Does your business currently run or plan to run events that need handling bookings or registrations, such as workshops, community classes, non-profit fund-raisers, corporate conferences, or even a large-scale event such as a music festival, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Managing event registrations can be a time-consuming process. You will probably need to co-ordinate event schedules, dates, registration numbers, data administration, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and providing tickets to participants.
There are a number of benefits to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower costs, help you easily duplicate recurring events, give you more control, create a better user experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that this can be quite expensive.
The good news is that if you own a WordPress-powered web site, you can easily install a very inexpensive and highly professional web-based event booking system.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – Event Manager & Registration Software For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin allows you to easily set up multiple events and begin processing bookings literally in minutes.
(Set up multiple events and receive online event bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed plugin that gives you complete control of your event registration management process.
Create custom event registration forms
You can use a number of event registration strategies, from simple online enrollments and straight up selling tickets, to creating custom registration forms in order to better understand your event attendees, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing follow-ups.
Access detailed information about event attendees
Note: Currently, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is significantly different than the older EE 3, as it is being rebuilt using a different structure to enable future growth. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually transition completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about the benefits and features of using this plugin.
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just some of the many 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 current digital presence into a fully-featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Better Business Productivity
By using an online event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by virtually doing away with the chore of processing registrations and sign-ups manually.
Basically, you are facilitating event participants to perform the sign-up process on their own.
Allowing your enrollees to do the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you concentrate more resources on organizing a memorable event.
More Control Over The User Experience
As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your attendees to experience.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Significantly Lower Costs: Event Espresso gives you a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a 3rd party service provider. This is made possible by using a model where you pay for the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and buy add-ons when you need new features.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept online registrations any time of day or night. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event share your information with their friends who may also be interested.
- Paperless Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event registration process can be conducted entirely online, significantly reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks related to admin and record-keeping.
- Own Your Data. You own all the information acquired from your event attendees.
Features
The Event Espresso plugin provides functionality to its users through built-in features (these come with the software) and optional features that you can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides many built-in to WP users. Here are just some of these:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Ready to start accepting registrations in no time.
- Multiple Dates and Times Per Event. In EE 4, events can have many dates and times (datetimes), which these can be managed from one single event.
- Customized Notification Emails. Easily configure custom automatic booking and payment confirmation email messages to communicate with your customers.
- Ticket Selector. Present multiple ticket options to prospects and let them purchase the ticket(s) that best suits their needs.
- Intelligent Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is smart, fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary attendee’s registration details for any added attendees.
- Spam Protection. Eliminate the chance of spamming and robots creating fake registrations on your site by using reCAPTCHA settings that confirm human activity.
- Mobile Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system enables you to validate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, create multiple check-in “stations” and track attendees.
- Manual Registration Option. you have the option of booking event participants when they show up, or sending in paper forms for manual submission later.
- No-Ticket Events. You can list events without requiring participants to get tickets. Use Event Espresso for any type of event, not just when tickets are for sale.
- Public Commenting. Add “social proof” by encouraging potential registrants to interact with you online via commenting and past participants to post comments that can help others decide whether or not to register. Moderation settings for public comments are specified in the WordPress native commenting admin area.
- Optimized For The Latest WP Version. The EE 4 user interface follows all WordPress guidelines to help you create beautiful event pages that are easier to use and mobile-friendly.
- Multi-Language Plugin. Event Espresso is currently available in over 15 languages, with more translations planned.
- Upload Events. EE 4 provides an advanced importing feature that lets you quickly upload bulk event data at once. You can export, edit and import details about events, datetimes, ticketing information, pricing, registration questions, venue info, terminology, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- WordPress WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the standard WP WYSIWYG editor, so you can quickly and easily add images and write your content without knowing HTML or CSS, just like any WordPress post.
- A Community Of Event Experts. Event Espresso lets you interact with an expert community of event managers and plugin users. You can interact with other Event Espresso users through their community chat room, support forums, job board, and social media discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
- Social Sharing. Event participants and your website visitors can help increase exposure for your event using social share buttons.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post types. You can even customize the templates to display events in your own custom way.
Additional features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming. Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical WP users, and also robust and customizable for enterprise-level users and web developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, Event Espresso 4 allows for more complex extensions and customizations to the software.
- Control Box Management & Organization. Event Espresso lets you leverage the WP user interface, which gives you the ability to reconfigure the user interface to match your workflow. Each meta box can be collapsed, re-arranged or completely removed 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 company operates on a modular and efficient model 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 customer data in confirmation emails and updates.
- Default surcharge (the same as applying a service tax to tickets).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Add ons
In addition to a very large array of features, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow plugin users to further enhance the capabilities of managing your event.
Some of these add ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add on: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display scheduled events by location. 4 maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Drop-down Template Add-on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes many datetime events into a dropdown list.
- Events Date Range Template Add on: The Date Range custom event list template allows your users to search for events that take place within a certain date range.
- Social Coupons Integration Addon: If your website uses Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can even specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration addon lets you take advantage of the WordPress user system. With the WP User Integration addon you can give your users a special incentive by offering member pricing and overriding event pricing when your members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered website users will have access to these special events. Members can also input personal details into their profile page allowing them fast registration for events by auto-filling in the personal information on the event booking form. Your users can also view past events and pay for new events.
- Seating Chart Addon: The seating chart add-on is suitable 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 addon allows you to offer reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues from your WordPress website. The Seating Chart add on lets you control the environment for your attendees and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to every seat.
- EE4 Event Ticketing Add on: The Ticketing add-on adds the capacity to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon adds the capacity to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing addon includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for managing check-in scans at venues. Customers 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 attendees and to validate tickets.
- EE4 Events Calendar Add-on: This WordPress events calendar displays events and categories of events in an attractive graphical calendar.
- EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Add on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and business marketing plugin addon, you can easily automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture customer data, track registrations, and accept payments from your Event Espresso powered website.
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, check out the plugin here:
Testimonials
Below are just some of the testimonials that customers have written about Event Espresso:
”Thanks to you and the rest of the team for Event Espresso – Every time I get a signup for an event, I think about how much time EE saves me – and signups happen while I’m out on the water teaching kayaking, not answering the phone. :-)” Tue Brems Olesen, OnAdventure
”I recently downloaded it to add to a nonprofit site for a Boy Scout troop and the features work wonderfully with what we wanted to accomplish for the site. It allows us to set up calendar, events, and even take payments for trips. At first, I thought that it would be overkill for such a small site, but now I see the possibilities and will definitely be offering Event Espresso to my clients that need an event organization system for their web sites.” Lucy Conn, Troop 462
”At first we looked at CVENT for one of our clients and they wanted $16,000 per year for 3000 event attendees + fees totaling $22k. That is before Staff and Webinar fees. Worst of all we had to prepay the $16k amount even if we never used all 3000 attendees. That was when we looked at Event Espresso and we realized we could build our own event system for less than 16K. For the most part we have been very satisfied with our decision. The real ROI will come next year when they don’t have to pay another 16k-22K! Over the next 5-6 years we should be able to claim that we saved the company over $100,000 – Thanks Event Espresso!” David Waterman (Long Version), KT Benefits & InkItDigital.com
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, trainer, workshop planner, or event 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 registered user, search the support forum for inspiration and practical suggestions to improve your event management and registration process or improve the experience of your customers.
Product Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with other WP plugins and WP themes that follow WP coding standards. If you find that you need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides great end-user support, as so many of its end-users confirm:
“I’m really impressed with not only the application itself but the support. I have rarely seen such a responsive support staff than at EE. They rock…I highly recommend this plugin!” sock2me
The software provides robust support with access to a support forum, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, custom development 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.
Additionally, Event Espresso boasts an established team of experienced WordPress developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a plugin you can count on to organize and manage your events.
Product Cost
Event Espresso is available in a number of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software features, however, you should consider purchasing one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This allows you to set up Event Espresso on 1 site only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License – This license enables you to configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer License – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on five domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons 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 specials being offered. Currently, the software retails for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Manager
Note: The above reflects the pricing when this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site.
Additional Info
Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to its plugin. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.
Search the plugin’s documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to your specific situation, or to notify developers about bugs and leave feedback.
For detailed documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product web site.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the preferred WP event registration and ticketing management software, used and trusted by thousands of users.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you intend to run events that require managing dates, times and venues, booking participants, and reserving tickets, then you will probably not find a better software for your needs than Event Espresso.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso
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