Do you currently run or plan to run events that need to accept bookings, such as seminars, training classes, non-profit fund raisers, marketing events, or even a large-scale event such as a trade exhibit, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend?

Managing event registrations can be a complex process. You have to co-ordinate scheduling, dates, registration numbers, data processing, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and delivering tickets to participants.

There are many advantages to setting up an automated web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and reduce costs, help you easily reproduce repeat events, give event managers more control, create a better user experience and increase your sales.

The problem is that this can be very expensive.

Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-based digital presence, you can easily set up a very inexpensive and professional online event registration solution.

Introducing …

Event Espresso

Plugin Description

The Event Espresso online event registration plugin enables you to easily schedule multiple events and begin accepting online registrations in minutes.

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

Event Espresso is a feature-packed application that gives you complete control over the event registration management process.

Create custom event registration forms

You can use various event registration strategies, from simple online sign-ups and straight up ticket sales, to creating custom registration forms for collecting detailed information about your attendees, or integrating your event registration forms with an autoresponder system for ongoing notifications.

View detailed information about your event attendees

Please Note: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso provides two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is fundamentally different than the older EE 3, as the platform has been redeveloped using a different structure to accommodate future growth and expansion. The EE 4 plugin platform has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The company plans to eventually move completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Event Espresso – WordPress Event Manager & Ticket Registration Plugin

Benefits Of Using Event Espresso

Here are just some of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:

Hands-Free Event Registration Management

Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your current website or blog into a feature-rich and professional event management website … from custom registration forms and automated emails, to seating limits, multiple price levels and discount codes, to printable tickets and even seating charts.

Higher Business Productivity

By using a web-based event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by virtually eliminating the chore of processing registrations and bookings manually.

Essentially, you are enabling participants to perform the registration process themselves.

Allowing your participants to do all of the data themselves frees you up from doing admin work and lets you direct more time on creating a memorable event.

Full Control Over The User Experience

As you will learn in a moment, Event Espresso gives you complete control over the event management process that you want your attendees to experience.

Some additional plugin benefits include:

• Lower Costs: Event Espresso gives you an inexpensive online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third party service. The cost is kept low through a model where you buy the core plugin (which suits the needs of most users) and then buy add ons only if you need additional features.
• Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online event sign-ups any time of day or night. In addition, Event Espresso social sharing and marketing add-ons (see below) let people interested in registering for your event share your information with others who may be interested in attending.
• Green Event SignUp Process: With Event Espresso, the event registration process can remain wholly online, reducing typical paper waste from tasks related to enrollment.
• Own Your Information. You control all the data you acquire from event participants.

Plugin Features

The Event Espresso plugin delivers functionality to users via standard features (these are included with the plugin) and additional features that customers can purchase, called add-ons.

Event Espresso offers a number of great features to site owners. Here are just a few:

• Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to use in minutes.
• Multiple Times and Dates Per Event. In Event Espresso 4, events can have multiple dates and times (datetimes), which these can be managed from a single event.
• Customized Confirmation Emails. Easily configure automatic registration and payment confirmation email messages to communicate with event participants.
• Tax Administration Options. Event Espresso 4 gives you a number of ways to manage taxes for your event and report tax fees to registrants when purchasing tickets. You can configure taxes globally and on a per-ticket basis.
• Google Maps. Google Maps integration allows you to customize the display of Google Maps on the event listing and event details pages.
• Spam Protection. Eliminate the risk of spammers and bots creating false registrations on your web site by using reCAPTCHA settings to provide human authentication.
• In-App Documentation. Event Espresso 4 includes three useful in-app documentation systems: Help Tours, Help Tabs and Tool Tips.
• Manual Registration Option. you have the option of booking event attendees at the door, or send in paper-based forms for manual submission later.
• Administrative Pre-approval. Be selective about who can attend your events.
• Private Contact Comments. Record comments about event registrants on their profile. Private commenting enables you to keep a record of when event participants contacted you, your internal observations, and how you have assisted your customers.
• Keyword-Rich URLs. Keyword-rich Web links take advantage of your WP Permalinks configuration settings. SEO-friendly web links that use topic-relevant keywords enhance the context of your pages and is favored by search engines, helping you bring a more targeted audience to your website.
• 15+ Languages. Event Espresso can be run in 15+ languages, and more languages are being added all the time.
• Exportable Data. You can output all the data gathered from your event attendees into Excel or CSV format for compiling reports, implementing marketing strategies, analyzing attendee statistics, and so on.
• WYSIWYG Editor. Event Espresso uses the default WordPress Visual editor, allowing you to quickly and easily insert photos and create your content without knowledge of HTML or CSS, just like any other WordPress post.
• Registrant Records. You can manage each registrant’s profile information and payment history and keep all of their information organized.
• Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential clients who have not fully paid for their admission with a standard but personalized invoice with one click. Your invoices will reference pre-registered participants who have not paid their registration in full by name, display the amount owing, and include a link to the event details, 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 even customize the page templates to display event information in your own unique way.

Extra features include:

• Hooks, Actions & Filters. These allow you to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso application that are compatible with the WordPress software platform.
• Maintenance Mode. You can pause registrations for regular site visitors whenever website maintenance is required. You can continue to work on your content 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 objectives, the software has been built using a modular that provides users with great autonomy and flexibility and delivers value for money in the process.

The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes 40+ additional features, including:

• Duplicating events – limits the work of re-entering event data when creating new events.
• Default surcharge (the same as applying a service fee to tickets).
• Default payment status.

Addons

As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow software users to further enhance the functionality of managing an event.

Some of these addons include:

• Events Vector Maps Template Addon: The Vector Maps custom events list template lets you display the scheduled events by location. Four maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
• Recurring Events Management Add on: The Recurring Events manager addon allows you to put your events on autopilot by scheduling recurring events weeks or months ahead. You can add as many classes, meetings, courses and conferences in the future as you want. Event Espresso will then automatically open and close registrations for all recurring events.
• Events Date Range Template Add-on: The Date Range custom event list template lets your users to search for events that occur in a certain date range.
• Social Coupons Integration Add on: If your web site is featured on 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 events in a number of exciting and interesting ways.
• Seating Chart Add-on: The seating chart addon is 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 add-on lets you offer reserved or assigned seating to your events and venues 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 each seat.
• Multi-Event Registration Addon: The Multiple Event registration add-on 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 cart. With the Multi-Event Registration addon, attendees can register for several events at once and even add additional attendees to any of the same events in the same checkout process.
• Events Calendar Addon: This add on uses the WordPress calendar to display events and categories of events in a nice graphical calendar.
• JSON API Addon: The Event Espresso JSON API add on gives permission for other applications, web tools, mobile applications, etc… to access your Event Espresso content through an Application Programming Interface (API).

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

For more information about the latest Event Espreso features and addons, visit the plugin website:

• Event Espresso

Plugin Users – Testimonials

Here are some of the many testimonials that customers have written about Event Espresso:

”Broadcasting my support for Event Espresso will be a pleasure. I recently helped the Webmaster at a sister church configure your event manager for their site, so I can say with confidence and from experience, that Event Espresso is the best Event Manager plugin ever!” Philip Simpson, The Charlotte Church

”I have to say that it has been the right choice for me…I’ve been extremely pleased with the way my site is working.” Robin, RobinTime

”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

Useful Tips

Whether you are an education services provider, presenter, seminar promoter, or event management professional, there are just countless possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso software.

After downloading the plugin and becoming a licensed owner, spend a little time going through the support forum for useful ideas and practical ways to improve your event management and registration process or enhance the experience of your customers.

Product Support

Event Espresso is fully compatible with most WordPress plugins and WP themes that follow WP coding standards. If you do need support with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive technical support, as many of its satisfied plugin end-users attest:

”No complaints here. Satisfied customer. You can teach us all few things about customer service. Thanks!” Charles

The Event Espresso plugin provides exceptional support that includes access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, email 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.

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 Price

Event Espresso is available in various plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced plugin functionality, however, you should consider purchasing one of the ”Pro” plugin versions below:

• Personal License Edition – This option lets you 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 Edition – This enables you to configure Event Espresso on 1 site only. Includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium addons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $279.95.
• Developer Licensing – This option enables you to set up Event Espresso on 5 sites. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Price = $249.95.

The cost of purchasing the Event Espresso plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the software is selling for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Management

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

Event Espresso – Additional Info

Event Espresso regularly adds 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 plugin’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 situation, or to report bugs and leave feedback.

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

We Recommend

Event Espresso is the leading WordPress event registration and ticketing management plugin, used by thousands of people.

If you are a WordPress user and you intend to run events that involve managing dates, times and venues, registering attendees, or booking seating, then you will probably not find a more suitable software for your needs than Event Espresso.

To learn more, visit the plugin website: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Management & Ticket Registration Software

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