Does your organization currently run or plan to run events that require managing bookings or registrations, such as seminars, training courses, not-for-profit fund-raisers, networking events, or even a big event like a school concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Managing event bookings is a time-consuming process. You may be required to manage calendar schedules, date availability, attendee numbers, data processing and storage, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to event attendees.
There are many advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily reproduce repeat events, give event managers more control, create a more enjoyable user experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting up a web-based event booking system can be very expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-powered website, you can set up an inexpensive and highly professional online event booking system.
Announcing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Management Software
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WordPress allows you to easily create multiple events and start processing online registrations in minutes.
(Set up multiple events and receive online registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a feature-rich software that gives you full control of your event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize registration forms
You can use a number of event registration strategies, from simple online enrollments and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event participants, or integrating your event bookings with social media and autoresponders.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Note: Currently, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is fundamentally different than the older Event Espresso 3, as it is being redeveloped using a different structure to enable future expansion. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The developers aim to eventually phase out EE 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.
More info:
Benefits
Here are just some of the many 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 current website or blog into a feature-rich and professional event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating capacity 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 practically doing away with the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.
Essentially, you are facilitating event participants to enrol themselves.
Letting your clients to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you invest more resources on delivering a memorable event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon learn, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your clients to experience.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Reduced Costs: Event Espresso provides you with an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to developing your own system or using a 3rd party service provider. This is made possible through a model where you buy the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then purchase add ons when you need additional functionality.
- More Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept online bookings outside traditional business hours. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing features (see below) let people interested in registering for your event invite other people they know who may also be interested in attending.
- Green & Paperless Event Booking Process: With Event Espresso, your event signup process remains entirely online, significantly reducing traditional paper waste from tasks related to admin and record-keeping.
- Own Your Data. You own all the data acquired from event participants.
Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to its users via built-in features (these are included with the plugin) and optional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many built-in to WP users. Here are just some of these:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to start accepting registrations in minutes.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso lets you configure multiple ticket types and specify prices, ticket quantity limits, and more.
- Customized Confirmation Emails. Easily configure customized automated registration and payment confirmation emails to communicate with your participants.
- Ticket Selector. Present multiple ticket options to registrants and let them choose the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your WordPress theme and reuse venue information throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Prices. Set up events quickly and easily by pre-configuring default pricing.
- Promotional Codes. You can leverage promotional and discount codes to encourage visitors to take action immediately, or simply make your offers more attractive for price-sensitive customers. This is also practical for helping to increase sales of events close to deadlines.
- Contact Profiles & Contact List. EE 4 provides you with the tools to understand who your clients are and how you have previously engaged with them. Your Contact Profile page stores the name, biography, contact details, event registration information, comments, and more about each registrant.
- No Ticket Events. List events without making it necessary for participants to select tickets. Event Espresso can be used for all forms of events, not only those that need tickets.
- Public Commenting. Add social engagement to your event by encouraging potential registrants to ask questions about your event and previous customers to post comments that can help others consider whether or not to enroll. Moderation settings for public comments are configured via the WP commenting admin area.
- Optimized For The Latest Version Of WordPress. The EE 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you build visually attractive event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Your Organization Settings. you can configure your profile to display throughout the software and your WP themes. The organization fields include: company name, address, city, state, country, zip code, primary contact email address, telephone, tax number, logo, Facebook profile URL, Twitter URL, LinkedIn URL, Pinterest profile URL, Google+ URL, Instagram URL.
- Exportable Data. You can export all of your information collected from your event attendees into Excel or CSV format for producing reports, implementing marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, etc..
- WP WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the standard WP Visual editor, allowing you to quickly and easily add graphic images and compose and edit your content without knowing HTML or CSS, just like any typical WordPress post.
- Attendee Records. Manage your customer’s profiles and payment history and keep all of their data organized.
- Staff Management. Save time and stay organized by reusing staff profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in an event description.
- Accurate Participant Manager. You control your customers’ information; who has registered, which event they have booked and what amount they’ve paid. With the attendee manager, you can get a quick overview of registered participants and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export an event attendee list to a spreadsheet for additional reports, send customized payment reminders and receipts and communicate with your participants individually or all at once.
Additional features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This allows developers to have more control and options over your content and how your information displays to your readers.
- Maintenance Mode. You can pause registrations for normal website visitors when site maintenance is needed. You can still work on the back-end of your site during maintenance mode.
- 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 modular and effective model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium version of Event Espresso also provides you with over 40 additional features, including:
- Email shortcodes for including participant data in notification emails and updates.
- Default surcharge (similar to adding a service tax to all tickets).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listing pages.
Addons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow customers to significantly expand the capabilities of your event management system.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display all upcoming events by location. Four maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Dropdown 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 in a simple list. Clicking on a category name displays all events related to that category and closes any previously open categories.
- Events Social Sharing Add on: Add social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that lets your registrants to share a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after booking.
- Custom Template Addon: The Custom Template addon can display your events in a number of visually exciting 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 perfect for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart addon allows you to promote 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 every seat.
- EE4 Event Ticketing Addon: The Ticketing addon adds the capacity to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon gives you the capacity to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing addon includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for handling 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 Table Template Add on: The Events Table Template add on gives you an easy-to-use system that allows you to 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 web developers build their own custom templates using one of the included templates 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 plugin add-on, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture event attendee data, track bookings, and accept payments from your Event Espresso powered website.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin, including new addons.
To learn more about the newest Event Espreso features and add-ons, check out the plugin here:
Testimonials
Below are just some of the many great testimonials that plugin users have posted about Event Espresso:
”I want to commend you on a fabulous product which is just the right price for a small non-profit. People are happy with the registration process, as are we! …Thank you SO much for a great product.” Sandra Forero Bush, World Trade Center Tacoma
”Customizing an Event Registration plugin for WordPress by @EventEspresso. Love the pro version. Highly Recommended!” Joshua Garity
”I’m using it on multiple sites and enjoying it. It’s simple and as others have stated… fast service and real help.” Arlen Nagata
Useful Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, trainer, event promoter, or event consultant, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a registered user, search the forums for tips and practical suggestions to improve your event management and registration process or improve the experience of your registrants.
Support
Event Espresso works with with most WordPress plugins and WordPress themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great user support, as many of its satisfied plugin users confirm:
”No complaints here. Satisfied customer. You can teach us all few things about customer service. Thanks!” Charles
Event Espresso provides robust support that includes access to support forums, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, premium 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 a well-staffed team of experienced WordPress web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can count on to run your events.
Event Espresso Price
Event Espresso is available in a range of editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced software features, however, you may want to consider downloading one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:
- Personal License Edition – This allows you to run Event Espresso on one site only. It includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This license allows you to run Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License – This lets you install Event Espresso on five sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Pricing details of the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin retails for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Management
Note: The above reflects the pricing when this article was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller when you visit the site.
Additional Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the plugin’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to your particular use-case, or to report bugs and leave feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing management plugin, used and trusted by thousands.
If you are a WordPress user and you intend to run an event that involves managing dates and venues (offline and online), enrolling participants, or reserving seating, then you will probably not find a better plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more details, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso
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