If you’re thinking of organizing events for your business or non-profit, you might consider building a website and publishing an event with WordPress. It’s the most popular CMS in the world and powers nearly 42% of all websites.
You can use an event registration and ticketing plugin to create an event on your own website with WordPress in a few simple steps. We’ll cover everything including your event website’s design, tickets, registration, and payments. We’ll also explain how you can promote your event to get the word out about your event.
In this article, we’ll explain how to create an event with WordPress using the Event Espresso plugin.
Article Outline
Why Create an Event with WordPress?
Now, you might be wondering why you should create an event with WordPress?
First, let’s take a look at the other options that are available to you – social media platforms and third-party event tools.
Social media platforms (like Facebook) make it easy for users to set up event pages. They’re great for people that want a simple event page that lets other Facebook users learn about the event, RSVP, and register online.
However, if you’re looking for something more professional, you might come across third-party event tools like Eventbrite. The problem with Eventbrite is that they charge you fees for each ticket you sell. So, for paid events, tools like Eventbrite aren’t cost-effective.
Cons to Using Third-Party Platforms for Events
Let’s quickly sum up the main issues with creating events using social media platforms and third-party tools:
- They charge fees for selling tickets. If you’re organizing a paid event, this isn’t a cost-effective option.
Limited functionality for promoting your events. - Third-party tools might add their own branding to your marketing messages. This makes your event come across as unprofessional.
- Events are less accessible. Not everyone uses social media platforms so you’re limiting your audience to people who have an account on the platform you’re using.
- Third-party platforms have access to and own your data.
Going back to our question: why create an event with WordPress?
When you create an event with WordPress, you won’t be charged for each ticket you sell. This reduces costs that you can invest in event planning and marketing. In addition to this, when you set up an event website using WordPress, you can collect payments from attendees directly through your website. There’s no need to pay additional fees to a third-party service.
Most importantly, you have full control over attendee data, event marketing, and promotions. This way, you can deliver a better experience to attendees.
How to Create an Event with WordPress
Here, we’ll show you how to create an event with WordPress and Event Espresso. You can also follow the Event Espresso getting started guide.
Step #1: Choose an event theme
One of the best things about using WordPress to create an event is that there are plenty of free and premium event themes to choose from.
It’s important to pick out an event theme that’s compatible with the event registration and ticketing plugin you’re using. Most quality-built WordPress event themes work great with Event Espresso!
The theme you decide to go with should also be easy to customize. This will make it easier for you to get the exact look and feel you want for your event website.
Here are the WordPress event themes we recommend:
Step #2: Install Event Espresso and Set up a Registration Form
Now that you have a WordPress website set up with an event theme, the next step is to create tickets and set up a registration form. The easiest way to do this is by using an event registration and ticketing plugin for WordPress, like Event Espresso.
Event Espresso lets you create event tickets for all types of events. You can create one type of ticket or multiple ticket types. For example, if you’re creating tickets for an expo, you could create a General Admission ticket and a VIP Pass. In addition to this, Event Espresso also lets you offer early-bird pricing and limit the number of tickets you sell.
Event Espresso lets you create and sell paid event tickets for free.
Event Espresso also lets you set up an event registration form in a few simple steps. You can create the questions you’d like to ask questions and drag-and-drop them into place. Best practices indicate asking for the basics.
Typically, this includes the attendee’s name and email address. Depending on the type of event you’re organizing, you may also need to ask which activities they’re interested in attending, which day(s) they want to attend, and if they have any food allergies.
Plus, with Event Espresso, you can also set up group registrations. This way, registrants don’t need to fill out a separate registration form for each attendee. In addition to this, the plugin also lets you create an event waitlist.
Step #3: Create an event page
Before you can start promoting your event, you need to create an event page that tells people everything they need to know about the event. Event Espresso makes it incredibly easy to create event pages in WordPress.
All you have to do is enter your event details in the WordPress back-end and the plugin will automatically create an event page for you. The event information you can enter includes:
- Event description
- Venue
- Date/time
- Registration options or tickets
Here’s what the venue area of an event page looks like on the front-end:
Step #4: Promote your event
As an event organizer, you probably already know how important it is to get the word out about your event. When you create an event with WordPress, you have all sorts of event marketing options available to you.
Here are some different ways to promote your event:
- Social media. Post about your event on social media platforms. It also helps to create an event hashtag with your event name in it such as #UmbrellaCorpEXPO2021.
- Email marketing. If you’ve built an email list, you want to let your email subscribers know about upcoming events. The Event Espresso plugin integrates seamlessly with Mailchimp making it easy to build your email list and get the word out about your events.
- Offering promotional discounts. You might consider offering discounts to encourage people to buy tickets or register for your events. For example, you can create early-bird tickets or offer ticket bundles at a reduced cost per ticket to boost attendance.
- Social share buttons. Add social share buttons to your event page to make it easy for people to share event details with their followers.
Event Espresso helps you promote your event in a variety of different ways using built-in options as well as paid add-ons.
Conclusion
Whether you organize a few events per year or every few months, creating an event with WordPress is a scalable and cost-effective option for all types of event organizers.
We recommend using the robust Event Espresso plugin to power your event website, sell tickets, set up registrations, and promote your event. It’s perfect for all types of events including conferences, courses, workshops, non-profits, camps, galas, and much more.
Ready to create an event with WordPress? Check out the Event Espresso demo today!