Do you currently run or plan to run events that require co-ordinating bookings, such as seminars, training courses, non-profit fund raisers, marketing events, or even a large-scale event such as a concert, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Managing event sign-ups can be a time-consuming process. You have to manage calendar schedules, availability, attendee numbers, data processing, collecting payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and alerts, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and providing tickets to event attendees.
There are many benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce expenses, help you easily replicate previous events, give event managers more control, improve user experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be very costly.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-based site, you can easily install a very inexpensive and highly professional online event booking system.
Introducing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin enables you to easily set up your event and start processing bookings in just a few minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and take online event registrations)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich application that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can employ a number of event registration strategies, from simple online enrollments and straight up selling tickets, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your participants, or integrating your event bookings with social media sites like Facebook.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is impressively different than the older EE 3, as it is being revamped using a different structure to allow for future growth. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually retire EE 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and advantages of using this plugin.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing online presence into a fully-featured and automated event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple price levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by literally doing away with the chore of processing registrations and signups manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for attendees to perform the registration process on their own.
Allowing your enrollees to do all of the data entry frees up your time and lets you concentrate more of your time on organizing a more enjoyable event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will see in a moment, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management process that you want your clients to experience.
Some additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Less Costs: Event Espresso is a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to developing your own software or using a 3rd party provider. This is made possible by using a model where you pay for the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and buy add ons when you need added features.
- More Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept new event registrations outside normal business hours. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features and addons (see below) let people interested in registering for your event share your information with their friends who may be interested in attending.
- Green Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event booking process is performed wholly in digital form, reducing typical paper waste from tasks related to administration.
- All Data Belongs To You. You own all the data obtained from event attendees.
Features
The Event Espresso software provides functionality to its customers through built-in features (these are included with the software) and additional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides a number of features to WP users. Here are just some of these:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have many dates and times (datetimes), and these can be managed from a single event.
- Customizable Event Designs. You can customize your events and signup page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and parts, as well as HTML and/or CSS.
- Tax Administration. Event Espresso 4 gives you a number of ways to manage taxes for an event and provide reports of tax fee components to customers who purchase tickets. Event managers can administer taxes globally and on a ticket-by-ticket basis.
- Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your theme and display venue data throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow you 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 validate tickets, speed up door registrations, set up various check-in “stations” and track your attendees.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of registering event participants when they show up, or sending in paper forms for manual processing later.
- No Ticket Events. Create events without the requirement for attendees to get tickets. Event Espresso can be used for any form of event, not only those that accept tickets.
- Private Commenting On Contacts. Record notes about a contact on their profile. Private commenting lets you keep a record of when event participants contacted you, your internal observations, and how you have assisted your customers.
- Works With The Most Recent WordPress Version. The EE 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you create beautifully-designed event pages that are easier to use and mobile-friendly.
- Your Organization Settings. you can configure your profile to display throughout Event Espresso and your WordPress themes. Your organization fields include: organization name, street address, city, state, country, zip/postal code, email, telephone number, tax number, logo, Facebook URL, Twitter URL, LinkedIn profile URL, Pinterest URL, Google+ profile URL, Instagram URL.
- Upload Event Information. EE 4 provides an advanced importing feature that lets you easily upload a lot of event data at once. You can export, edit and import information about events, datetimes, ticketing information, prices, custom registration questions, venue info, terminology, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- Register Multiple Event Participants. Event Espresso 4 allows an individual or an organization to register multiple participants at the same time. Event managers control how many people are able to enrol in a single registration by specifying either limits on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Registrant Profiles. Manage your attendee’s profiles and payment history and keep all of their information organized.
- Staff Management. Save time and keep your information organized by reusing staff member profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in any event description.
- Accurate Attendee Manager. You control your customers’ information; who has enrolled, which event they have booked and what amount they 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 a list of attendees to an Excel spreadsheet for additional reports, send customizable payment reminders and receipts and communicate with your clients individually or as a group.
Extra features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This feature allows web developers to have more control and options over your event page and how your information displays to your readers.
- Full Logging & Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 lets you output a log file with debugging data that can be helpful for web developers who are diagnosing errors.
- Autonomy, Flexibility And Value For Money: According to the philosophy stated on their website, 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 company operates on a modular that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes 40+ added features, including:
- Live-filtering when you search for events inside the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse the same questions for similar events.
- Option to skip the confirmation page during registration.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As well as a very large range of features, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow software users to further expand the functionality of managing your event.
Some of these addons include:
- EE4 Events Grid Template Add on: Displays events in a pure CSS grid-like structure using the featured image. Hovering over the image will display further information. If an event does not have a featured image available, a default image will be used.
- Recurring Events Management Add-on: The Recurring Events management addon lets you put your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months in advance. You can create as many future events as you want. Event Espresso will automatically open and close bookings for all 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 display the event thumbnail instead of a date.
- Social Coupons Integration Add-on: If your web 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 Template Add-on: The Custom Template addon can display your event lists in a variety of exciting and interesting ways.
- Seating Chart Add on: The seating chart add on is suitable for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is ideal for venues and events such as theaters, concert halls, play houses, sports arenas and stadiums. The Seating Chart add-on lets you offer reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add on lets you control the environment for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach single pricing to each seat.
- EE4 Event Ticketing And Bar Scanning Add-on: The Ticketing addon adds the capacity to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add-on adds the ability to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing add-on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for handling check-in scans at the door. People can either print out their tickets or display them on their mobile devices. The barcode scanner can be used for checking in or checking out registrants and to validate tickets.
- EE4 Events Table View Template Addon: The Events Table Template addon provides you with a simple and easy-to-use system that allows you to change the look and feel 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 templates provided as a base template.
- MailChimp Integration Addon: The MailChimp add-on lets you auto-register participants to a chosen autoresponder list or group within your MailChimp account.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software, including new add ons.
For more details about the newest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website:
Testimonials
Below are some of the many testimonials that customers have posted about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso is so easy to use yet feature rich and stable. It is a cornerstone of our site and our success.” Fraser Barner, Speaker’s Lab
”Your plugin rocks! Seriously, saved me hours on the phone setting up attendance manually. Kudos. :)” William, Petruzzo Photography
”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
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, presenter, concert planner, or event management consultant, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a registered user, spend a little time going through the user forum for inspiration and practical ways to improve your event management process or enhance the experience of your customers.
Support
Event Espresso is compatible with most WordPress plugins and WP themes that follow standard WP development guidelines. If you do need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great technical support, as many of its plugin customers confirm:
”These guys are right on any problem or issue or even general questions. You can’t really put a value high enough on the kind of support these guys offer.” Mark Wigston, Muskoka Graphics
Event Espresso provides great support with access to support forums, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, email 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 a well-staffed team of experienced WordPress web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can rely on to run and manage your events.
Software Price
Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin features, however, you should consider purchasing one of the premium plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This edition allows you to set up Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This option enables you to install Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on 5 sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin is selling for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticketing Manager
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the site.
Event Espresso – Additional Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin. 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 tools for answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to your specific situation, or to notify developers about issues and leave feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
Our Recommendation
Event Espresso is the leading WP event booking and ticketing management software, used and trusted by thousands.
If you are a WordPress user and you intend to run events that require managing dates and venues, booking participants, and booking seating, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Manager Software
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