested in attending.
- Green & Paperless Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign-up process can remain wholly online, significantly reducing typical paper consumption from tasks associated with admin and record-keeping.
- All Data Belongs To You. You control all the information you obtain from event attendees.
Features
The Event Espresso software provides functionality to users through built-in features (these come with the plugin) and optional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many unique features to web site owners. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in very little time.
- Customized Event Registration Forms. With Event Espresso you can collect unique information using custom event registration forms on your web pages to create a unique experience for your customers.
- Customizable Event Designs. Match your site’s design for your events and bookings page using Event Espresso’s template options and elements, as well as HTML and CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present multiple ticket options to prospects so they can purchase the ticket(s) that best suits their needs.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration allows event managers to customize the look and control settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details sections.
- Default Price Types. Price types let event managers create new prices that adjust the base ticket price for the default ticket.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system allows you to validate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, create various check-in “stations” and track event attendees.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. EE 4 provides you with the tools to understand who your customers are and how they’ve done business with you.
- Ticketless Events. List events without requiring registrants to get tickets. Use Event Espresso for any kind of event, not just when tickets are required.
- XML RSS Event Feeds. Keep your site visitors updated about your events, drive quality traffic and reach a wider number of prospects with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Optimized For The Most Recent WP Version. The Event Espresso 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you create visually enhanced event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Your Organization Settings. you can configure your profile to be deployed throughout Event Espresso and your front-end templates. Your organization fields include: business name, address, city, state, country, zip/postal code, primary contact email address, telephone number, VAT/tax number, logo, Facebook URL, Twitter profile URL, LinkedIn URL, Pinterest profile URL, Google+ profile URL, Instagram URL.
- Upload Events. EE 4 provides an advanced importing feature that lets you import bulk event data all at one time. You can export, edit and import data for events, datetimes, ticketing details, pricing, registration questions, venue info, terminology, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the standard WP Visual editor, so you can quickly and easily insert graphic images and format your content without having to know HTML or CSS, just like any WordPress post or page.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso provides users with access to a community of experienced event managers, programmers, designers, marketers and business owners who also use the software. You can interact with other Event Espresso users using their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Staff Member Manager. Save time and stay organized by reusing staff profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in your event description.
- Attendee Reporting. Event reports gives you information of all of your registrations and transactions, allowing you to analyze the performance of your events with the aggregate number of registrations and how much money you’ve collected.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming. Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical WP users, and also robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, Event Espresso 4 allows for more complex extensions and customizations to the application.
- Control Box Management & Organization. Event Espresso leverages the WP user interface, which gives you the ability to organize the user interface to match your workflow process. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or removed from your page.
- Autonomy, Flexibility 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 mission, the company operates on 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 provides you with over 40 added features, including:
- Duplicating events – simplifies the work of re-entering event details when creating new events.
- Default surcharge (similar to adding a service tax to all tickets).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listing pages.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow you to significantly expand the capabilities of events.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display the upcoming events by location. There are 4 maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Template Addon: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize many datetime events into a dropdown list.
- Events Date Range Template Add-on: The Date Range custom event list template enables your users to browse for events that occur in a certain date range.
- 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.
- Custom Template Addon: The Custom Template add-on can display your events in a range of exciting and interesting ways.
- Seating Chart Add on: The seating chart add-on is for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart add-on allows you to promote reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues right from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add on lets you manage the environment for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to every seat.
- EE4 Event Ticketing Addon: The Ticketing add-on adds the ability to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon gives you the ability to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing add-on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for managing check-in scans at the door. Customers 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 in an attractive graphical calendar.
- MailChimp Integration: The MailChimp addon lets you auto-register attendees to a particular mailing autoresponder list or group within your MailChimp account.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software, including new add ons.
To learn more about the newest Event Espreso features and add ons, visit the plugin website here:
Customer Feedback
Here are some of the many testimonials that satisfied plugin users have written about Event Espresso:
”EventEspresso saves us money, saves our secretary 16-24 hours and looks so professionally done that people ask us how we do it; which we happily tell them, “Event Espresso, and be sure to get the ticketing add-on.”” David, House of Prayer
”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
”At first we looked at CVENT for one of our clients and they wanted $16,000 per year for 3000 event attendees + fees totaling $22k. That is before Staff and Webinar fees. Worst of all we had to prepay the $16k amount even if we never used all 3000 attendees. That was when we looked at Event Espresso and we realized we could build our own event system for less than 16K. For the most part we have been very satisfied with our decision. The real ROI will come next year when they don’t have to pay another 16k-22K! 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 (Long Version), KT Benefits & InkItDigital.com
Useful Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, teacher, festival planner, or event consultant, there are just countless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a registered user, visit the forums for inspiration and practical ways to streamline your event management workflow or enhance the experience of your event registrants.
Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with most WordPress plugins and themes that follow standard WP development rules. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive customer support, as so many of its satisfied end-users attest:
”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
The Event Espresso plugin provides robust support that includes access to support forums, 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.
Additionally, Event Espresso boasts an established team of experienced WordPress developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can rely on to manage your events.
Software Cost
Event Espresso is available in different editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin options, however, you need to consider purchasing one of the premium plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This edition lets you run Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License – This option allows you to run Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Edition – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on five sites. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Current pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software is being retailed for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Please Note: The pricing above was current when this article was written. This 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 its software. Make sure to remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the plugin’s documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to a specific situation, or to report issues and leave feedback.
For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the preferred WP event registration and ticketing management plugin, used by thousands of WordPress site owners.
If you own a WordPress-powered site and you currently run an event that requires scheduling dates, times and venues, registering participants, and selling tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Management
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