Do you currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating registrations, such as seminars, community courses, non-profit fund-raisers, social conferences, or even a big event such as an arts & crafts, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend?
Managing event sign-ups can be a time-consuming process. You will probably have to manage calendar schedules, available dates and spaces, participant numbers, data collection, payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and delivering tickets to participants.
There are many benefits to setting up an automated web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily reproduce previously-run events, give event managers more control, improve customer experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite expensive.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-based website or blog, you can install an inexpensive and professional web-based event booking system.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – Event Manager & Ticketing Registration Software For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software lets you easily schedule an event and start processing online bookings literally in a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and receive online registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-rich application that gives you full control over your event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can employ a number of event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event attendees, or integrating your event bookings with social media sites like Facebook.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is impressively different than the older EE 3, as it is being revamped using a different structure to accommodate future growth. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually phase out EE 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.
More info:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current web site into a fully-featured and automated event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by virtually eliminating the need to process registrations and sign-ups manually.
Basically, you are facilitating event attendees to register themselves.
Allowing your clients to do all of the data entry frees you up from doing admin work and lets you concentrate more attention on creating a better event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon discover, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management and registration process that you want your users to experience.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Lower Costs: Event Espresso provides you with a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to developing your own software or using a third party service. This is made possible by using a model where you pay for the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy optional add ons only if you need added features.
- Increased Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online event bookings 24/7. In addition, Event Espresso social and marketing features (see below) let people interested in registering for your event invite other people they know who may also be interested in attending.
- Green Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, your event booking process can be completed entirely online, reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks related to admin and record-keeping.
- All Information Belongs To You. You own all the information you acquire from event participants.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to users through standard features (these come with the software) and additional features that users can buy for an extra cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many unique built-in to WordPress users. Here are just some:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have multiple dates and times (called datetimes), that these can be managed from one single event.
- Event Calendar. Attendees can easily see your upcoming events and add these to their schedule using the WordPress calendar.
- Ticket Selector. Present multiple ticket options to prospects and let them choose the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration enables you to customize the settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details sections.
- Default Prices. Set up events quickly by pre-configuring default pricing.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system allows you to validate tickets, speed up door registrations, set up multiple check-in “stations” and track all attendees.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of booking event participants when they show up, or sending in paper registration forms for manual inputting later.
- Waiting Lists. Latecomers can subscribe to a waiting list if your event has reached maximum capacity. You can also make it a requirement wait-listed attendees pre-pay if you plan to expand numbers for your event.
- Private Contact Comments. Record observations about event attendees on their profile. Private notes lets you keep a record of when users contacted you, your internal comments, and how you have assisted your customers.
- Keyword Rich Event Page URLs. Keyword-rich event page URLs leverage your WP site’s Permalinks configuration settings. Search engine friendly web links with relevant keywords add to the context of your content and is favored by search engines, helping you bring a more targeted audience to your website.
- Easy Event Management. Event Espresso puts you in full control of all aspects of your event’s registration and ticketing processes, and lets you automate the process with event management tools that include staff and venue manager, customizable event designs, payment processing, list waiting, attendee limits, printable tickets and more.
- Default Tickets. If you find yourself creating identical tickets for most of your events, you can set one of those tickets as your default ticket for any new events simply by ticking a checkbox.
- Multiple Attendee Enrollments. EE 4 allows an individual or an organization to register multiple participants simultaneously. You specify how many attendees are allowed to enrol in a single registration by specifying either limits on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso gives you access to an expert community of event managers and plugin users. You can engage with other members of the Event Espresso community through their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Social Sharing. Event attendees and your website visitors can help increase exposure for your event using social sharing buttons.
- Categorize Events. If you have multiple event types like free and paid, workshops and mastermind sessions, different types of courses, etc. you can categorize them to help event registrants to find what they’re searching for. You can list all the events in a category on a custom event category page, make the events searchable by category, and colour-code events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make these easier to find, in addition to suggesting other events in the categories that appeal to your visitors.
Extra features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This feature allows you to have more control and options over the content of your event pages and how your information displays to prospective customers.
- Full Logging & Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 allows you to generate a log file with debugging data that can be useful for developers when potential problems.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value For Money: According to the philosophy stated on their site, 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 company operates on a modular 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:
- Email shortcodes for including customer data in emails and newsletters.
- Default surcharge (similar to adding a service tax to tickets).
- Default payment status.
Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow users to significantly expand the functionality of managing an event.
Some of these add ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add on: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display all scheduled events by location. 4 maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Management Addon: The Recurring Events management add on enables you to put your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months … even years in advance. You can add as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in the future as you want. Event Espresso will automatically open and close bookings for all recurring events.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add-on: The Category Accordion template shows categories in a simple list. Clicking on a category name displays the events related to that category and closes previously open categories.
- Events Social Sharing Addon: This add-on adds social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that lets your attendees to share a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after booking.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration addon allows you to take advantage of the WordPress user system. With the WP User Integration add-on you can give users a special incentive by offering member pricing and overriding event pricing when members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered users of the website will have access to these special events. Members can also input 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 view past events and pay for new events.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Add on Editions: This add-on lets you include your staff in your organization to help manage your events and give new users the capacity to create events or regional managers permission 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 capabilities, allowing others to help you manage your events or events that others create. You can customize roles so that users do not have access to certain areas of your WP dashboard and/or certain parts of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to create geographic regions for other people to manage events, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add-on.
- Event Ticketing Addon: The Ticketing add-on adds the ability to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on gives you the capacity to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing add on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for handling check-in scans at venues. People 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 View Template Add-on: The Events Table Template addon provides you with 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 design their own custom templates using one of the included templates as a source template.
- Infusionsoft Integration Add-on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and marketing plugin add-on, you can easily automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture event attendee data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your web site.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin, including new addons.
For complete details about the newest Event Espreso features and add ons, visit the plugin website:
User Testimonials
Here are some of the many great testimonials that satisfied users have written about Event Espresso:
”Broadcasting my support for Event Espresso will be a pleasure. I recently helped the Webmaster at a sister church configure your event manager for their site, so I can say with confidence and from experience, that Event Espresso is the best Event Manager plugin ever!” Philip Simpson, The Charlotte Church
”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
”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
Plugin Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, trainer, workshop promoter, or event consultant, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a registered owner, go through the support forum for inspiration and practical ways to improve your event management process or enhance the experience of your event customers.
Support
Event Espresso works with with all WP plugins and WP themes that follow standard WordPress development guidelines. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great technical support, as so many of its plugin end-users confirm:
”Thank you Seth for being so responsive and going above and beyond the call of duty with your app! I highly recommend Event Espresso for its functionality and for the stellar support. Seth has a deep knowledge and understanding of WordPress and has built a tool that is seamless to use for both organizer and attendee alike! After looking at a bunch of alternatives, Event Espresso far surpasses the other apps that are available.” Wendy Troupe, ICS North Pole Express
The Event Espresso plugin provides great support with access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, custom development 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 an established team of experienced web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely software you can rely on to organize and manage your events.
Product Cost
Event Espresso is available in a range of editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software options, however, you may want to consider downloading one of the ”Pro” plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on one domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License – This lets you set up Event Espresso on 1 site only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This enables you to set up Event Espresso on 5 domains. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Current pricing for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software is selling for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current price: Event Espresso – Event Management And Registration Plugin For WordPress
Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the site.
Event Espresso – Additional Plugin Info
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the 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 your specific use-case, or to report bugs and share feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event registration and ticketing management plugin, used and trusted by thousands of people.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you intend to run any event that requires managing dates, times and venues (offline and online), registering participants, and/or selling seating, then you will probably not find a better plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso – Event Manager And Registration System For WordPress
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