Do you currently run or plan to run events that require managing bookings or registrations, such as seminars, training classes, not-for-profit fund raisers, networking conferences, or even a big event such as a food fair, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?
Managing event sign-ups is a complex process. You will probably need to manage scheduling, event dates, registration numbers, data processing and storage, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations and reservations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special requests and issuing tickets to event 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 replicate previous events, give event managers more control, improve client experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting this up can be expensive.
Fortunately, if you own a WordPress-based web site, you can easily install an inexpensive and highly professional web-based event registration solution.
Presenting …
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticketing Manager Software
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin allows you to easily set up an event and begin receiving online bookings in a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and accept online registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed application that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
Create custom registration forms
You can employ several event registration strategies, from simple online registration and straight up ticket sales, to setting up custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with social media sites like Facebook.
View detailed information about event attendees
Important: Currently, Event Espresso is transitioning between two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is impressively different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the platform has been rebuilt using a different structure to accommodate future growth. The EE 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The developers aim to eventually transition completely to Event Espresso 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the 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 existing digital presence into an automated and feature-rich event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to maximum seating limits, multiple pricing levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.
Higher Business Productivity
By using a web-based event registration solution like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by virtually doing away with the chore of processing registrations manually.
Essentially, you are facilitating event attendees to perform the enrolment process by themselves.
Letting your customers to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing administration and lets you spend more attention on organizing a more enjoyable event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will soon discover, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and registration process that you want your participants to experience.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Lower Costs: The Event Espresso plugin gives you a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to building your own software or using a third-party service provider. The cost is kept low through a model where you purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy add ons when you need additional functionality.
- Higher Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept new signups 24/7. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing features (see below) let people interested in attending your event invite other people they know who may also be interested in attending.
- Paperless Event Sign Up Process: With Event Espresso, the event sign up process remains entirely in digital form, eliminating traditional paper waste from tasks associated with administration.
- All Information Belongs To You. You control all the data collected from your event attendees.
Features
Event Espresso delivers functionality to users via built-in features (these come with the software) and optional features that users can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso provides a number of great features to WP users. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Custom Event Registration Form. Event Espresso lets you gather specific information using a custom event registration form on your web site to prepare a customized experience for your attendees.
- Custom Notification Emails. Easily set up automated booking and payment notification emails to communicate with your customers.
- Collect Payments. Event Espresso provides integration with payment gateways, enabling you to collect money prior to running events.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration allows event managers to customize the display of Google Maps on the event listing and event details sections.
- Spam Protection. Reduce the chance of spammers and bots creating fake registrations on your site with reCAPTCHA settings that authenticate human activity.
- In-App Documentation Systems. Event Espresso 4 includes 3 built-in in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
- Contact Profiles And Contact List. Event Espresso 4 provides you with the tools to know who your clients are and how they have done business with you.
- No Ticket Events. Set up events without requiring attendees to book tickets. Event Espresso can be used for all forms of events, not just when tickets are for sale.
- Public Commenting. Add “social proof” by encouraging potential prospects to ask questions about your event and previous participants to post feedback that can help others consider whether or not to enroll. Moderation settings for commenting are configured via the WordPress built-in commenting admin area.
- Draft (status) Events. Draft events allow you to build an event page at your own pace without displaying it live on your site. You can work on your event until you are ready to go live, or schedule to publish your event pages at a future date and time.
- Full Control Of Your Event Management. Event Espresso puts you in complete control of every aspect of your event’s registration and ticketing, and also allows you to automate this process with event management tools that include staff and venue management, customizable event page designs, payment processing, wait lists, attendee limits, print-ready tickets and more.
- Bulk Edit Events. Event Espresso 4 provides an advanced importing capability that enables you to upload bulk event data all at one time. You can export, edit and upload data for events, datetimes, ticketing information, pricing, custom registration questions, venue info, terms, taxonomies, term relationships and more.
- WordPress Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the built-in WP WYSIWYG editor, so you can quickly and easily add graphic images and format your event descriptions without knowledge of HTML or CSS, just like any typical WordPress post.
- Registrant Records. Manage your attendee’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their information organized and easily accessible.
- Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential attendees who have not paid in full for their registration with a standard but personalized PDF 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, a payment link and a url where they can download the invoice.
- Event Posts. Publish your events using pages or posts and take advantage of WordPress custom post type features such as custom fields, post meta data, taxonomies, etc. You can also customize your templates to display events in your own unique way.
Additional features include:
- Hooks, Actions & Filters. These features allow developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso application that are compatible with WordPress.
- Metabox Management And Organization. Event Espresso lets you leverage the WordPress user interface, which brings the ability to reorganize the user interface to suit your workflow processes. Each control box can be collapsed, re-arranged or deleted 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 goals, the company operates on a model that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money as a result.
The premium version of Event Espresso also provides you with over 40 added features, including:
- Duplicating events – reduces the need to re-enter event data when adding new events.
- Default surcharge (similar to applying a service fee to all tickets).
- Category titles and descriptions on event listings.
Add-Ons
As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add-ons”, which allow customers to further enhance the functionality of events.
Some of these addons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add on: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display upcoming events by location. There are four maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Management Add-on: The Recurring Events management add on lets you put your events on autopilot by scheduling repeated events weeks or months in advance. You can schedule as many events in the future as you like. Event Espresso will automatically open and close bookings for all recurring events.
- Events Category Accordion Template Addon: The Category Accordion template shows categories in a simple list. Clicking a category name shows all events associated with that category and closes previously open categories.
- 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 Add on: The Custom Template add on is capable of displaying your events in a variety of visually exciting ways.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Addon Editions: This add on lets you involve others in the event management process and give new users permission to create events or regional managers the ability to manage events. The Roles and Permissions Basic add-on allows you to manage & customize the WP users roles and assign them different permissions with different capabilities, so your staff can help you manage your events or the events that others create. You can customize roles so that a user does not have access to certain parts of your WP dashboard and/or certain parts of your Event Espresso settings. If you’d like to create geographic regions for other people to manage events, use the Roles and Permissions Pro add on.
- EE4 Event Ticketing Add on: The Ticketing addon gives you the ability to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add-on adds the capacity to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing add on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple bar code types are included for handling check-in scans at the venue door. People can either print out their tickets or display them on their mobile devices. The mobile app can be used for checking in or checking out registrants and to validate tickets.
- EE4 Events Table View Template Addon: The Events Table Template addon gives you an easy-to-use system that allows you to edit the design of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also allows developers to build custom templates using one of the included templates as a base template.
- EE4 Infusionsoft Integration Addon: With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration all-in-one sales and business marketing plugin add on, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns to seamlessly capture event attendee data, track enrollments, and accept payments from your Event Espresso powered website.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its software, including new add ons.
For full details about the latest Event Espreso features and add ons, check out the plugin here:
User Testimonials
Here are some of the many testimonials that satisfied plugin users 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
”Your plugin rocks! Seriously, saved me hours on the phone setting up attendance manually. Kudos. :)” William, Petruzzo Photography
”Event Espresso is very nice and functional plugin. Set it up is not very easy for a beginner like me, but you have one of the best support team in your side. They answer all questions in a timely manor. I didn’t know anything about setting up the plugins, Thanks to Event Espresso Support team that now I can find my way around this plugin. Event Espresso helps our company to manage the workshops, keep track of our students, manage the emails, and much more. We upgrade from personal License to Business license in just two weeks of using Personal license. I strongly recommend the Business license.” Ted Karlsalr, Omnilargess
Useful Tips
Whether you are an education services provider, teacher, event promoter, or event professional, there are just countless possibilities of what you can do with the Event Espresso software.
After purchasing the plugin and becoming a registered user, go through the user forum for inspiration and practical ways to improve your event management and registration workflow and improve the experience of your event participants.
Support
Event Espresso works with with all WP plugins and WP themes that follow standard WP coding rules. If you have problems with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent user support, as so many of its satisfied customers 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
Event Espresso provides amazing support with access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, one-on-one 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 developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely software you can depend on to manage your events.
Event Espresso Pricing
Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (called Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software options, however, you will want to consider purchasing one of the paid plugin editions below:
- Personal License Edition – This edition allows you to set up Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License – This lets you set up Event Espresso on 1 site only. Pricing includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
- Developer Licensing – This lets you run Event Espresso on five sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $249.95.
Pricing details of the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin retails for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current price: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticketing Manager
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing when this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the website.
Additional Info
The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its plugin. Make sure to register for their newsletter when you visit their site to receive the latest information and updates.
Use the software’s online documentation tools to find answers to common questions about setting up and how to use Event Espresso, and the support forums for questions related to a specific use-case, or to report bugs and leave feedback.
For detailed 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 manager plugin, used and trusted by thousands.
If you own a WordPress-powered web site and you plan to run any event that requires managing dates, times and venues, enrolling attendees, and/or booking tickets, then you will probably not find a better plugin for your needs than Event Espresso.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – Event Manager And Ticketing Registration System For WordPress
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