Event Espresso - WordPress Event Management Plugin

Does your company currently run or plan to run events that require registrations, such as seminars, training courses, non-profit fundraisers, networking events, or even a big event like an art exhibition, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to book to attend or participate?

Managing event registrations is a time-consuming process. You will most likely have to manage scheduling, dates, participant numbers, data processing, payment processing and invoicing, confirmations, reminders, refunds and cancellations … perhaps even accommodating special needs and delivering tickets to event participants.

There are many advantages to setting up an online event registration system. It can streamline your business processes, save time and reduce costs, help you easily reproduce repeat events, give event managers more control, create a more enjoyable customer experience and increase your sales.

The problem is that setting up a web-based event booking system can be quite expensive.

The good news is that if you run a WordPress-based digital presence, you can easily install an inexpensive and professional online event registration system.

Announcing …

Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticketing Manager

Plugin Description

The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WordPress lets you easily set up multiple events and start receiving online bookings in minutes.

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

Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich application that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.

Event Espresso lets you customize your event registration forms

You can employ several event registration strategies, from simple online bookings and straight up ticket-selling, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your participants, or integrating your event bookings with social media and autoresponders.

Access detailed information about event attendees

Note: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their plugin: EE 3 and EE 4. The new Event Espresso 4 is considerably different than the older EE 3, as the plugin is being redeveloped using a different structure to accommodate future growth and expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and pricing. The developers aim to eventually migrate completely to EE 4, so keep this in mind as you learn more about this plugin.

Learn more about the plugin here:

Event Espresso – Event Management And Registration System For WordPress

Plugin Benefits

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

Automated Event Registration Management And Ticketing System

Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing online presence into a fully-featured and automated event management site … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to attendee limits, multiple pricing options 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 improve your business productivity by practically doing away with the chore of processing registrations manually.

Basically, you are enabling participants to perform the enrollment process by themselves.

Allowing your participants to do all of the data entry frees you up from doing admin work and lets you focus more of your resources on organizing a better event.

Full Control Over The User Experience

As you will see shortly, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management and booking process that you want your participants to experience.

Additional plugin benefits include the following:

Reduced Costs: Event Espresso is a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to other options or using a third party service. This is made possible by using a model where you purchase the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy add ons when you need extra functionality.
Increased Sales: Event Espresso lets you accept online 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 others who may be interested in attending.
Paperless Event SignUp Process: With Event Espresso, the event registration process remains entirely in digital form, reducing typical paper waste from tasks related to admin and record-keeping.
All Data Belongs To You. You own all the information collected from event attendees.

Plugin Features

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

Event Espresso provides a number of great features to web site owners. Here are just some:

Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
Customized Event Registration Form. With Event Espresso you can gather specific information using custom event registration forms on your web pages to create a great experience for your event participants.
Customizable Event Designs. Customize your events and bookings page using Event Espresso’s unlimited template options and parts, and HTML and/or CSS.
Ticket Selector. Present a number of ticket options to registrants and let them purchase the ticket(s) that will best fit their needs.
Custom Post Types. Integrate Event Espresso into your theme and display registrant information throughout other areas of your site.
Default Price Types. Price types allow event managers to create new prices that adjust the base ticket price of your system-default ticket.
Mobile Registration And Ticketing Apps. The Event Espresso mobile registration system lets you validate tickets, speed up in-venue registrations, set up multiple check-in “stations” and track participants.
Event Check-In List. Generate a list of attendees and check-in everyone who attends.
Admin Pre-approval. Be selective about who can register for your events.
Private Contact Comments. Keep notes about a contact on their profile. Private notes allows you to keep a record of when users contacted you, your internal observations, and how you have interacted with your customers.
Draft Events. Draft events let you build an event over time without displaying it live on your website. You can work on your event until you are ready to publish it on your site, or schedule your event to publish at a later date and time.
Multi-Language Application. Event Espresso can be set up in more than 15 languages, and more are being added all the time.
Default Tickets. If you create identical tickets for many of your events, you can automatically set up as your default ticket for the next event simply by checking a box.
Visual Editor. Event Espresso uses the built-in WP WYSIWYG editor, so you can quickly and easily add graphic images and stylize your event descriptions without knowing HTML or CSS, just like any WP post.
Event Espresso Community. Event Espresso lets you engage with a community of experienced event managers, developers, designers, marketers and business owners who also use the software. You can engage with other Event Espresso users using their community chat room, user support forums, job board, and social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
Invoice Payment Reminders. Follow-up potential event attendees who have not made payment for their enrollment with a standard but personalized invoice with one click of a button. Your invoices will address pre-registered customers who have not paid their registration yet by name, display the balance they owe, and include links to the event information, a payment link and a url where they can download the invoice.
Accurate Event Attendee Management. You have control of your attendees’ details; who has registered, for what event and how much they paid. With the attendee manager, you can get an overview of registered attendees and their payment status, easily add/edit attendee records and payments, export a list of attendees to a spreadsheet for additional reports, send customizable payment reminders and receipts and send messages to your attendees on a person-by-person basis or as a group.

Additional features include:

Define Extra Meta Information. This allows you to have more control and options over your content and how the information displays to your readers.
Full Logging & Remote Logging. EE 4 allows you to output a log file with debugging data that can be helpful for web developers who are potential software errors.
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 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:

Live-filtering when searching for events inside the Event Espresso admin.
Question groups that simplify the process of reusing a series of questions for similar events.
Option to skip the confirmation page in the registration process.

Event Espresso Add-Ons

As mentioned earlier, Event Espresso provides “addons”, which allow plugin users to further expand the capabilities of your event management system.

Some of these add-ons include:

Events Vector Maps Template Add on: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display upcoming events by location. There are four maps available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
Recurring Events Drop-down Custom Template Addon: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes events with many datetimes into a drop-down list.
Events Calendar Table Template Addon: 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 instead of a date.
Social Media Buttons Add-on: The social media add-on 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 addon lets you take full advantage of the WordPress user system. With the WP User Integration add-on you can give your 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 website users will have access to these special events. Members can also store personal data into their profile page allowing them fast registration for events by auto-filling in the personal information on the event booking form. Users can also view event history and pay for future events.
Roles And Permissions Basic & Pro Add on Versions: This add on lets you involve other users in the event management process and give new users the capacity to create events or regional managers permission 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 staff to help you manage your events or events that others create. You can customize roles so that a user does not have access to certain sections of your WP 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 addon.
EE4 Event Ticketing & Bar Scanning Add on: The Ticketing addon gives you the capacity to generate tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning add on gives you the capacity to scan ticket bar codes. The ticketing add on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for handling check-in scans at the venue door. Registrants 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 attendees and to validate tickets.
Events Calendar Add-on: This WordPress events calendar displays events and event categories using an attractive graphical calendar.
MailChimp Integration Addon: The MailChimp add-on lets you auto-register participants to a specific mailing list or group within MailChimp.

Note: Event Espresso regularly adds new features and improvements to the software, including new addons.

To learn more about the newest Event Espreso features and add ons, visit the plugin website:

Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Manager

Customer Feedback

Here 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

”I recently downloaded it to add to a nonprofit site for a Boy Scout troop and the features work wonderfully with what we wanted to accomplish for the site. It allows us to set up calendar, events, and even take payments for trips. At first, I thought that it would be overkill for such a small site, but now I see the possibilities and will definitely be offering Event Espresso to my clients that need an event organization system for their web sites.” Lucy Conn, Troop 462

”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

Plugin Tips

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

After purchasing your copy of the plugin and becoming a registered user, spend a little time researching the support forum for inspiration and practical ways to improve your event management and registration process and improve the experience of your participants.

Support

Event Espresso works with with other WP plugins and themes that follow standard WordPress coding rules. If you experience issues with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides excellent customer support, as so many of its customers attest:

”It’s magical. Support is amazing, plugin is simple to use, a 3 year old could use the iPhone app…it all is very impressive and professional.” David, House of Prayer

The Event Espresso software provides exceptional support including access to support forums, comprehensive online documentation with faqs, knowledge base and how tos, custom development 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 a solution you can count on to organize and manage your events.

Software Pricing

Event Espresso is available in a range of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (referred to as Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software functionality, however, you need to consider using one of the premium plugin editions below:

Personal Edition – This option allows you to configure Event Espresso on 1 domain only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, (add-ons sold separately) and one year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
Everything Licensing – This allows you to install Event Espresso on 1 site only. Price includes 51+ Premium features, 29 Premium add-ons and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $279.95.
Developer Licensing – This allows 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.

Pricing for the Event Espresso plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin retails for the pricing shown above. Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticketing Manager

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

Additional Info

The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to the software. Make sure to stay subscribed to their customer update list to receive the latest information and updates.

Look up the software’s 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 your specific use-case, or to notify developers about issues and give 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 manager plugin, used and trusted by thousands of users.

If you are a WordPress user and you intend to run events that require managing dates and venues (offline and online), registering participants, or reserving tickets, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.