Does your business currently run or plan to run events that need to accept bookings, such as seminars, group courses, non-profit fundraisers, networking conferences, or even a big event such as a food fair, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event sign-ups can be a complex process. You need to co-ordinate event schedules, dates, attendee numbers, data collection and storage, collecting payments and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and delivering tickets to event participants.
There are lots of benefits to setting up an 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 setting this up can be expensive.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-based website, you can easily install an inexpensive and highly professional online event registration solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticket Management Plugin
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software allows you to easily schedule an event and begin processing bookings literally in a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and process online registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a feature-packed software that gives you full control of your event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can employ a range of event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up ticket-selling, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your participants, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing notifications.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Please Note: Currently, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is fundamentally different than the older EE 3, as the software has been redeveloped using a different structure to accommodate future growth. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The company plans to eventually move completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your web site:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current online presence into an automated and feature-rich event management website … from custom registration forms and automated 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 system like Event Espresso, you save time and improve your business productivity by practically eliminating the chore of processing registrations and sign-ups manually.
Essentially, you are facilitating attendees to enroll on their own.
Letting your clients to do all of the data entry frees you up from doing admin work and lets you concentrate more of your energy on planning a better event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will discover in a moment, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management process that you want your attendees to experience.
Some additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Significantly Lower Costs: Event Espresso is a very inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third party service provider. The cost is kept low by using a model where Event Espresso users start with the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and purchase addons only if you need extra features.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept new registrations 24/7. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing features (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event invite friends who may be interested.
- Green Event SignUp Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign-up process is conducted entirely online, significantly reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks related to enrollment.
- All Data Belongs To You. You control all the data you obtain from your event attendees.
Event Espresso Features
The Event Espresso plugin provides functionality to its customers through standard features (these are included with the software) and optional features that users can buy for an extra cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many features to site owners. Here are just some of these:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso lets you configure as many different types of tickets as you need and specify different prices, maximum number of tickets, and more.
- Customizable Event Page Designs. Create the look and feel you want for your events and bookings page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and elements, plus HTML and CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present a number of ticket options to registrants so they can purchase the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
- Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your theme and reuse venue details throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Prices. Set up events quickly and easily with pre-configured default pricing.
- Promotional Codes. Provide promotional and multiple discount codes to incentivize people to register immediately, or make your offerings more appealing for others. This is also practical for helping to increase sales of events close to deadlines.
- Event Check-In List. Generate an exportable list of event registrants and check in everyone who has attended.
- Waiting Lists. Interested persons can join a waiting list if your event has become sold out. You can also specify that waiting list registrants pay for their spots if you plan to add more capacity for your event.
- Public Commenting. Add social engagement to your event pages by allowing potential customers to interact with you online via commenting and previous participants to post comments that can help others choose whether or not to enroll. Moderation settings for public comments are specified in the WP commenting settings.
- Optimized For The Most Up-To-Date Version Of WP. The EE 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you build visually enhanced event pages that are easier to use and mobile-friendly.
- Your Organization Settings. Configure your profile to display throughout the plugin and your WordPress themes. The organization information include: business name, address, city, state, country, zip code, email, phone, tax number, logo, Facebook URL, Twitter profile URL, LinkedIn URL, Pinterest profile URL, Google+ URL, Instagram profile URL.
- Exportable Data. You can output all of your information gathered from event participants into Excel or CSV format for producing advanced reports, planning new marketing strategies, reviewing attendee statistics, etc..
- WP Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the standard WordPress Visual editor, so you can quickly and easily insert photos and format your event descriptions without knowing HTML or CSS, just like any WordPress post or page.
- One-Click Plugin Upgrades. Event Espresso provides simple 1-click updating to make sure that you have the newest features and to keep your installation compatible with the latest version of WordPress.
- Social Sharing. Event registrants and your website visitors can help create a wider exposure for your events using social media sharing buttons.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post type features such as custom fields, post meta data, taxonomies, etc. You can also customize the page templates to display events in your own custom way.
Additional features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical WordPress users, and also robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, EE 4 permits more complex enhancements and customizations to the plugin.
- Maintenance Mode. You can pause registration capabilities for normal website traffic whenever site maintenance is needed. You can still 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 goals, the software has been built using a 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+ additional features, including:
- Live-filtering when searching for events in the Event Espresso admin.
- Default surcharge (similar to adding a service tax to tickets).
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow customers to further expand the capabilities of events.
Some of these add-ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display scheduled events by location. There are four maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Manager Add-on: The Recurring Events management add on enables you to put events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months … even years ahead. You can schedule as many events in advance as you need. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all recurring events.
- Events Date Range Template Add on: The Date Range custom event list template enables your users to search for events that occur in a certain date range.
- Social Media Buttons Addon: The social media addon 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 lets you take full advantage of the WordPress user system. With the WP User Integration addon 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 information into their profile page allowing them fast registration for events by auto-filling in the personal information on the event registration form. Your users can also look up event history and make payment for new events.
- Seating Chart Add-on: The seating chart add-on is for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is perfect 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 website. The Seating Chart add on lets you manage the environment for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to each seat.
- EE4 Event Ticketing Add on: The Ticketing addon adds the capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add-on adds the capacity 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 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 registrants and to validate tickets.
- EE4 Events Calendar Add on: This add-on uses the WP calendar to display events and event categories via an attractive graphical calendar.
- EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Add on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft App and Merchant Account integration all-in-one sales and business marketing software add on, you can easily automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture customer data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your Event Espresso powered website.
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin, including new add-ons.
For more details about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website:
Testimonials
Here are some of the many testimonials that plugin users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Event Espresso is one of the nicest Event Managers (WP Plugin) I have come across.” Joe Distefano, Citizen Joe
”Your plugin rocks! Seriously, saved me hours on the phone setting up attendance manually. Kudos. :)” William, Petruzzo Photography
”Thank you, we just did 2 sell out seminars of 50 attendees in 48 hours using Event Espresso and it was awesome. My wife was able to pick up on the processing backend with ease. You have done a great job on getting this system together – very simple, clear and well laid out With powerful functionality. I am so glad I dumped the old booking application we had and gave Event Espresso a go. Just wanted to say thanks, and thanks for the very patient, friendly and speedy assistance in helping me to get it all set up at the start. Many thanks to you and your team. A grateful customer.” Nicholas de Castella, Emotional Intelligence Trainings
Useful Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, trainer, conference planner, or event consultant, there are just countless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a registered owner, search the forums for inspiration and practical ways to streamline your event management and registration process or improve the experience of your registrants.
Support
Event Espresso works with with all WP plugins and WordPress themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive customer support, as many of its users 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
The Event Espresso software provides robust support that includes access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, priority 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 an established team of experienced WordPress web developers with a solid track record of support, so this is definitely software you can depend on to run and manage your events.
Plugin Cost
Event Espresso is available in a number of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin features, however, you need to consider using one of the paid plugin versions below:
- Personal Licensing – This lets you set up Event Espresso on one site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License – This license enables you to run 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 Edition – This enables you to install Event Espresso on five domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one 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 retails for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Management
Please Note: The pricing above was current at the time this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site.
Event Espresso – Additional Information
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.
Search the software’s online documentation tools to find answers to common questions about setup and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to your particular use-case, or to report errors 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 WordPress event booking and ticketing management plugin, used by thousands.
If you are a WordPress user and you intend to run events that involve managing dates, times and venues, registering attendees, and reserving seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Manager
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