Event Espresso – WordPress Event Management Plugin

Do you currently run or plan to run events that require managing bookings, such as workshops, community courses, charity fundraisers, corporate events, or even a large-scale event like a dance party, 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 most likely be required to manage calendar schedules, available dates and spaces, participant numbers, data entry, payment processing and sending invoices, confirmations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and providing tickets to attendees.

There are many advantages to setting up an automated web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower costs, help you easily replicate previous events, give you more control, improve customer experience and increase your sales.

The problem is that this can be quite costly.

The good news is that if you own a WordPress-based digital presence, you can set up an inexpensive and professional web-based event registration system.

Announcing …

Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticket Management Software

Plugin Description

The Event Espresso online event registration plugin lets you easily schedule an event and begin accepting registrations literally in a few minutes.

(Event Espresso lets you set up multiple events and process online event bookings)

Event Espresso is a feature-rich plugin that gives you complete control over your event registration management process.

Create custom event registration forms

You can use a range of event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up ticket-selling, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your event attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media and autoresponders.

View detailed information about your event attendees

Important: At the time of writing this review, Event Espresso offers two different versions of their software: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is fundamentally different than the older EE 3, as the plugin has been redeveloped 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 developers aim to eventually retire Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.

Learn more here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticketing Manager Software

Plugin 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 online presence into a feature-rich and professional event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple pricing options and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.

Increased Business Productivity

By using a web-based event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by virtually eliminating the need to process registrations manually.

Basically, you are facilitating attendees to enrol on their own.

Letting your participants to do the data themselves frees up your time and lets you concentrate more of your energy on delivering a memorable event.

Complete Control Over The User Experience

As you will learn shortly, Event Espresso gives you full control over the event management process that you want your users to experience.

Some additional plugin benefits include:

• Reduced Costs: Event Espresso provides you with a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to building your own solution or using a third-party service provider. This is made possible by using a model where Event Espresso users start with the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then purchase optional addons when you need additional functionality.
• Increased Sales: Event Espresso allows you to accept new event signups any time of day or night. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social and marketing features and addons (see below) let people interested in attending your event invite others who may be interested.
• Green Event Sign-Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event registration process remains wholly online, eliminating typical paper consumption from tasks related to administration.
• Own Your Information. You own all the information acquired from your event attendees.

Features

Event Espresso provides functionality to its users via built-in features (these are included with the plugin) and optional features that users can buy for an added cost, called add-ons.

Event Espresso offers many great built-in to website owners. Here are just a few:

• Fast and simple to install and configure. Ready to use in minutes.
• Multiple Ticket And Pricing Options. Event Espresso lets you create as many kinds of tickets as you want and set prices, ticket quantity limits, etc.
• Custom Notification Emails. Easily set up automated registration and payment notification emails to communicate with your participants.
• Tax Administration. Event Espresso 4 gives you a number of ways to administer taxes for your event and report tax fee components to customers when purchasing tickets. You can administer taxes globally and on a ticket-by-ticket basis.
• Custom Post Types. You can Event Espresso into your WP theme and reuse contact data throughout other areas of your site.
• Spam Protection. Reduce the likelihood of spamming and bot software programs creating fake registrations by using reCAPTCHA settings that provide human authentication.
• Discount And Promotional Codes. Leverage promotional and multiple discount codes to encourage visitors to take action without delaying, or make your offers more attractive for price-sensitive customers. This is also practical for helping to sell out events close to timelines.
• Manual Registration. you have the option of registering event participants when they show up, or send in paper-based registration forms for manual processing later.
• No Ticket Events. List events without making it necessary for registrants to book tickets. Event Espresso can be used for all kinds of events, not just those that require tickets.
• Public Commenting. Add social engagement to your event pages by encouraging potential customers to ask questions about your event and previous participants to post reviews that can help others choose whether or not to register. Moderation settings for comments are configured via the WordPress default commenting section.
• Works With The Most Recent Version Of WP. The Event Espresso 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you create visually attractive event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
• Your Organization Settings. Configure your profile to be deployed throughout Event Espresso and your front-end templates. Organization information include: company name, address, city, state, country, zip code, email, phone number, tax number, your logo, Facebook URL, Twitter profile URL, LinkedIn URL, Pinterest URL, Google+ URL, Instagram profile URL.
• Default Tickets. If you find yourself creating similar tickets for your events, you can automatically set one of those tickets as your default ticket for your new events simply by checking a box.
• Venue Management. The venue manager in EE 4 lets details about venues to be made available throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front-end of your site to inform registrants of the location of your event. The venue profile displays many of the standard WordPress settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also includes details such as venue seating capacity, venue web address, telephone number, venue address, map, etc. You can also list venues on different locations of your theme as well as on a venue listing page on your site where you can set up and publish venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have booked for a given venue.
• Automatic Software Installation Upgrading. Event Espresso provides simple 1-click software installation updating to make sure that you have the latest features and to keep your installation working with new versions of WordPress.
• Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event customers who have not paid in full for their admission with a standard but personalized invoice with just one click. Your invoices will address registered participants who have not paid their registration yet by name, display the amount owing, and include a link to the event information, a payment url and a link to download the invoice.
• Accurate Event Attendee Manager. You control your participants’ records; who has enrolled, for what event and what amount they paid. With the attendee manager, you can get an overview of registered participants and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export an event attendee list to a CSV file for additional reports, send custom payment reminders and receipts and send messages to your event attendees individually or all at once.

Additional features include:

• Hooks, Actions And Filters. These allow developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso software that are compatible with WordPress.
• Maintenance Mode. Pause registration capabilities for regular site visitors whenever site maintenance is required. You can still work on your event pages during maintenance mode.
• Flexibility, Autonomy 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 goals, the software has been built using a modular and efficient model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.

The premium version of Event Espresso also includes 40+ added features, including:

• Email shortcodes for including customer data in emails and updates.
• Default surcharge (similar to applying a service tax to all tickets).
• Option to skip the confirmation page in registration.

Add-Ons

As mentioned previously, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow you to significantly expand the functionality of your event management system.

Some of these add ons include:

• EE4 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 available, it will use a default image.
• Recurring Events Manager Add-on: The Recurring Events manager add-on lets you put your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months in advance. You can schedule as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in advance as you like. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all of your recurring events.
• Events Date Range Template Addon: The Date Range custom event list template allows your users to browse for events that take place in a certain date range.
• Social Coupons Integration Addon: If your site uses Groupon.com you can easily accept Groupon codes to your events. You can even specify whether events accept the social coupons or not.
• Custom Template Addon: The Custom Template add-on lets you display your event lists in a range of exciting and interesting ways.
• Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Addon Versions: This addon lets you involve other staff in your organization to help manage your events and give new users permission to create events or regional managers the capacity to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WP users roles and give them different permissions with different privileges, allowing others to help you manage your events or the events that other people create. You can customize roles so that a user does not have access to certain areas of your WP dashboard and/or certain areas 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 addon.
• Multi-Event Registration Add-on: The Multi-Event registration addon gives potential attendees 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 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 addon uses the WordPress calendar to display events and categories of events using an attractive 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 add-on, you can easily automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture event attendee data, track registrations, and accept payments from your website.

Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its software, including new add-ons.

For more details about the newest Event Espreso features and add-ons, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticketing Management Software

Customer Feedback

Below are some of the many testimonials that satisfied plugin users have written about Event Espresso:

”My hope with this whole integration is to be able to show other school districts an affordable and easy solution to these registrations. I cannot believe how much money they are charged for less by other companies. This has the potential to save schools tens of thousands, which is huge right now.” Kelly, College Station Independent School District

”When you can get a company to expend more money switching systems just to use your plugin…you’ve really accomplished something.” David, House of Prayer

”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

Plugin Tips

Whether you are a gym owner, teacher, event planner, or event professional, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.

After purchasing the plugin and becoming a licensed user, search the support forum for useful ideas and practical suggestions to improve your event management workflow or improve the experience of your event participants.

Support

Event Espresso works with with most WP plugins and themes that follow standard WordPress coding guidelines. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive support, as many of its end-users attest:

”Your plugin saved our client nearly $9000 in development costs because it handled the majority of the functionality we were looking for at a much lower cost. EventEspresso’s staff have been very responsive to our needs when we have them (which has been rare, because the plugin is so well coded). Great job on a great plugin!” Brandon P., Experience Farm

The Event Espresso software provides great support including access to a support forum, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, custom development 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 web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely software you can depend on to organize and manage your events.

Product Pricing

Event Espresso is available in different editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin features, however, you should consider downloading one of the paid plugin versions below:

• Personal Licensing – This edition allows you to run Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $69.95.
• Everything Licensing – This option allows you to install Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
• Developer License – This enables you to set up Event Espresso on 5 sites. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.

Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the plugin is being retailed for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Event Espresso – Event Espresso

Please Note: The above reflects the pricing when this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site.

Event Espresso – Additional Plugin Information

Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.

Use the software’s documentation pages to find answers to common questions about setup and how to use Event Espresso, and visit the support forums if you have questions related to a particular use-case, or to report errors and share feedback.

For detailed installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product site.

Our Recommendation

Event Espresso is the preferred WP event registration and ticketing management software, used and trusted by thousands of WP site owners.

If you are a WordPress site owner and you currently run events that require scheduling dates, times and venues, enrolling attendees, and reserving tickets, then you will probably not find a more suitable WP plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.

For full details, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso

***

Recommended WordPress Themes And Plugins:

***

Disclaimer: WordPress and its related trademarks are registered trademarks of Automattic, Inc. This site and the services and products offered on this site are not affiliated, associated, sponsored, or endorsed by WordPress, nor have they been certified, tested, or reviewed by WordPress. The owner, contributors and/or advertisers may derive financial benefit from sales of items linked to, advertised, or reviewed on this site.

***

Did you enjoy this post? If so, please take a moment and share this information with other website owners using the social links below.