Does your organization currently run or plan to run events that require bookings or registrations, such as seminars, training classes, charity fund-raisers, corporate functions, or even a big event like a festival, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Co-ordinating event sign-ups can be a complex process. You will probably need to manage calendar schedules, event dates, attendee numbers, data processing and storage, collecting payments and invoicing, confirmations, reminders and notifications, cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to participants.
There are many benefits to setting up an online event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce costs, help you easily copy settings for recurring events, give event managers more control, improve customer experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be very costly.
The good news is that if you run a WordPress-powered site, you can easily install a very inexpensive and professional online event booking solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Management Plugin
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin enables you to easily set up multiple events and begin processing registrations literally in a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and process online bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich plugin that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.
Customize your event registration forms
You can employ various event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket sales, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event attendees, or integrating your event bookings with social media sites like Facebook.
View detailed information about your event attendees
Note: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is considerably different than the older EE 3, as the software is being rebuilt using a different structure to enable future growth. The Event Espresso 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually move completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.
Learn more here:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Automated Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing digital presence into an automated and feature-rich event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to attendee limits, multiple price 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 manually.
Basically, you are making it easier for attendees to enrol on their own.
Allowing your clients to do all of the data entry frees up your time and lets you spend more resources on delivering a memorable event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will discover shortly, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management and registration process that you want your participants to experience.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin gives you a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to developing your own solution or using a third-party service provider. The cost is kept low through a model where users start with the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy optional add-ons when you need additional functionality.
- More Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept new event signups 24/7. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features (see below) let people interested in registering for your event share your information with friends who may also be interested.
- Paperless Event Booking Process: With Event Espresso, your event sign-up process remains entirely in digital form, significantly reducing traditional paper consumption from tasks related to administration.
- All Information Belongs To You. You control all the data you collect from event participants.
Event Espresso Features
The Event Espresso software delivers functionality to its customers via standard features (these come with the software) and additional features that users can buy for an added cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many built-in to site owners. Here are just some:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso lets you set up as many kinds of tickets as you need and set unique pricing options, number of tickets, etc.
- Custom Confirmation Emails. Easily configure automated registration and payment confirmation emails to communicate with event attendees.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso provides integration with payment gateways, allowing you to collect booking payments prior to running events.
- Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your WP theme and display attendee details throughout other areas of your site.
- Default Price Types. Price types allow event managers to create new prices that adjust the default ticket price of your default ticket.
- Discount & Promotional Codes. You can leverage promotion and discount codes to encourage visitors to take action now, or make your events more appealing for others. Also useful for helping to sell-out events close to timelines.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. Event Espresso 4 lets you know who your clients are and how you’ve done past business with your customers. The Contact Profile section records the name, biography, contact information, event registration history, private comments, and more about each customer.
- Ticketless Events. Set up events without making it necessary for attendees to get tickets. Use Event Espresso for all types of events, not just when tickets are needed.
- XML RSS Feeds. Keep your customers up-to-date about your events, drive quality traffic and expand your content distribution with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Optimized For The Latest WP Version. The EE 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you build beautifully-designed event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Multi-Language Software. Event Espresso is is available in over 15 languages, with more translations coming soon.
- Default Tickets. If you find yourself creating similar tickets for your events, you can set up as your default ticket for your new events simply by checking a box.
- Event Venue Management. The venue manager in EE 4 allows details about a venue to be published throughout the Event Espresso admin and the public areas of your website to inform attendees of your event’s location. The venue record displays many standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also displays venue information such as venue capacity, venue site URL, telephone number, venue address, location map, etc. You can also list venues in specific areas on your WP theme and on a venue archive page on your website where you can set up and display venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have booked for a particular venue.
- Registrant Profiles. You can manage each registrant’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their records organized.
- Social Sharing. Event attendees and website visitors can spread the word about your event using social media sharing 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 unique way.
Extra features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These allow web developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso application that are compatible with WordPress.
- Full Logging, Remote Logging. Event Espresso 4 allows you to output a log file with debugging data that can be useful for web developers who are potential problems.
- Autonomy, Flexibility And 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 company operates on a modular 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:
- Email shortcodes for including customer data in emails and newsletters.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing a group of questions for similar events.
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow you to significantly enhance the functionality of events.
Some of these add ons include:
- EE4 Events Grid Template Add on: 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 Custom Template Add-on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes multiple datetime events into a dropdown list.
- 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 also be customized to display the event thumbnail image instead of a date.
- Social Media Buttons Add-on: 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.
- Custom Template Add-on: The Custom Template add-on is capable of displaying your event lists in a number of exciting and interesting ways.
- Seating Chart Addon: The seating chart add on is great for venues and events that sell and reserve seats for attendees in advance. This is ideal 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 right from your WordPress site. The Seating Chart add on lets you control the experience for your customers and design assigned seating charts and attach a single price to every seat.
- Multi-Event Registration Addon: The Multiple Event registration add-on gives your potential customers the ability to register for multiple events at once. In each event listing registrants will be given the option to either register for a single event or add multiple events to their cart. With the Multi-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 Add-on: This WordPress events calendar displays events and event categories using an attractive graphical calendar.
- Infusionsoft Integration Add on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and marketing software add-on, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture customer data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your web site.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software, including new add ons.
For more details about the newest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website:
User Feedback
Below are some of the many testimonials that satisfied users have posted about Event Espresso:
”Congratulations on an absolutely fantastic plugin. I’m really impressed with its functionality and add on features and will definitely upgrade my client’s production site to the premium version (when ready for launch) to incorporate all the features. As I have told another client “this plugin is the cat’s meow”.” Pete Mansel
”I searched long and hard to find something that would serve my needs. This is, by far, the most complete and comprehensive solution I have found.” Bill Hepper, We Teach Live
”I’m using it on multiple sites and enjoying it. It’s simple and as others have stated… fast service and real help.” Arlen Nagata
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, trainer, event planner, or event consultant, there are simply unlimited possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a registered owner, visit the support forum for inspiration and practical suggestions to streamline your event management and registration workflow and improve the experience of your event attendees.
Product Support
Event Espresso works with with most WP plugins and themes that follow WP coding standards. If you find that you need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent user support, as many of its satisfied 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 Event Espresso software provides robust support including access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, priority 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 a well-staffed team of experienced web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can rely on to run and manage your events.
Event Espresso Price
Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin options, however, you should consider using one of the premium plugin editions below:
- Personal Licensing – This option lets you run Event Espresso on one domain only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This option enables you to configure Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Edition – This license lets you run Event Espresso on five domains. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.
The price of the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin retails for the prices shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Espresso
Note: The pricing above was current at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the website.
Additional Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its software. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the software’s documentation pages for answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums for questions related to your specific situation, or to report issues and leave feedback.
For all installation and support 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 software, used and trusted by thousands of companies.
If you own a WordPress website and you currently run events that require scheduling dates, times and venues, registering attendees, and booking seating, then you will probably not find a better plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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