Does your organization currently run or plan to run events that require handling bookings, such as workshops, community classes, charity fundraisers, networking conferences, or even a large-scale event like a trade show, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event sign-ups is a complex process. You may be required to manage scheduling, availability, registration numbers, data administration, collecting payments and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and providing tickets to event registrants.
There are many benefits to setting up an online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower costs, help you easily copy settings for previous events, give event managers more control, improve client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting up a web-based event booking system can be quite costly.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-based website, you can easily set up a very inexpensive and professional web-based event booking solution.
Announcing …
Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticketing Registration System For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WP plugin lets you easily set up multiple events and start accepting online bookings in just a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and process online event registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a feature-rich software that gives you full control over your event registration management process.
Customize your event registration forms
You can employ a range of event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket sales, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your event participants, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and email marketing systems.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their software: EE 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is considerably different than the older EE 3, as the platform has been rebuilt 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 company plans to eventually move completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and features of this plugin.
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just some 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 current online presence into a fully-featured and automated event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by literally eliminating the need to process registrations manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for participants to complete the registration process by themselves.
Allowing your customers to do the data themselves frees up your time and lets you concentrate more of your resources on organizing a more unique event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and booking process that you want your participants to experience.
Additional benefits include the following:
- Reduced Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to developing your own software or using a 3rd-party service provider. This is made possible by using a model where Event Espresso users pay for the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and purchase add-ons only if you need new features.
- More Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept online event sign-ups 24/7. In addition, Event Espresso social and marketing addons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event share your information with other people they know who may be interested.
- Green Event Booking Process: With Event Espresso, the event signup process can be completed entirely in digital form, reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks associated with admin and record-storage.
- All Information Belongs To You. You own all the data collected from your event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to end-users through built-in features (these come with the plugin) and optional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many built-in to site owners. Here are just some of these:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to use in minutes.
- Multiple Dates and Times Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have multiple dates and times (called datetimes), and these can be managed from a single event.
- Customizable Event And Registration Page Designs. Create the look and feel you want for your events and signup page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and components, as well as HTML and CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present a number of ticket options to prospects and let them choose the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your theme and reuse registrant data throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow event managers to create new prices that adjust the default 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 various check-in “stations” and track attendees.
- Manual Registration Option. you have the option of booking event participants at the door, or send in paper-based registration forms for manual registration later.
- No-Ticket Events. You can set up events without the requirement for registrants to book tickets. Use Event Espresso for all kinds of events, not only when tickets are required.
- RSS Feeds. Keep your users up-to-date about your events, drive quality traffic and reach a wider number of potential customers with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events let you build your event in your own time-frame without displaying it live on your website. You can work on your event pages until you are ready to publish it to your website, or schedule your event page to publish at a future date and time.
- Easy Event Management. Event Espresso puts event managers in full control of every aspect of an event’s registration and ticketing processes, and allows you to automate the process with event management tools that include staff and venue manager, customizable event page designs, payment processing, wait lists, limits on attendees, printable tickets and more.
- Upload Events. EE 4 provides an advanced importing capability that lets you quickly import bulk event data at once. You can export, edit and import data for events, datetimes, ticketing details, prices, registration questions, venue info, terminology, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Venue Management. The venue manager in Event Espresso 4 allows details about venues to appear throughout the Event Espresso admin and the public areas of your site to inform visitors of your event’s location. The venue record has many of the standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also includes venue details like venue capacity, venue web address, venue phone number, physical, maps, etc. You can also display venues in various parts of your WordPress theme as well as on a venue listing page on your site where you can set up and reuse venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have listed for a given venue.
- Attendee Profiles. Manage your attendee’s profiles and payment history and keep all of their data organized.
- Social Sharing. Event registrants and your website visitors can help create a wider exposure for your events using social share buttons.
- Event Reporting. Quick-view event reports provides you with information of your registrations and transactions, enabling you to analyze the performance of your events with the aggregate number of people who have registered and amount of revenue you have collected.
Extra features include:
- Hooks, Actions And Filters. These allow web-based software developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso plugin that are compatible with WordPress.
- Maintenance Mode. You can pause registration capabilities for regular site traffic whenever you need to make changes on your site. You can still work on the back-end of your site during maintenance mode.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & Value For Money: According to the mission statement on their site, Event Espresso’s objective 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 modular and highly effective model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also provides you with over 40 additional features, including:
- Live-filtering when you search for events within the Event Espresso admin.
- Default surcharge (the same as adding a service tax to every ticket).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
In addition to a very large number of features, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow you to significantly enhance the functionality of your event management system.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add on: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display the scheduled events by location. There are 4 maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Manager Add-on: The Recurring Events manager add-on allows you to put your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months in advance. You can create as many events in advance as you need. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all of these 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 a date.
- Social Coupons Integration Add on: If your site uses Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can also specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- Custom Template Add-on: The Custom Template addon can display your events in a number of visually exciting ways.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Add-on Versions: This add on lets you include others in the event management process and give new users permission to create events or regional managers permission to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WordPress users roles and assign 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 a user does not have access to certain sections of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain areas of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to allow users to control factors geographically for events and users, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add-on.
- Event Ticketing Addon: The Ticketing addon gives you the capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on adds the ability to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing add-on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for handling check-in scans at the venue 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 registrants and to validate tickets.
- EE4 Events Calendar Add on: This add on uses the WP calendar to display events and categories of events via a nice graphical calendar.
- JSON API Add-on: The Event Espresso JSON API add on enables other software applications, web tools, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso details through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software, including new add-ons.
For complete details about the latest Event Espreso features and add ons, check out the plugin here:
User Testimonials
Here are just some of the many great testimonials that users have posted about Event Espresso:
“It is a very, very slick plugin. It’s one of those plugins where you install it, change a couple of settings, and boom you’re selling tickets.” Brad Williams, WebDevStudios
”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
”Just bought an Event Espresso license for an upcoming conference website we are working on. The custom registration forms functionality rocks!” Eric Sopp, Inside Design
Useful Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, presenter, workshop promoter, or event professional, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a registered user, spend a little time visiting the user forum for new ideas and practical suggestions to improve your event management and registration workflow or enhance the experience of your participants.
Support
Event Espresso is compatible with most WordPress plugins and WP themes that follow standard WP development rules. If you do need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive support, as many of its plugin end-users attest:
”No complaints here. Satisfied customer. You can teach us all few things about customer service. Thanks!” Charles
The Event Espresso plugin provides great support that includes access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, premium 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.
Additionally, Event Espresso boasts a well-staffed team of experienced WordPress web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely software you can depend on to run your events.
Plugin Pricing
Event Espresso is available in different editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced software options, however, you need to consider downloading one of the premium plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This allows you to run Event Espresso on one domain only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License – This lets you set up Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This license enables you to set up Event Espresso on 5 sites. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software retails for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Manager
Note: The pricing above was current at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the website.
Event Espresso – Additional Plugin Information
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.
Look up the software’s online documentation tools to find answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to a particular use-case, or to report errors and share feedback.
For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product website.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event booking and ticketing management software, used by thousands of WP users.
If you own a WordPress site and you plan to run an event that involves managing dates and venues, enrolling attendees, or selling tickets, then you will probably not find a more suitable software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso
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