Does your business currently run or plan to run events that need handling bookings or registrations, such as seminars, training classes, non-profit fundraisers, marketing events, or even a big event like an arts & crafts, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Co-ordinating event bookings is a complex process. You may need to manage calendar schedules, dates, registration numbers, data collection and storage, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to event registrants.
There are lots of advantages to setting up an automated online event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce costs, help you easily copy settings for previous events, give event managers more control, create a better customer experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite costly.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-based digital presence, you can easily install an inexpensive and highly professional online event registration solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Management Plugin
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software enables you to easily set up multiple events and begin receiving bookings in minutes.
(Set up multiple events and take online bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed plugin that gives you full control of your event registration management process.
Event Espresso lets you customize registration forms
You can use a range of event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up selling tickets, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your event attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media sites like Facebook.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Important: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is completely different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the platform has been redeveloped using a different structure to allow for future growth. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually retire Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and features of this plugin.
Learn more about the plugin here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website into a fully-featured and automated event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to attendee limits, multiple pricing 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 increase your business productivity by literally eliminating the need to process registrations and bookings manually.
Essentially, you are enabling event participants to enroll on their own.
Allowing your attendees to do all of the data entry frees you up from doing administration and lets you concentrate more energy on organizing a better event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will learn in a moment, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management process that you want your attendees to experience.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Less Costs: Event Espresso is an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to developing your own solution or using a 3rd party service. The cost is kept to a minimum through a model where you pay for the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and purchase add ons when you need new functionality.
- Increased Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online bookings any time of day or night. In addition, Event Espresso social features (see below) let people who are interested in registering for your event invite their friends who may also be interested.
- Green Event Booking Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign-up process can be performed wholly 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 you acquire from event participants.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to users through standard features (these are included with the software) and additional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many built-in to site owners. Here are just some:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Ready to use in very little time.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso lets you set up as many different types of tickets as you need and set prices, limits on ticket quantities, and more.
- Custom Confirmation Emails. Set up automated registration and payment notification email messages to communicate with event registrants.
- Ticket Selector. Present several ticket options to prospects and let them purchase the ticket(s) that best fits their needs.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout Process. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically copy the primary registrant’s information for any additional registrants.
- Default Price Types. Price types let you create new prices that adjust the default ticket price of your default ticket.
- Discount Codes. Leverage promotion and multiple discount codes to encourage prospects to register now, or make your offers more attractive for others. Also useful for helping to sell out events close to deadlines.
- Contact Profiles & Contact List. EE 4 provides you with the tools to understand who your customers are and how they’ve done business with you.
- Waiting Lists. Prospective attendees can join a waiting list if your event has become completely sold out. Additionally, you can specify that waiting list registrants pay for their spots if you plan to add more capacity for the event.
- Private Contact Notes. Keep notes about contacts on their profile. Private commenting enables you to keep a record of when event registrants contacted you, your internal notes, and how you have assisted your customers.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events let you build an event page over time without publishing it to your site. You can continue editing your events until you are ready to publish it to your website, or schedule to publish your event at a later time and date.
- Country Settings. Event managers can configure the country and currency settings that will be used to host your events, including currency, currency signs, decimal characters and places, country codes, regions, etc.
- Import Events. Event Espresso 4 provides an advanced importing feature that allows you to quickly import a lot of event data all at one time. You can export, edit and upload data for events, datetimes, ticketing information, pricing, custom registration questions, venues, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the native WordPress WYSIWYG editor, so you can quickly and easily insert images and stylize your event descriptions without having to learn HTML or CSS, just like any WP post or page.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso lets you interact with a community of experienced event managers, programmers, designers, online marketers and business owners who also use the plugin. You can interact with other Event Espresso users using their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Staff Member Manager. Save time and keep your data organized by reusing team member profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in any event description.
- Categorize Events. If you have multiple event types such as free and paid, conference speakers and breakout sessions, different types of programs and program modules, etc. you can categorize them to make it easier for your participants to find what they’re looking for. You can list all the events in a category on a custom event category page, make events searchable by category, and color-code your events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make them easier to find, as well as suggesting other events in the categories that appeal to your existing customers.
Additional features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical WP users, and also extremely robust and customizable for higher end users and developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, Event Espresso 4 facilitates more complex enhancements and customizations to the software.
- Control Box Management And Organization. Event Espresso leverages the WP user interface, which brings the ability to organize the user interface to suit your workflow process. Each meta box can be collapsed, re-arranged or deleted from your page.
- 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 objectives, the software has been built using 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 includes 40+ added features, including:
- Live-filtering when searching for events in the Event Espresso admin.
- Question groups that make it easy to reuse the same group of questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Add ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow plugin users to further expand the capabilities 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 upcoming events by location. There are 4 maps 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 then automatically open and close registrations for all of your recurring events.
- Events Calendar Table Template Add on: 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 image instead of a date.
- Social Media Buttons Add-on: The social media add-on displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media addon comes free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- Custom Template Add on: The Custom Template add on lets you display your event lists in a variety of exciting and interesting ways.
- Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Add on Versions: This addon lets you include staff in the event management process and give new users the ability 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 capabilities, allowing staff 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 parts of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain sections 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 addon gives you the ability to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon adds the capacity to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing addon includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for handling check-in scans at the door. Registrants 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 Table Template Add-on: The Events Table Template addon gives you a simple and easy-to-use system that lets you 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 allows developers to design custom templates using one of the templates included as a base template.
- MailChimp Integration Add on: The MailChimp add-on allows you to auto-register attendees to a chosen mailing list or group within your MailChimp account.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin, including new add-ons.
For full details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website:
User Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials that plugin users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso rocks! I use it for my dance class registrations. Unlike most dance studios where people have to call or send an email in advance, Event Espresso puts a registration form right there in front of the user and allows me to collect valuable information from the user during the registration process with custom questions such as “Do you have previous dance experience?” or “How did you hear about us?”. It also gives my site a professional look and feel.” Ral, Ral’eau Salsa Dance Company
”I have to say that it has been the right choice for me…I’ve been extremely pleased with the way my site is working.” Robin, RobinTime
”I am in love with your product, I work with many educational institutions that hold classes/events and I will definitely recommend this to all of them, the only time I have seen a system this comprehensive and sophisticated is when an organization I worked with paid a programmer nearly $8,000 for a custom solution, and yet still there are features in your registration system that his didn’t have. Thank you so much for your help and patience.” Abdullah J.
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, trainer, festival planner, or event management professional, there are simply unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a licensed user, search the user forum for useful ideas and practical suggestions to improve your event management and registration workflow or enhance the experience of your event participants.
Product Support
Event Espresso works with with other WP plugins and WordPress themes that follow standard WP coding guidelines. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive support, as so many of its clients 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
Event Espresso provides comprehensive support including access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, one-on-one 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 web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can depend on to run and manage your events.
Software Pricing
Event Espresso is available in a number of editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin features, however, you should consider purchasing one of the premium plugin versions below:
- Personal License Edition – This license enables you to install Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This lets you set up Event Espresso on 1 domain only. It includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This lets you run Event Espresso on five sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
The price of the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the software is being retailed for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Please Note: The pricing above was current when this review was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site.
Additional Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the plugin’s documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to your specific use-case, or to report issues and leave feedback.
For all documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event registration and ticketing management software, used and trusted by thousands.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you intend to run events that require managing dates and venues, booking participants, or selling seating, then you will probably not find a better software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Manager
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