Does your organization currently run or plan to run events that require handling registrations, such as seminars, training courses, non-profit fundraisers, marketing conferences, or even a big event such as a music festival, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?
Co-ordinating event bookings is a complex process. You have to manage event schedules, dates, registration numbers, data collection and storage, collecting payments and invoicing, confirmations, reminders and notifications, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and providing tickets to event attendees.
There are a number of advantages to setting up a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower costs, help you easily reproduce previously-run events, give event managers more control, improve user experience and grow your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be quite costly.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-based website or blog, you can set up an inexpensive and highly professional online event booking solution.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticketing Registration Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration WordPress plugin lets you easily create your event and begin accepting online bookings literally in minutes.
(Set up multiple events and accept online bookings with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed software that gives you complete control over the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can employ a number of event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up selling tickets, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing follow-ups.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Please Note: Currently, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their software: EE 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is fundamentally different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the plugin is being revamped using a different structure to allow for future expansion. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The developers aim to eventually phase out EE 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.
Learn more about the plugin here:
Benefits Of Using Event Espresso
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your website or blog:
Hands-Free Event Registration Management
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website or blog into a fully-featured event management site … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even 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 doing away with the need to process registrations and signups manually.
Essentially, you are facilitating participants to complete the registration process on their own.
Letting your attendees to do the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you direct more attention on creating a more enjoyable event.
Complete Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon learn, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management process that you want your attendees to experience.
Additional benefits include:
- Reduced Costs: Event Espresso is a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to building your own system or using a 3rd-party service. The cost is kept low through a model where Event Espresso users start with the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then buy optional add ons only if you need new features.
- More Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online bookings outside traditional business hours. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social sharing features and add-ons (see below) let people interested in registering for your event share your information with their friends who may be interested.
- Green Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event registration process can remain entirely in digital form, reducing typical paper consumption from tasks associated with admin and record-keeping.
- All Data Belongs To You. You own all the data you collect from your event participants.
Plugin Features
The Event Espresso plugin provides functionality to users via built-in features (these are included with the plugin) and optional features that customers can buy for an additional cost, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides a number of great features to WordPress users. Here are just some:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have many dates and times (datetimes), which these can be managed from a single event.
- Customizable Event Designs. Match your website’s look and feel for your events and enrollments page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and elements, and HTML or CSS.
- Ticket Selector. Present a number of ticket options to prospective attendees so they can purchase the ticket(s) that best fits their needs.
- Smart Single Page Checkout. The Event Espresso 4 checkout process is fast and intuitive. Registrants are given the option to automatically duplicate the primary attendee’s registration information for any additional registrants.
- Default Prices. Create events quickly and easily by pre-configuring default pricing.
- Mobile Registration And Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system lets you validate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, create various check-in “stations” and track participants.
- Manual Registration. you have the option of booking event attendees at the door, or send in paper registration forms for manual processing later.
- Event Manager Pre-approval. Be selective about who can attend your events.
- Public Commenting. Add social engagement to your events page by encouraging potential customers to interact with you online via commenting and past attendees to post comments that can help others choose whether or not to sign up. Moderation settings for commenting are set up using the WordPress commenting section.
- SEO Friendly Page URLs. Keyword rich event page Web links leverage your WordPress Permalinks configuration settings. SEO-friendly permalinks that use relevant keywords enhance the context of your content and is favored by search engines, helping you bring a more targeted audience to your site.
- Your Organization Settings. you can configure your organization’s profile to be deployed throughout Event Espresso and your WP themes. The organization fields include: company name, street address, city, state, country, zip/postal code, email, phone number, tax number, logo, Facebook profile URL, Twitter URL, LinkedIn profile URL, Pinterest URL, Google+ URL, Instagram URL.
- Exportable Information. You can export all of your data gathered from event attendees into Excel or CSV format for creating advanced reports, planning new marketing strategies, reviewing attendee statistics, etc..
- Register Multiple Event Participants. Event Espresso 4 allows an individual or people to pay for multiple tickets and different ticket types simultaneously. Event managers can control how many people are allowed to register in a single registration session by specifying either limits on ticket purchases per order, or per-ticket minimums and maximums.
- Attendee Profiles. Manage your attendee’s profiles and payment history and keep all of their information organized.
- Team Member Management. Save time and keep your business 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 multiple types of events like free and paid, workshops and breakout sessions, different kinds of courses, etc. you can categorize them to make it easier for event attendees to locate what they’re looking for. You can list all events in a category on an event category page, make events searchable by category, and color-code your events on the Event Espresso events calendar to make them easier to find, as well as suggesting other events in the categories that appeal to your visitors.
Extra features include:
- Object-Oriented Programming. Event Espresso is simple enough for non-technical users, and also robust and customizable for higher end users and developers. The bottom line is that by using OOP, Event Espresso 4 makes possible more complex extensions and customizations to the application.
- Control Box Management & Reorganization. Event Espresso leverages the WP user interface, which brings the ability to reorder the user interface to match your workflow. Each meta box can be collapsed, re-arranged or removed from your page.
- 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 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 version of Event Espresso also comes with over 40 added features, including:
- Email shortcodes for including registrant data in emails and newsletters.
- Question groups that simplify the process of reusing the same questions for similar events.
- Option to skip the confirmation page in registration.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
In addition to an incredible range of features, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow users to significantly enhance the capabilities of managing your event.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display all scheduled events by location. 4 maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Dropdown Template Add-on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template lets you organize events with multiple datetimes into a dropdown list.
- Events Category Accordion Template Add on: The Category Accordion template shows the categories as a simple list. Clicking a category name displays all events related to that category and closes previously open categories.
- 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 any of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on lets you take full advantage of the WP user system. With the WP User Integration addon you can give users a special incentive by offering member pricing and overriding event prices when your members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered site users can have access to your special events. Members can also add personal information into their profile page allowing them fast registration for events by auto-filling in their personal information on the event booking form. Users can also look up event history and pay for events.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Add on Editions: This addon lets you involve others in your organization to help manage your events and give new users the capacity to create events or regional managers the ability 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, allowing staff to 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 parts of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to allow users to control factors geographically for events and users, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add-on.
- EE4 Event Ticketing And Bar Scanning Add-on: The Ticketing add on gives you the capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on gives you the capacity to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing addon includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for handling check-in scans at venues. Registrants 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 add on uses the WP calendar to display events and categories of events in a nice graphical calendar.
- Infusionsoft Integration Add on: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft App and Merchant Account integration all-in-one sales and business marketing software addon, you can easily automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture registrant data, track registrations, and accept payments from your website.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software, including new add ons.
For more information about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, check out the plugin here:
Customer Feedback
Below are some of the many great testimonials that satisfied plugin users have written about Event Espresso:
”EventEspresso saves us money, saves our secretary 16-24 hours and looks so professionally done that people ask us how we do it; which we happily tell them, “Event Espresso, and be sure to get the ticketing add-on.”” David, House of Prayer
”This really is a hell of a plugin. For me, it’s probably the final nail in the coffin for Joomla, as WP can now pretty much do EVERYTHING Joomla does, but better. Love the simplicity of this plugin!” Sam, Web Contempo
”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
Useful Tips
Whether you are a gym owner, presenter, seminar planner, or event management professional, there are simply endless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso plugin.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a licensed user, go through the user forum for new ideas and practical suggestions to streamline your event management workflow or improve the experience of your attendees.
Support
Event Espresso is fully compatible with most WP plugins and WordPress themes that follow WP coding standards. If you find that you need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive customer support, as many of its satisfied plugin customers 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
Event Espresso provides exceptional 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 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 a well-staffed team of experienced WordPress web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely a solution you can depend on to organize and manage your events.
Software Price
Event Espresso is available in various editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For personal support and advanced plugin features, however, you will want to consider purchasing one of the ”Pro” plugin editions below:
- Personal License – This license enables you to set up Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything Edition – This license option allows you to set up Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This allows you to set up Event Espresso on 5 domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (addons sold separately) and 1 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 specials being offered. Currently, the plugin is selling for the pricing 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 or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the site.
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.
Search the plugin’s online documentation pages for answers to common questions about setting up and using Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to your specific use-case, or to report problems and leave feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso web site.
The Bottom Line
Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event booking and ticketing manager software, used and trusted by thousands of users.
If you own a WordPress-powered site and you plan to run an event that requires managing dates and venues (offline and online), booking participants, and booking tickets or seating, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Event Espresso
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