Do you currently run or plan to run events that need to accept bookings or registrations, such as seminars, training courses, not-for-profit fund-raisers, corporate conferences, or even a large-scale event such as a rave party, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Managing event sign-ups can be a complex process. You have to co-ordinate event schedules, available dates and seating, registration numbers, data collection and storage, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and delivering tickets to event participants.
There are many advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower expenses, help you easily reproduce previous events, give event managers more control, create a better customer experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite expensive.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-powered website, you can easily set up a very inexpensive and highly professional web-based event registration system.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Management Plugin
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software allows you to easily create multiple events and begin receiving online registrations in just minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online bookings)
Event Espresso is a feature-rich plugin that gives you complete control over your event registration management process.
Customize registration forms
You can employ a range of event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up ticket-selling, 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 applications.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Note: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is completely different than the older EE 3, as the plugin has been revamped using a different structure to allow for future growth. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software 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 this plugin.
More info:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing web site into an automated and feature-rich event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to attendee limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by virtually eliminating the chore of processing registrations manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for event participants to register themselves.
Allowing your participants to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing administration and lets you concentrate more time on delivering a memorable event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will see in a moment, 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:
- Lower Costs: Event Espresso is a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a 3rd party service provider. The cost is kept low by using a model where Event Espresso users purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and purchase add-ons when you need additional functionality.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online bookings 24 hrs a day. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social features and addons (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event share your information with friends who may be interested.
- Green & Paperless Event Booking Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign-up process remains entirely in digital form, significantly reducing traditional paper waste from tasks related to administration.
- All Information Belongs To You. You own all the information obtained from event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to users via built-in features (these come with the software) and optional features that customers can buy for an additional cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many great features to WP users. Here are just some of these:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In EE 4, events can have many dates and times (called datetimes), and these can be managed from a single event.
- Event Calendar. Attendees can easily find your events and add these to their schedule using a calendar.
- Tax Administration Options. Event Espresso 4 gives you several ways to manage taxes for an event and report tax fee components to customers who purchase tickets. You can administer taxes globally or on a per-ticket basis.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary attendee’s registration information for any additional participants.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow event managers to create new prices that adjust the base ticket pricing of the default ticket.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system lets you authenticate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, set up multiple check-in “stations” and track participants.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. EE 4 provides you with the tools to understand who your customers are and how you have done business with them. The Contact Profile section records the name, biography, contact information, event registration details, comments, and more about each registrant.
- Event Manager Pre-approval. Control who can and can’t participate in your events.
- XML RSS Feeds. Automatically update users, drive quality traffic and reach a wider audience with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Keyword Rich Page URLs. Keyword-rich URLs leverage your WordPress site’s Permalinks configuration settings. Search engine friendly permalinks with relevant keywords enhance the context of your content and is favored by search engines, helping you drive a more targeted audience to your events.
- Complete Control Of Your Event Management. Event Espresso puts you in complete control of all aspects of an event’s registration and ticketing processes, and lets you automate the process with event management tools that include staff and venue management, customizable event page designs, payment processing and handling, list waiting, attendee limits, print-ready ticketing and more.
- Import Event Information. EE 4 provides an advanced importing capability that allows you to import bulk event data all at one time. You can export, edit and import data for events, datetimes, tickets, pricing, registration questions, venue info, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Multiple Event Attendee. EE 4 allows a single person or a group to pay for multiple tickets and different ticket types at once. Event managers control how many people can enrol in a single registration by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso provides users with access to an expert community of experienced event managers and plugin users. You can engage with other Event Espresso users via their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential attendees who have not paid in full for their registration with a standard but personalized PDF invoice with one click of a button. Your invoices will reference pre-registered customers who have not paid their registration yet by name, display the balance owing, and include a link to the event, a payment link and a url where they can download the invoice.
- 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 even customize your templates to display events in your own custom way.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming. Event Espresso is simple enough for general users, and also robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and web-based software developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, EE 4 enables more complex developments and customizations to the software.
- Control Box Management And Organization. Event Espresso leverages the WP user interface, which gives you the ability to reorder the user interface to match your workflow. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or completely removed from the page.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & Value: According to the philosophy stated on their website, 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 goals, the software has been built using a modular and efficient model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes 40+ additional features, including:
- Duplicating events – reduces the need to re-enter event details when adding new events.
- Default surcharge (similar to applying a service tax to all tickets).
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As well as a very large number of features, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow end-users to significantly expand the capabilities of your event management process.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display upcoming events by location. There are four maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Drop-down Custom Template Add on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize events with many datetimes into a dropdown list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Addon: The Category Accordion template shows the categories in a simple list. Clicking the category name displays all events associated with that category and closes previously open categories.
- Social Coupons Integration Addon: If your site uses Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can even specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- Custom Files Add-on: The Custom Files addon provides PHP files that let you override certain aspects of the Event Espresso plugin.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Add-on Editions: This add-on lets you involve other staff in the event management process and give new users permission to create events or regional managers the capacity to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WP users roles and give them different permissions with different privileges, so your staff 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 sections of your WP dashboard and/or certain sections of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to allow users to have geographic responsibilities for events and users, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add-on.
- Multiple Event Registration Add on: The Multi-Event registration addon gives potential customers 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 shopping cart. With the Multiple 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 View Template Add on: The Events Table Template addon provides you with an 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 allows developers to design their own custom templates using one of the templates provided as a source template.
- EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Add-on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and marketing software add-on, you can easily automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture registrant data, track registrations, and accept payments from your Event Espresso powered website.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software, including new add ons.
For complete details about the newest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website here:
Customer Feedback
Below are some of the many great testimonials that 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
”I recently downloaded it to add to a nonprofit site for a Boy Scout troop and the features work wonderfully with what we wanted to accomplish for the site. It allows us to set up calendar, events, and even take payments for trips. At first, I thought that it would be overkill for such a small site, but now I see the possibilities and will definitely be offering Event Espresso to my clients that need an event organization system for their web sites.” Lucy Conn, Troop 462
”Hello. I wanted to say that I’ve purchased Event Espresso twice now for two different organizations and have had great success with the purchases. Outside of photography, I also build small websites with WordPress as the CMS. I built two websites for two different martial arts organizations who host yearly seminars and tournaments. The plug in has provided a way for attendees to sign up online from both Canada and the United States with ease, and also allowed the organizations to easily manage payments, attendee lists, and many other aspects of the events. Thanks to Seth for creating such a great plug in, and for your constant support!” James Zedd, James Zedd Photography
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, presenter, seminar planner, or event consultant, there are simply countless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, search the forums for inspiration and practical ways to improve your event management workflow or enhance the experience of your participants.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso works with with most WordPress plugins and WP themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent end-user support, as so many of its satisfied plugin customers confirm:
”No complaints here. Satisfied customer. You can teach us all few things about customer service. Thanks!” Charles
Event Espresso provides incredible support including access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, email 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.
In addition, Event Espresso boasts a well-staffed team of experienced web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely software you can depend on to organize and manage your events.
Software Price
Event Espresso is available in a number of editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin options, however, you will want to consider downloading one of the paid plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This lets you install Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This enables you to run Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Edition – This edition lets you run Event Espresso on 5 sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Pricing details of the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software retails for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Management
Note: The pricing above was current at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Plugin Info
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Look up the plugin’s documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums if you have questions related to a particular situation, or to notify developers about issues and leave 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 preferred WP event registration and ticketing manager plugin, used by thousands of people.
If you are a WordPress user and you intend to run events that involve scheduling dates, times and venues (offline and online), enrolling attendees, and booking tickets, then you will probably not find a more suitable WP plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso
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