Does your company currently run or plan to run events that need handling bookings or registrations, such as workshops, training classes, non-profit fundraisers, social conferences, or even a big event like a show, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Managing event bookings can be a time-consuming process. You may be required to manage calendar schedules, date availability, attendee numbers, data collection, payments and sending invoices, confirmations and reservations, reminders and notifications, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and issuing tickets to event registrants.
There are lots of benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and lower expenses, help you easily reproduce repeat events, give you more control, improve client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be expensive.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-based website, you can easily set up a very inexpensive and professional web-based event booking solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – Event Management And Registration System For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software enables you to easily schedule your event and begin accepting registrations in just minutes.
(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and accept online event registrations)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed plugin that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can use a range of event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket sales, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your attendees, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing follow-ups.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their software: EE 3 and EE 4. The new EE 4 is fundamentally different than the older EE 3, as it has been redeveloped using a different structure to enable future growth and expansion. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually transition completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about the benefits and features of using the plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management And Ticketing System
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current digital presence into a feature-rich and professional event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple price options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by virtually eliminating the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.
Essentially, you are making it easier for event participants to enroll by themselves.
Letting your customers to do the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you spend more of your resources on delivering 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 and booking process that you want your users to experience.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Reduced Costs: Event Espresso is a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to developing your own system or using a 3rd party service. This is made possible by using a model where you start with the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and buy add-ons only if you need new features.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online signups 24 hrs a day. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features (see below) let people interested in registering for your event invite others who may also be interested in attending.
- Paperless Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event booking process can be kept entirely online, eliminating typical paper consumption from tasks related to enrollment.
- Own Your Data. You control all the data acquired from your event participants.
Event Espresso Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to its users via built-in features (these are included with the software) and optional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many great built-in to website owners. Here are just some:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Custom Event Registration Form. With Event Espresso you can gather unique data using a custom event registration form on your site to prepare a tailored experience for your users.
- WordPress Event Calendar. Participants can easily find your upcoming events and add these to their schedule using the WordPress calendar.
- Tax Admin & Reporting. Event Espresso 4 provides a number of options to administer taxes for your event and report tax fee components to customers when purchasing tickets. You can configure taxes globally and on a ticket-by-ticket basis.
- Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your WordPress theme and display registrant information throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Prices. Create events quickly with pre-configured default pricing.
- Discount Codes. You can leverage promotional and multiple discount codes to encourage people to make a decision immediately, or simply make your offers more affordable for price-sensitive customers. Also useful if you want to increase sales of events close to deadlines.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of booking event attendees when they show up, or send in paper registration forms for manual inputting later.
- Event Manager Pre-approval. Be selective about who can and cannot register for your events.
- Private Notes On Contacts. Keep comments about users on their profile. Private commenting lets you keep records of when users contacted you, your internal notes, and how you’ve helped your customers.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events let you develop an event at your own pace without displaying it live on your site. You can work on your event until you are ready to publish it on your website, or schedule to publish your event page at a later time and date.
- Full Control Of Your Event Management. Event Espresso puts event managers in complete control of every aspect of your event’s registration and ticketing, and also lets you automate this process with event management tools that include staff and venue management, custom event page designs, payment processing and handling, wait lists, limits on attendees, printable ticketing and more.
- Bulk Import Events. Event Espresso 4 provides a CSV-based importing feature that enables you to quickly import a lot of event data all at one time. You can export, edit and import data for events, datetimes, tickets, pricing, registration questions, venues, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- WP Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the default WP Visual editor, so you can quickly and easily add photos and write your content without knowing HTML or CSS, just like any WP post.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso provides users with access to an expert community of event managers and plugin users. You can interact with other members of the Event Espresso community using their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Staff Manager. Save time and stay organized by reusing staff member profiles for multiple events or displaying their profile using a shortcode in an event description.
- Categorize Events. If you have a number of event types like free and paid, conference speakers and breakout sessions, different kinds of exercise classes, etc. you can categorize them to help event attendees to find what they’re looking for. You can list all the events in a category on a custom event category page, make all events searchable by category, and color-code your events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make these easier to find, in addition to suggesting new events in the categories that appeal to your existing customers.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These allow web-based software developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso plugin that are compatible with the WordPress software platform.
- Metabox Management & Reorganization. Event Espresso leverages the WP user interface, which brings the ability to reorder the user interface to match your workflow process. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or entirely deleted from your workflow configuration.
- Flexibility, Autonomy & Value: According to the philosophy stated on their web site, Event Espresso’s goal 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 that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes over 40 additional features, including:
- Email shortcodes that includes participant data in emails and email updates.
- Default surcharge (the same as adding a service fee to all tickets).
- Default payment status.
Add ons
In addition to a comprehensive number of features, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow customers to further enhance the functionality of managing an event.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Grid Template Addon: 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, a default image will be used.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Template Add-on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes multiple datetime events into a drop-down list.
- Events Date Range Template Addon: The Date Range custom event list template allows your users to search for events that take place within a certain date range.
- Events Social Sharing Addon: Add social sharing features to the end of your Event Espresso “thank you” page that lets 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 lets you display your event lists in a number of exciting and interesting ways.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Add-on Editions: This add-on lets you include others in the event management process and give new users permission 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 allow them different permissions with different privileges, allowing staff to help you manage your events or the 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 parts 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.
- Multiple Event Registration Addon: The Multi-Event registration add-on gives potential attendees the ability to book multiple events at once. In each event listing attendees will be given the option to either register for a single event or add multiple events to their shopping cart. With the Multiple Event Registration add on, attendees can register for several events at once and even add additional attendees to any of the same events in the same checkout process.
- EE4 Events Calendar Addon: This add-on uses the WordPress calendar to display events and categories of events using a nice graphical calendar.
- JSON API Add on: The Event Espresso JSON API add-on enables other software applications, web tools, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso details through an API (Application Programming Interface).
Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin, including new add-ons.
To learn more about the latest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website:
Plugin Users – Testimonials
Here are just some of the testimonials that satisfied customers have written 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
”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
Useful Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, teacher, conference planner, or event management professional, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After downloading your copy of the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, visit the forums for inspiration and practical suggestions to streamline your event management and registration process or improve the experience of your event customers.
Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with other WP plugins and themes that follow WordPress coding standards. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent end-user support, as so many of its satisfied clients 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
Event Espresso provides amazing support that includes access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base 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 proven track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can count on to run and manage your events.
Plugin Pricing
Event Espresso is available in a range of editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software features, however, you need to consider downloading one of the premium plugin editions below:
- Personal Licensing – This option allows you to configure Event Espresso on one site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License – This edition allows you to configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer License Edition – This license lets you configure Event Espresso on 5 sites. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $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 sells for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Manager And Ticketing Registration Plugin For WordPress
Please Note: The pricing above was current when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the website.
Additional Information
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the plugin. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Look up the software’s online documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to a particular use-case, or to notify developers about bugs and give feedback.
For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product web site.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the preferred WordPress event booking and ticketing manager software, used by thousands of event promoters.
If you own a WordPress site and you intend to run any event that requires managing dates and venues (offline and online), registering attendees, and/or reserving 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 & Ticketing Management
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