Does your organization currently run or plan to run events that need managing bookings, such as workshops, group classes, charity fund raisers, corporate events, or even a large-scale event such as a community festival, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Managing event bookings can be a complex process. You will probably need to manage event schedules, dates, participant numbers, data processing and storage, collecting payments and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to participants.
There are many advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower expenses, help you easily duplicate previous events, give you more control, improve client experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that this can be expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-powered website, you can easily install an inexpensive and highly professional web-based event booking system.
Introducing …
Event Espresso
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WP software lets you easily set up an event and begin accepting bookings literally in minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and accept online event bookings)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed application that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
Create custom event registration forms
You can use various event registration strategies, from simple online enrollments and straight up ticket sales, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your event attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing follow-ups.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Note: Currently, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is completely different than the older EE 3, as the software has been rebuilt using a different structure to enable future expansion. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The developers aim to eventually phase out Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
Go here to learn more:
Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website into a fully-featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and 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 doing away with the need to process registrations and signups manually.
Basically, you are enabling attendees to perform the enrollment process by themselves.
Letting your enrollees to do the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you invest more of your attention on planning a better event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon see, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and registration process that you want your clients to experience.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Significantly Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin is an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a 3rd-party provider. The cost is kept to a minimum through a model where Event Espresso users pay for the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and purchase add ons when you need new functionality.
- Increased Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new bookings outside normal business hours. In addition, Event Espresso social features and add-ons (see below) let people interested in attending your event invite others who may also be interested in attending.
- Green And Paperless Event Registration Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign up process can remain entirely online, reducing traditional paper waste from tasks related to administration.
- Own Your Information. You control all the information collected from your event participants.
Plugin Features
Event Espresso provides functionality to its customers via built-in features (these are included with the software) and additional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Ready to start accepting registrations in minutes.
- Custom Event Registration Forms. With Event Espresso you can gather specific information using a custom event registration form on your site to create a great experience for your clients.
- Customized Confirmation Emails. Easily configure customized automatic registration and payment notification emails to communicate with event participants.
- Tax Administration Options. Event Espresso 4 provides a number of ways to handle taxes for your event and report tax fees to registrants who purchase tickets. You can administer taxes globally and on a ticket-by-ticket basis.
- Smart 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 added participants.
- Default Prices. Create events quickly by pre-configuring default prices.
- Discount Codes. Offer promotional and multiple discount codes to incentivize prospects to take action without hesitation, or simply make your events more appealing for price-sensitive prospects. This is also practical for helping to sell-out events close to timelines.
- Event Check-In List. Generate an exportable list of registrants and confirm those who attend.
- Admin Pre-approval. Control who can participate in your events.
- Public Commenting. Add social a new level of engagement to your event by encouraging potential registrants to interact with you online via commenting and previous attendees to post feedback that can help others choose whether or not to register. Moderation settings for public commenting are specified using the WP built-in commenting settings.
- Keyword-Rich Page URLs. Keyword-rich event page URLs take advantage of your WP Permalinks configuration settings. Search engine friendly permalinks that have topic-relevant keywords add to the context of your content and is favored by search engines, helping you get more traffic to your events.
- Full Control Of Your Event Management. Event Espresso puts event managers in full control of all aspects of an event’s registration and ticketing, and lets you automate this process with event management tools that include staff and venue manager, customizable event page designs, payment processing and handling, list waiting, attendee limits, print-ready tickets and more.
- Exportable Information. You can output all the data gathered from event attendees into Excel or CSV format for compiling reports, implementing marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, etc..
- WP WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the built-in WordPress WYSIWYG editor, so you can quickly and easily add graphic images and write your content without knowledge of HTML or CSS, just like any standard WP post or page.
- 1-Click Upgrades. Event Espresso offers easy 1-click plugin upgrades to make sure that you have the newest features and to keep your installation compatible with new versions of WordPress.
- Staff Management. Save time and stay organized by reusing staff member profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in any event description.
- Categorize Events. If you have several different types of events such as free and paid, conference speakers and mastermind sessions, different types of programs and program modules, etc. you can categorize them to help your registrants to locate what they’re searching for. You can list all events in a category on an event category page, make the events searchable by category, and color-code events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make these easier to find, in addition to suggesting other events in the categories that interest your existing customers.
Additional features include:
- Define Extra Meta Information. This allows you to have more control and options over your content and how the information displays to prospective event attendees.
- Maintenance Mode. You can pause registrations for normal website visitors when you need to make updates on your site. You can continue to work on your content during maintenance mode.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & Value: 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 that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also comes with 40+ additional features, including:
- Duplicating events – reduces the work of re-entering event details when creating new events.
- Default surcharge (the same as applying a service fee to every ticket).
- Option to skip the confirmation page during registration.
Addons
In addition to an incredible number of features, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow users to significantly expand the capabilities of the event management process.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add on: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display your scheduled events by location. 4 maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Custom Template Add-on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize many datetime events into a dropdown list.
- Events Date Range Template Addon: The Date Range custom event list template allows your users to search for events that take place in a certain date range.
- Events Social Sharing Add on: Add social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that allows your attendees to post a message about their event registration on Twitter and Facebook after registration.
- Custom Template Add-on: The Custom Template add on can display your events in a number of exciting and interesting ways.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Add-on Versions: This addon lets you involve other users in the event management process 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 WordPress users roles and give them different permissions with different privileges, so others can help you manage your events or events that other people create. You can customize roles so that users do not have access to certain areas of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain sections 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 capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on gives you the ability to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing addon includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for handling check-in scans at the venue door. 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 Calendar Add on: This WordPress events calendar displays events and event categories via an attractive graphical calendar.
- MailChimp Integration: The MailChimp add on lets you automatically register attendees to a selected mailing autoresponder list or group within your MailChimp account.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its software, including new addons.
For full details about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, check out the plugin here:
User Feedback
Here are some of the many testimonials that plugin users have written about Event Espresso:
”I want to commend you on a fabulous product which is just the right price for a small non-profit. People are happy with the registration process, as are we! …Thank you SO much for a great product.” Sandra Forero Bush, World Trade Center Tacoma
”Your plugin rocks! Seriously, saved me hours on the phone setting up attendance manually. Kudos. :)” William, Petruzzo Photography
”I can’t even imagine what I would want the plugin to do that it doesn’t already do. I’m really happy with the features.” Jim Harmer, Improve Photography
Plugin Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, trainer, festival promoter, or event management consultant, there are just countless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed user, search the support forum for tips and practical ways to streamline your event management and registration process and improve the experience of your registrants.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with all WP plugins and themes that follow WP coding standards. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive support, as many of its satisfied customers attest:
”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 software provides great support including access to support forums, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, email 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.
In addition, Event Espresso boasts an established team of experienced WordPress developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely software you can depend on to run your events.
Software Pricing
Event Espresso is available in different editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin features, however, you need to consider downloading one of the paid plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This license option lets you configure Event Espresso on one domain only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything Licensing – This enables you to run Event Espresso on one site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This enables you to run Event Espresso on 5 sites. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Price details for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software is being retailed for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Manager
Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this review was written. This 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 plugin. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the software’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to a particular situation, or to report bugs and leave feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product site.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the preferred WP event booking and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of users.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you intend to run any event that involves scheduling dates, times and venues, enrolling participants, and selling seating, then you will probably not find a better software for your needs than Event Espresso.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso
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