Do you currently run or plan to run events that need co-ordinating bookings or registrations, such as workshops, community classes, not-for-profit fundraisers, corporate events, or even a big event such as a music show, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Co-ordinating event registrations can be a complex process. You will probably need to manage scheduling, available dates and spaces, participant numbers, data processing and storage, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to attendees.
There are a number of advantages to setting up an automated online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower expenses, help you easily reproduce previously-run events, give event managers more control, improve user experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be expensive.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-powered digital presence, you can install an inexpensive and professional online event booking solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WP lets you easily set up an event and start receiving registrations in a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and accept online event bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich plugin that gives you complete control over your event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize your event registration forms
You can use multiple event registration strategies, from simple online enrolments and straight up ticket-selling, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and email marketing tools.
View detailed information about event attendees
Please Note: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is fundamentally different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the software is being revamped 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 developers aim to eventually phase out EE 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.
Learn more about the plugin here:
Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current digital presence into an automated and feature-rich event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to attendee limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by practically eliminating the chore of processing registrations manually.
Essentially, you are facilitating attendees to complete the enrollment process themselves.
Allowing your attendees to do all of the data entry frees you up from doing admin work and lets you direct more of your resources on planning a better event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will discover in a moment, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and registration process that you want your customers to experience.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Less Costs: Event Espresso gives you an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third party provider. The cost is kept low by using a model where users buy the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and buy optional add-ons when you need added features.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new event signups 24 hours a day. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social addons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event invite others who may be interested in attending.
- Green And Paperless Event Booking Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign-up process can be conducted wholly in digital form, reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks associated with enrollment.
- Own Your Information. You control all the data you acquire from event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
The Event Espresso plugin provides functionality to its customers through standard features (these are included with the plugin) and optional features that you can buy for an additional cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many built-in to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to start accepting registrations in no time.
- Customized Event Registration Forms. With Event Espresso you can gather unique information using a custom event registration form on your web site to plan a unique experience for your users.
- Customizable Event Page Designs. Match your site’s look and feel for your events and registrations page using Event Espresso’s template options and elements, and HTML and CSS.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso integrates with leading payment gateways, enabling you to collect payments prior to running your events.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is smart, fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically copy the primary attendee’s registration information for any added registrants.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow event managers to create new prices that adjust the default ticket pricing of the system-default ticket.
- Discount Codes. Set up promotional and multiple discount codes to incentivize prospects to register without hesitation, or simply make your offers more appealing for price-sensitive prospects. This is also practical if you want to sell-out events close to timelines.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. Event Espresso 4 provides you with the tools to know who your customers are and how they’ve done business with you.
- No Ticket Events. You can create events without the requirement for participants to select tickets. Use Event Espresso for any form of event, not just when tickets are needed.
- Public Commenting. Add social interactivity to your event by allowing potential attendees to interact with you online via commenting and previous attendees to post feedback that can help others consider whether or not to sign up. Moderation settings for public comments are set in the WP built-in commenting section.
- Keyword-Rich Page URLs. Keyword rich event page Web links leverage your WordPress site’s Permalinks configuration settings. SEO-friendly web links that include topic-relevant keywords add to the context of your events and improves your search rankings, helping you get more potential customers to your website.
- 15+ Languages. Event Espresso is currently available in 15+ languages, with more languages coming soon.
- Bulk Import Event Information. EE 4 provides a CSV-based importing capability that lets you upload bulk event data at once. You can export, edit and upload information about events, datetimes, tickets, pricing, custom registration questions, venues, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Register Multiple Participants. EE 4 allows a single person or people to order multiple tickets and different types of tickets simultaneously. Event managers decide how many attendees are allowed to register in a single session by specifying either a limit on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Automatic Upgrading. Event Espresso provides simple one-click software installation updating to make sure that you have the latest features and to keep your software installation working with new versions of WordPress.
- Staff Member Manager. Save time and stay organized by reusing staff profiles for multiple events or displaying profile information such as team member’s contact information, resume and photo using a shortcode in any event description.
- Categorize Events. If you have a number of types of events like free and paid, conference speakers and mastermind sessions, different kinds of exercise classes, etc. you can categorize them to make it easier for event registrants to locate what they’re searching for. You can display all events in a category on an event category page, make events searchable by category, and colour-code your events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make these easier to find, as well as suggesting new events in the categories that interest your visitors.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming. Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical users, and also extremely robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and developers. The bottom line is that by using Object-oriented programming (OOP), EE 4 makes possible more complex extensions and customizations to the plugin.
- Maintenance Mode. Pause registrations for normal site traffic when you need to perform maintenance on your website. You can continue to work on your event pages during maintenance mode.
- Autonomy, Flexibility & Value For Money: 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 software has been built using a modular and efficient model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium version of Event Espresso also includes over 40 additional features, including:
- Live-filtering when you search for events inside the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse a series of questions for similar events.
- Option to skip the confirmation page during the registration process.
Add ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow customers to significantly enhance the capabilities of managing your event.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display all upcoming events by location. 4 maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Template Add-on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes multiple datetime events into a drop-down list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add-on: The Category Accordion template shows categories in a simple list. Clicking a category name shows all events associated with that category and closes previously open categories.
- Social Media Buttons Addon: The social media add-on displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media add-on is included free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration addon allows you to take advantage of the WordPress user system. With the WP User Integration addon you can give your users a special incentive by offering member prices and overriding event pricing when your members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered website users can have access to your special events. Members can also enter personal data into their profile page allowing them to quickly register for events by auto-filling in their personal information on the event registration form. Your users can also view previous events and pay for events.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Addon Versions: This add-on lets you include others in the event management process and give new users the capacity to create events or regional managers the ability to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WordPress users roles and give them different permissions with different privileges, allowing others to help you manage your events or the events that others create. You can customize roles so that users do not have access to certain areas of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain areas 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.
- Event Ticketing And Bar Scanning Addon: The Ticketing addon adds the ability to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add-on 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. Attendees 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 WordPress events calendar displays events and event categories in an attractive graphical calendar.
- JSON API Add-on: The new Event Espresso JSON API addon lets other applications, online tools, mobile apps, etc… to access your Event Espresso data through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software, including new addons.
For more information about the newest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website:
Testimonials
Below are just some of the many testimonials that customers have written about Event Espresso:
”My clients have used Event Espresso for Transportation (Cadet Bus for leave), Parties (tailgates and brewery tours), and Horse-back riding lessons and camps. What a terrific plug-in and fantastic support from Seth!” Nina, Blue Iris Web Design
”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, KT Benefits & InkItDigital.com
”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 an education services provider, presenter, seminar promoter, or event professional, there are simply endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, spend a little time going through the user forum for tips and practical ways to streamline your event management and registration process and enhance the experience of your event registrants.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso is compatible with all WP plugins and themes that follow standard WP development guidelines. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent customer support, as so many of its plugin customers confirm:
”By far, the customer service experience with Event Espresso has been the best of any WordPress Theme or Paid Plugin that I’ve used in the past two years!” Megan Murray, Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe
The Event Espresso software provides great support with access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, custom development 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 plugin you can count on to organize and manage your events.
Plugin Pricing
Event Espresso is available in different plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin options, however, you should consider purchasing one of the ”Pro” plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This license option enables you to run Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This enables you to configure 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 license option enables you to install Event Espresso on 5 sites. It includes 51+ Premium features, (addons 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 special offers. Presently, the software is selling for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Manager And Ticket Registration System For WordPress
Please Note: The pricing above was current at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site.
Additional Information
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software. Make sure to remain subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Look up the plugin’s online documentation pages for answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to a specific situation, or to notify developers about bugs and leave feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso website.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the leading WP event booking and ticketing manager plugin, used and trusted by thousands of companies.
If you are a WordPress user and you plan to run events that involve scheduling dates, times and venues (offline and online), booking attendees, and reserving seating, then you will probably not find a better WP plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Manager
***