Does your business currently run or plan to run events that require bookings, such as seminars, training classes, not-for-profit fundraisers, corporate events, or even a big event such as a show, a sporting or religious event, or any kind of event where people need to register to attend or participate?
Managing event registrations is a time-consuming process. You need to co-ordinate event schedules, dates, attendee numbers, data administration, collecting payments 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 a web-based event registration system. It can make your business more efficient, save time and lower costs, help you easily copy settings for similar events, give event managers more control, improve customer experience and increase your sales.
The problem is that setting up a web-based event registration system can be quite costly.
Fortunately, if you run a WordPress-powered digital presence, you can install a very inexpensive and professional online event booking system.
Introducing …
Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticketing Manager
Plugin Description
The Event Espresso online event registration software allows you to easily schedule multiple events and begin accepting registrations in a few minutes.
(Set up multiple events and take online registrations with Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-rich application that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.
Customize registration forms
You can use several event registration strategies, from simple online enrollments and straight up ticket sales, to setting up custom registration forms in order to better understand your participants, or integrating your event bookings with an autoresponder system for ongoing notifications.
Access detailed information about your event attendees
Please Note: At the time of writing this article, Event Espresso supports two different versions of their plugin: Event Espresso 3 and Event Espresso 4. The new EE 4 is fundamentally different than the older Event Espresso 3, as the plugin has been rebuilt using a different structure to allow for future growth and expansion. The Event Espresso 4 plugin software has different features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. The developers aim to eventually phase out Event Espresso 3, so keep this in mind as you read more about this plugin.
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Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Event Espresso to manage event registrations on your site:
Automated Event Registration Management And Ticketing Solution
Event Espresso provides you with everything you need to turn your existing website or blog into a fully-featured event management website … from custom registration forms and automated response emails, to seating capacity limits, multiple pricing options and discount codes, to printable tickets and seating charts.
Increased Business Productivity
By using an online event registration system like Event Espresso, you save time and increase your business productivity by practically eliminating the need to process registrations manually.
Basically, you are facilitating attendees to perform the enrolment process on their own.
Allowing your clients to do the data themselves frees up your time and lets you spend more of your energy on organizing a better event.
Full Control Over The User Experience
As you will see in a moment, Event Espresso gives you more control over the event management process that you want your participants to experience.
Additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Reduced Costs: Event Espresso is a very low cost online event registration management solution compared to building your own solution or using a 3rd party service provider. This is made possible through a model where you start with the core plugin (which suits the requirements of most users) and then buy optional add-ons only when you need added functionality.
- Higher Sales: With Event Espresso you can accept online bookings 24 hours a day. Not only that, but, Event Espresso social add-ons (see below) let people who are interested in attending your event invite others who may also be interested in attending.
- Green And Paperless Event Booking Process: With Event Espresso, the event booking process remains wholly online, reducing typical paper waste from tasks associated with admin and record-storage.
- All Data Belongs To You. You control all the data obtained from event attendees.
Features
The Event Espresso plugin provides functionality to its customers through built-in features (these come with the plugin) and additional features that users can purchase, called add-ons.
Event Espresso offers many features to WP users. Here are just some:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Customized Event Registration Forms. With Event Espresso you can gather specific data using a custom event registration form on your site to create a tailored experience for your attendees.
- Customizable Event Designs. You can customize your events and bookings page using Event Espresso’s template options and elements, plus HTML or CSS.
- Tax Administration Options. Event Espresso 4 gives you a number of options to handle taxes for an event and provide reports of tax fees to registrants when purchasing tickets. Event managers can administer taxes globally or on a per-ticket basis.
- Google Maps. Google Maps integration allows you to customize the look and control settings of Google Maps on the event listing and event details sections.
- Spam Protection. Prevent the chance of spammers and bot software programs creating fake registrations on your site by using reCAPTCHA option that provide human authentication.
- Discount Codes. You can leverage promotional and multiple discount codes to incentivize people to register without delays, or simply make your offers more attractive for price-sensitive prospects. This is also practical if you want to sell-out events close to timelines.
- Contact Profiles & Contact List. Event Espresso 4 lets you know who your clients are and how they have done business with you.
- No Ticket Events. You can list events without making it necessary for registrants to select tickets. Use Event Espresso for all kinds of events, not just those that need tickets.
- XML RSS Event Feeds. Automatically update your customers, bring in more visitors and widen your content distribution with the built-in XML RSS events feed.
- Works With The Latest Version Of WordPress. The EE 4 user interface follows the WordPress guidelines to help you build beautiful event pages that are responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Multi-Language Application. Event Espresso has been translated into 15+ languages, with more languages coming soon.
- Default Tickets. If you create similar tickets for your events, you can automatically set one of those tickets as your default ticket for all new events simply by ticking a checkbox.
- Event Venue Profiles. The venue manager feature in Event Espresso 4 allows information about venues to display throughout the Event Espresso admin and the front end of your website to inform users of the location of your event. The venue profile has many of the standard WP settings such as tags, categories, discussion settings, comments, etc., but also displays venue details such as venue capacity, venue web address, venue phone number, physical and/or virtual location, location map, etc. You can also display all of your venues throughout various areas in your WP theme as well as on a venue listing page on your site where you can set up and display venue profiles for multiple events or display every event you have booked for a specific venue.
- Automatic Plugin Upgrades. Event Espresso offers easy 1-click plugin installation updates to ensure that you have the newest features and to keep your installation compatible with the latest version of WordPress.
- Social Sharing. Event participants and website visitors can spread the word about your events using social share buttons.
- Categorize Events. If you have several different types of events such as free and paid, workshops and breakout sessions, different types of courses, etc. you can categorize them to help event participants to find what they’re searching for. You can list all the 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 new events in the categories that appeal to your existing customers.
Extra features include:
- Hooks, Actions And Filters. These allow developers to implement safer and more reliable customizations and extensions to the Event Espresso plugin that are compatible with the WordPress software platform.
- Maintenance Mode. You can pause registration capabilities for normal website visitors when website maintenance is needed. You can continue to work on your event pages during maintenance mode.
- Flexibility, Autonomy And Value For Money: According to the philosophy stated on their website, Event Espresso’s aim 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 in the process.
The premium edition of Event Espresso also includes 40+ added features, including:
- Duplicating events – reduces the need to re-enter event information when creating new events.
- Default surcharge (similar to applying a service fee to tickets).
- Default payment status.
Event Espresso Add-Ons
As well as a very large number of features, Event Espresso provides “add ons”, which allow users to significantly enhance the capabilities of events.
Some of these add ons include:
- Events Vector Maps Template Add-on: The Vector Maps custom events list template allows you to display your upcoming events by location. 4 maps are currently available: USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
- Recurring Events Drop-down Template Add on: The Recurring Events Drop-down custom template organizes multiple datetime events into a drop-down list.
- Events Date Range Template Add on: The Date Range custom event list template enables your users to search for events that take place within a certain date range.
- Social Media Buttons Addon: The social media addon displays Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons in your events. The Social Media add-on is included free with all of the Event Espresso support licenses.
- WP User Integration: The WP User Integration add-on lets you take advantage of the WordPress user system. With the WP User Integration add-on you can give your users a special incentive by offering member prices and overriding event prices when members are logged in. You can even set up member-only events where only registered website users will have access to your special events. Members can also enter personal data into their profile page allowing them fast registration for events by auto-filling in the personal information on the event registration form. Users can also look up past events and pay for new events.
- Roles And Permissions Basic And Pro Add-on Editions: This add-on lets you include your staff in your organization to help manage your events and give new users permission 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 capabilities, 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 sections of your WordPress dashboard and/or certain parts 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 add on.
- EE4 Event Ticketing Add-on: The Ticketing add on adds the ability to create tickets with bar codes. The Bar Scanning addon adds the capacity to scan ticket barcodes. The ticketing add on includes the ability to customize event tickets. Multiple barcode types are included for handling check-in scans at the door. 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 Table View Template Addon: The Events Table Template add on gives you an easy-to-use system that lets you change the look and feel of your event lists. It comes with a simple table template with category filters, table search, table paging and more. It also lets web developers design custom templates using one of the included templates as a source template.
- MailChimp Integration Add on: The MailChimp add on allows you to auto-register participants to a selected autoresponder list or group within MailChimp.
Note: The Event Espresso development team is continually adding new features and improvements to its software, including new addons.
For more information about the latest Event Espreso features and add ons, check out the plugin here:
Customer Feedback
Here are just some of the many testimonials that customers 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
”Event Espresso event management plugin for WordPress is really an awesome plugin.” Cheryl Smithem, Charleston PR & Design
”I can’t even imagine what I would want the plugin to do that it doesn’t already do. I’m really happy with the features.” Jim Harmer, Improve Photography
Event Espresso Tips
Whether you are a motivational speaker, presenter, conference promoter, or event management consultant, there are just unlimited possibilities of what you can achieve with the Event Espresso plugin.
After downloading the plugin and becoming a registered owner, go through the forums for tips and practical ways to improve your event management and registration workflow and enhance the experience of your event participants.
Event Espresso Support
Event Espresso works with with all WordPress plugins and themes that follow standard WP development rules. If you find that you need help with the plugin, however, you will find that Event Espresso provides highly responsive support, as many of its 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 plugin provides amazing support with access to a support forum, in-depth online documentation with faqs, knowledgebase and how tos, email 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.
In addition, Event Espresso boasts a well-staffed team of experienced WordPress web developers with a proven track record of support, so this is definitely software you can count on to run your events.
Product Cost
Event Espresso is available in a range of plugin editions, including a FREE basic edition (named Event Espresso Decaf). For support and advanced software features, however, you may want to consider using one of the premium plugin editions below:
- Personal License Edition – This allows you to run Event Espresso on one site only. Cost includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and 1 year of upgrades and support. Cost = $69.95.
- Everything License Edition – This license option allows you to run 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 enables you to set up Event Espresso on five domains. Includes 51+ Premium features, (add ons sold separately) and one 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 software is being retailed for the amounts shown above. Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing details: Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticketing Management
Please Note: The above reflects the pricing at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the website.
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 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 bugs and give feedback.
For all installation and support documentation, demos, downloads, videos, tutorials, FAQ and more, visit the Event Espresso product site.
We Recommend
Event Espresso is the preferred WP event registration and ticketing manager plugin, used and trusted by thousands of people.
If you are a WordPress site owner and you currently run events that require scheduling dates and venues (offline and online), registering attendees, and/or reserving seating, then you will probably not find a better solution for your needs than Event Espresso.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticketing Management
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