Author Archive

EE4 Test Drive Now Powered by Ninja Demo

take-a-testdrive-575x200

 

We’ve just finished launching our new Event Espresso 4 test drive website, powered by the Ninja Demo plugin for WordPress. Ninja Demo combined with WordPress Multisite, allows our customers to create their own sandbox website with Event Espresso 4 pre-installed, and is even pre-populated with example events and registration data.

Now taking a test drive of Event Espresso 4 is easier than ever!

EE4 in a true-to-life environment

ee4-ninjademo-screenshotWith Ninja Demo, our potential customers can login to a demo site, where they can modify, delete, upload, and test out various areas of the EE4 software. Our customers can easily demo EE4 without leaving anything permanent behind. You can try out EE4 in a true-to-life environment and Ninja Demo cleans up the sandbox site once its no longer needed. This is perfect for customers looking to learn more about EE4’s features, the Espresso Events Calendar, and our Iced Mocha theme.

Already an Event Espresso member?

No problem! Existing Event Espresso 3 and 4 members are highly encouraged to take the new test drive site for a spin. This will help you decide if you’re ready to make the move to EE4. You’ll also have the opportunity to test the new Iced Mocha theme we’ve created, just for EE4, which is pre-installed on each sandbox site.

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Scheduled Website Maintenance – April 25, 2014 at 10PM EST

Starting April 25, 2014 at 10PM EST, the Event Espresso website will be shut down, for approximately 2 to 3 hours, as we move to our new FireHost web server. The support forums and purchasing capabilities will be off-line during this time. However, you can follow us on Twitter (@EventEspresso), or visit us at http://status.eventespresso.com, for realtime updates and information related to the move.

Thank you to all of our loyal customers for your patience! We look forward to providing you with a faster, secure, and more reliable website experience.

About Our New Web Host

firehost-logoFireHost is the leader in secure cloud hosting, capable of protecting sensitive data and brand reputations of the world’s enterprises. With infrastructure built for securitycomplianceperformance, and service, companies choose us to help de-risk collection, storage, and transmission of payment card and healthcare data.

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Developers Corner:
Custom Post Types in EE4

What are Custom Post Types?

WordPress can hold and display many different types of content. A single item of such a content is generally called a post, although post is also a specific post type. Internally, all the post types are stored in the same place, in the ‘wp_posts‘ database table, but are differentiated by a column called ‘post_type’. A Custom Post Type (CPT) is nothing more than a regular post with a different ‘post_type’ value in the database. The post type of regular posts is post, pages use page, attachments use attachment and so on. More information Custom Post Types can be found at WordPress: http://codex.wordpress.org/Post_Types

By default, Event Espresso provides full-page Event and Venue CPT archives and single page templates.

How are Custom Post Types used in Event Espresso 4?

Custom Post Types allow developers to integrate Event Espresso into your theme and reuse attendee data as you would other post data. This gives developers the ability to create great looking  customizable event designs, by giving you the tools they need to easily integrate EE4 core components into themes and reuse attendee data as you would with other post data (please see our EE4 Custom Post Types documentation for more information).

In addition, the EE4 front-end templating systems provides flexible “template parts” that can be used by theme developers for custom themes. In order to maintain compatibility with more themes, these template parts have only basic styles by default but you can easily make them more fancy with custom CSS (see our Theming in Event Espresso 4 post for more information).

The EE4 specific template parts include:

  • Event Details (description)
  • Event Datetimes
  • Event Tickets
  • Event Venues
  • Event Venue Location
  • Event Venue Detail (excerpt)
  • and more!
Many of the standard custom post type data is also available via standard WordPress Custom Queries (e.g. featured image, title, comments, etc.).

CPT Types: Events, Venues, and Contacts

All EE4 CPT data includes normal post data including:

  • Title
  • Description
  • Tags
  • Categories
  • Featured Image
  • Commenting
  • Excerpt
  • Custom Fields
  • Slug
  • Author

This data can be queried and displayed in themes along with other post data.

CPT Archive Pages

As with other Custom Post Types, EE4 is packaged with default event archives, single event pages, venue archives, and single venue page templates. You can copy these templates to your theme folder so that the Event Espresso pages inherit your theme’s post page layouts and styles. See our post on Theming in Event Espresso 4 for more information.

Draft Event Pages

Draft events allow you to build your event page over time without publishing it to your website.

We know you can’t always build and publish an event at once. EE4 will allow you to save events as “draft” status so that you can save your progress and return later to edit and publish your event.

EE4 will automatically save the events you have in-progress as “drafts”, plus you can save them as a “draft” as you go.

Schedule Events to be Published

You can even schedule to publish your event at a later date and time.

WordPress enables you to schedule when posts and pages are published. That functionality extends into Event Espresso’s CPT pages so you can announce your event at just the right moment.

Easy Categorization of Events

Do you have several different types of events such as free and paid, conference speakers and breakout sessions, exercise classes of all kinds? EE4 makes it easy categorize your events and allows your attendees to find what they’re looking for faster.

Plugin and Theme Compatibility

Event Espresso 4 offers much better theme compatibility, because all of your EE4 Events, Venues, and Contacts are CPTs. Event Espresso CPTs can also integrate with other CPT plugins such as: Custom Post Type UI, TinyMCE Advanced, Advanced Custom Fields, etc.

Are you a WordPress theme developer? Want to see how Event Espresso 4 integrates with your theme? Request access to the Event Espresso Core (4.0+) GitHub repository and get acquainted with the premier event registration system for WordPress.

We also have additional Event Espresso developer documentation at http://developer.eventespresso.com/.


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Developers Corner:
Theming in Event Espresso 4

What is the best way to customize EE4?

We think the BEST way to theme EE4 really depends on a few factors with the biggest factor being what you want to change. Sometimes all that is needed is a few CSS edits and other times customizations are done via a child theme, or even editing the PHP, HTML, and/or CSS files.

Basically, this means that existing WP theme developers will have an easier time developing customizable event designs for EE4, which in turn can benefit the end user. Developers are encouraged to view the list of currently available theme templates and tags.

Depending on what you want to change and your skill level, here are some options:

Child Themes
We want to make things as simple as we can for the end user, but with all the possible themes in use, there is a limit to how simple we can make it to customize things. The best solution (which is what we’ve taken IMO), is to integrate EE4 in “proper” WP ways that the majority of WP developers will understand. This ultimately benefits the end users who hire theme developers, or theme shops, that support EE4 templates in their themes.

Get Noticed!
Developers submit your add-ons to our Third-party Add-ons Directory.

Reassembly of the EE4 templates
Oh wait! Your theme doesn’t support child themes? No problem, simply reassemble all of the EE4 template parts and combine them with your theme’s templates to make one cohesive archive-espresso_events.php (or single-espresso_events.php, etc) file, that integrates perfectly with your theme. The files that contain the template tags that should be loaded automagically, anytime an incoming request is for one of EE’s CPTs (otherwise they can be found in the /core/helpers/ folder).

The Event Espresso specific template parts include:

  • Event Details (description)
  • Event Datetimes
  • Event Tickets
  • Event Venues
  • Event Venue Location
  • Event Venue Detail (excerpt)

Custom Post Types
We think theming Event Espresso will be easier using Custom Post Types (CPTs), because we are now following the WordPress (WP) Theme Development Standards. This makes it easy for WP developers and theme shops to build integrations with their themes and plugins in EE4.

EE4 CPT data includes normal post data including:

  • Title
  • Description
  • Tags
  • Categories
  • Featured Image
  • Commenting
  • Excerpt
  • Custom Fields
  • Slug
  • Author

This data can be queried and displayed in themes along with other post data.

View a list of currently available theme templates and tags.

What option is right for me?

We don’t know the specifics of your website, so it’s up to you to decide where to go from here. We are happy to recommend a few helpful tips:

  1. If your goal is along the lines of “I want the events page to match my theme better” then the answer is usually a CSS solution. Sometimes a few CSS edits are all that are needed, and if you don’t have a child theme set up (or don’t want to) you can install a CSS builder plugin like this one and customize with CSS (it turns out that you can do a lot with CSS changes only).
  2. Just want to change the wording of a few phrases? If so, no need to hack templates, just use Josh’s WP gettext filter.
  3. If you need to add/remove content that’s not already in the event template, then setting up a child theme and working through the templates and using Event Espresso’s WordPress hooks and filters may be the way forward.
  4. Sometimes, if it’s a PHP, HTML, or CSS based solution, you may need to contact a developer familiar with PHP, HTML, and/or CSS to help out. Our support team is also available in the support forums and will recommend the best solution for what you are trying to accomplish.
Are you a WordPress theme developer? Want to see how Event Espresso 4 integrates with your theme? Request access to the Event Espresso Core (4.0+) GitHub repository and get acquainted with the premier event registration system for WordPress.

We also have additional Event Espresso developer documentation at http://developer.eventespresso.com/.


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New Android App:
Event Espresso HD Now Available on Google Play

ee-android-app-all-screensWe are very happy to announce that the Event Espresso HD Android app has been published to the Google Play Store. This is a major update to our Android app. However, the update will NOT appear as standard update on your mobile device, because the original version of the Event Espresso Android app has been removed from the Android Play Store. In order to update to the latest Event Espresso Android app, you will need to install the app on your phone by searching for “Event Espresso” in the Google Play store or by clicking this link from within your Android device.

This app will work in conjunction with our Ticketing System and QR Codes, via the JSON API add-on we released in 2013. Allowing events managers to scan tickets and QR Codes at the door and to check in attendees.

The Event Espresso JSON API is required for this app to function properly. Therefore, the old Android API, also named Espresso Services, will be retired within 24 hours of this post. Version 1 of the Android app was just not built to use the new Event Espresso JSON API, and used outdated code and technology, therefore making it unstable and unusable for most of our users.

How do I Get Access to Event Espresso HD?

ImageThe Event Espresso Android HD app can be installed directly from the Google Play Store, from within your Android device. Please view the documentation, find answers about this add-on in our support forums, or ask a pre-sales question.

How is this different from the old Event Espresso Android App?

Event Espresso HD for Android was re-written from the ground up, with support for both Android tablets and phones, as well as the Espresso JSON API.

Android Screenshots

ee-android-app-all-screens ee-android-app-tablet-screen ee-android-app-attendee-view

What version of Android does Event Espresso HD support?

As of today, February 18, 2014, the lowest version of Android that Event Espresso HD supports is Android 2.2 Froyo.

We have tested Event Espresso HD on many different Android phones and tablets, and we hope that the Event Espresso HD app works with a wide range of Android devices, but we cannot guarantee that it will work with all of them. Here are few of the devices that were used in testing:

  • Google Nexus 7 (Android 4.3)
  • HTC – HTC ONE (Android 4.4)
  • HTC – Desire – 601 (Android 4.2)
  • Huawei – Ascend Y M866 (Android 2.)
  • Kyocera – Milano – c5120 (Android 2.3)
  • LG – Optimus Select – AS730 (Android 4.0)
  • LG – Optimus 2 – AS680 (Android 2.3)
  • Samsung – Galaxy Ace (Android 2.3) (THIS PHONE DOES NOT WORK)
  • Samsung – Galaxy S4 (Android 4.4)
  • Samsung – Galaxy S3 (Android 4.3)
  • Samsung – Galaxy S2 (Android 4.0)
  • Samsung – Galaxy Mini S5570 (Android 2.3)
  • Samsung – Galaxy Fame (Android 4)

To find out if Event Espresso HD works on your device, please visit the Event Espresso HD page of the Google Play Store.

Will we still support the old Event Espresso Android App?

No. We will no longer support the original Event Espresso Android app (version 1). Version 1 of the Event Espresso Android app did not support our new JSON API. The app was completely rewritten in order to function with the JSON API.

Will this new Android app work with Event Espresso 4.1?

As of today, February 18, 2014, unfortunately the Android app will NOT work with Event Espresso 4.1. However, the Event Espresso Development Team is hard at work developing a new version of the Event Espresso JSON API, which is an important component in the Android (and iOS) apps and has to be rewritten to interface with our new “Custom Post Type” system.

How is the Android app different from the iPad/iPhone app?

Right now, the Android app is very similar to the iPad/iPhone app and provides all of the same functionality. However, we feel that by developing an app for the Android system, we can create a better user experience, and add more features at a faster pace, than the iPad/iPhone devices. We will continue to support the iPhone and iPad apps, but we may not be able to develop new features for the iOS platform at this time.

Where should I provide Feedback and get Support?

We have thoroughly tested the android app in-house. While all major bugs have been resolved, we can’t catch them all. If you find a bug, or have a suggestion, please post in our support forums. If the app ever crashes on your Android device, the device should prompt you to send a crash report back to the developer. Please send that report and give us a short description of what happened. These reports are very very important us and will give us the line of code that made the app crash. So please please please send that report if the app ever happens to crash.

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Version 3.1.31 Released

The latest version of Event Espresso (3.1.31.P) has now been released and is available from your account page. We have also been hard at work and have updated most of the major addons with extra features and fixes.

Please check out the change log to see a full list of the 50+ updates.

Here are some of the key items to get you started:

3.1 Updates and Fixes:

Below are just some of the changes made. One of the major aspects here is that we have prepared Event Espresso for the next iteration of WordPress, version 3.6, which will include jQuery 1.9.

  • Added compatibility for Jquery 1.9
  • Corrected the British pound character encoding issue on the Invoice
  • Resolved the language files causing attendees to be incomplete
  • Modified the Overpaid status so it no longer marks as incomplete
  • Resolved the Post categories not “sticking” when submitting a new event
  • Resolved the Venue information not being copied into a duplicated event
  • Updated the Paychoice gateway
  • Updated the Megasoft Gateway
  • Added new Russian language file
  • Added attendee count (quantity) as email shortcode

Addon Updates and Fixes:

We have released a long awaited new add on into the Pre Release channel, the Front End Manager. With this addon, your logged in users can create basic new events from the front end, so no dashboard access required.

Alongside that, the Calendar addon has had a facelift and some back end changes to help with speed for those of you with large numbers of events.

  • Front-end Event Manager 1.0 PRE RELEASE
    • Created a Front-end Event Submission Tool/Addon
    • Added pricing section
    • Added Category Manager
  • Espresso Ticketing PRE RELEASE
    • Added the seat numbers/tags to ticketing addon
    • Updated Button Styles
    • Reduced the size of the QR code
  • Espresso Calendar 2.0.5 PRE RELEASE
    • Added throttling to the calendar
    • Created better looking tooltips
  • Roles & Permissions Basic 1.5.4 PRE RELEASE
  • Roles & Permissions Pro 2.0.6 PRE RELEASE

3.1.32 PRE-RELEASE Updates:

Even though we have just released 3.1.31.P we have already been working on getting the next version prepared and ready, as such version 3.1.32 is now available in the Pre Release section of your account page for you to check out. The main things in this section are 3 new payment gateways including Google Checkout/Wallet.

  • New Gateway: Google Checkout gateway
  • New Gateway: Luottokunta gateway
  • New Gateway: PSiGate/MerchantAccounts.ca
  • Fixed a problem with CSS ID’s and Label Names for Checkboxes on Reg Forms using MER
  • Resolved a Recurring events and Posts error
  • Fixed invalid path for custom themeroller-base.css check
  • Fixed an issue where prices no longer reset to zero on cart page on a Multi Event Registration
  • Added Map and Directions text strings to the translation files
  • Changed Attendee Reports to now show correct values
  • Added translatable strings to the Payment page
  • Reslolved Paypal IPN sending email of output log on payment refund
  • Resolved issues with adding Event Staff/Speakers to an event when logged as an espresso_event_admin user.
  • Modified the Attendee Overview page – changed “Attended” column to reflect the number of tickets scanned

Not sure how to access all the goodies on the Pre Release channel? We have set up some documentation to help guide you through the process.

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iPad App Now Available

iPad Login Screen

The Event Espresso iPad app allows you to transform your iPad or iPad Mini into an onsite attendee management tool. This sweet little app allows you to quickly check-in attendees and view information at your events and attendees. Built-in ticket scanning capabilities allow you to scan tickets at your classes, meetings, conventions, concerts, and everything in between.

What can I do with this thing?

This thing makes your life easier on the day of the event. The large screen display allows you to see more information quickly, and track the current situation with your event registration. Here are few more fun things you can do with it:

  • Detailed ticket scanning system
  • Manual attendee check-in and check-out
  • Detailed registration and check-in tracking
  • Attendee registration forms (coming soon)
  • Detailed attendee, event, and venue information

Where can I download it?

Event Espresso iPad AppThe Event Espresso HD iPad app is part of our growing library of mobile apps and can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store. Don’t have an iPad? You can use our iPhone/iPod or Android apps to scan tickets as well. More information on our Ticketing addon page.

Important Note:

You will need to download and install the new JSON API addon to connect your iPad to your website. If you have a current Business, Developer, or Ticketing support license, the JSON API add-on will be available in your account.

How does it work?

Using the Event Espresso JSON API addon (a required plugin), once installed on your WordPress website, the iPad app can retrieve a complete data set of events and attendee data, allowing you access to most of the attendee admin features of Event Espresso. Future versions of the app will allow you to add and edit event and attendee data, directly from the app.

Documentation:

Please visit the Mobile Apps documentation page of our site for installation and settings.

Who is this for?

Anyone using Event Espresso to manage events/classes and accepting registrations on their WordPress and Event Espresso powered website can use this app to scan tickets, monitor attendee access, view registration details, and more.

What does the app look like?

(more…)

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JSON API Plugin Now Available

Event Espresso API`

The new Event Espresso API addon allows other applications (other websites, mobile apps, etc) to access your Event Espresso data through an application programming interface (API).

What kind of really useful stuff can I build?

Using the Event Espresso API, you can get information on all events and attendees, and even check attendees in and out of events. Supposing you have WordPress installed and active on mysite.com, once this addon is activated you can send an HTTP GET request to http://mysite.com/espresso-api/v1/events/public to retrieve all the event information from your site in JSON or XML format, which your client application can then use and display however you like. You can access and work with most of the Event Espresso admin features, allowing you to create solutions based on your needs. The API enables developers to build innovative and engaging applications that can interface with any website that uses the Event Espresso plugin for events, classes, meetings, scrapbook conventions, concert ticketing, including:

  • Mobile applications (e.g. Event Espresso mobile apps)
  • Custom onsite and offsite calendar integrations
  • Custom event lists with role based (public/private) access to event data
  • Custom website app integrations
  • Role-based access to attendee data
  • Cached database queries
  • Offsite registration forms (coming soon)
  • Ability to create customized analytics

Is the API supported?

Yes, Event Espresso customers have access to our Restful API Codex and support in the support forums. The API is compatible with Event Espresso version 3.1 and 3.2 (coming soon).

How does it work?

The Event Espresso API gives developers a complete API platform for directly accessing data event and attendee data securely and efficiently from outside your web server. All a developer needs to know about is the API Endpoint URL for your site. Example: https://eventespresso.com/testdrive/espresso-api/v1/events/public.pretty_json

How do I get access to the addon?

Anyone with a current Event Espresso Business or Developer Support License or Ticketing addon can download this addon for use on their site, from within their profile/account page.

Is this a replacement for the Espresso Services API?

Yes and No. The current versions of both the Event Espresso iPhone and Android mobile apps CANNOT be used with this API. However, you should have no problems running both API’s side by side. We are working on switching over the iPhone app to the new API as soon as possible. We are also actively looking for someone to help us switch the Android app to the new API. The new Event Espresso iPad app will be available soon.

Why did you create this addon?

We are hoping the addition of this addon will drive developer adoption around for Event Espresso plugin and our community of dedicated users.

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What is Event Espresso? (video)

We are happy to announce that we have finally released a video that explains everything about the best online event registration and ticketing plugin for WordPress.

We have a hard time explaining to even our family what we do, so we knew that a great video about Event Espresso could help us explain how we can help event organizers be successful and more profitable. We decided against highlighting just a certain feature or benefit, so we’re curious about what strikes you as you watch it.

Want to know more about Event Espresso? Check out our video and tell us what you think!

We would like to thank Megan Levens and the team at Secret Powers, who looked at the features on our website, listened to our ideas, created a script, and drew some really cool looking robots. Then created animations, recorded voice overs (with Christopher Sabat), and listed to our feedback, to create the awesome video  you see above.

Thanks again everyone for watching and we hope you stay tuned for more!

Can you tell us what part of the video was  most impactful or important?

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Helping Non-profit Organizations Succeed

Blog banner on how to help Non-profit Organizations Succeed

We love to see cool websites running Event Espresso. Every once in a while we come across a real nice organization focused on helping others. Other times we get an opportunity to work on websites for churches, charities and other types of non-profit organizations. Recently I had the pleasure of working with Scott and Charlie at the  Rainbows Hospice for Children & Young People in the UK.

Using Event Espresso to Support Their Mission

Charlie reached out to us to help with adding more functionality to their event listings and registration pages. He also wanted to accept single and multiple event registrations, and display events that do not accept registration, on their website. For the registration pages, he needed a way to display another set of buttons on the registration pages. One button needed to link to the registration form, and the other needed to add the event to the shopping cart. Since we’re the event registration and ticketing experts, we were glad to support a great cause.

Registration Page with Two Buttons

Registration Page with Two Buttons

A few Customizations

In addition to helping with setting up their event listings page, I showed them how to create two buttons using a little bit of HTML and a built-in Event Espresso shortcode to get something like this (more on this below).

Updating to the Latest Version

They were several versions behind on updates, so I also helped get their version of Event Espresso and the addons updated. They had made a few customizations to the Event Espresso template files, based on the older version of the plugin. So I backed up their entire website and installed it on my local server so I could test the updates before deploying the updates to the live website and risk breaking things.

In order to see the exact changes they had made to the original template files. I used a program called Diffmerge, to compare the modified templates, in the uploads directory, to the original version of the templates that came with the currently installed version (not the current version) of Event Espresso.

After the Update

The update actually went pretty smooth, and I didn’t lose their customizations or any data. The only thing left to do was make a few tweaks to the shopping cart CSS, and add some HTML and a shortcode, so they can display a couple of nice buttons on the registration pages. The first button is an anchor link to the registration form below the event description and the second button links to the Multiple Event Registration page allowing attendees to buy multiple types of tickets at once.

Overall everyone involved is very happy with how the system turned out. It also made us feel good to help out an organization that plays such a great role in the short lives of the children, and their families, that the Rainbows Hospice for Children and Young People provide. So please take a moment to like them on Facebook, or send them a friendly Tweet, and say thanks for the good things they do for these children and their families.

If you are a non-profit organization, you may qualify for a discount on your future purchase of Event Espresso by filling out our Non-profit Application form.

About Rainbows Hospice for Children & Young People

Courtesy of their Facebook Fan Page:
https://www.facebook.com/rainbowsfanpage

Rainbows Hospice

Children with a short life to live have alot of living to do Rainbows Hospice for children and young People make every minute special

Rainbows Hospice for Children & Young People, based in Loughborough, Leicestershire is the children’s hospice for the East Midlands. Children and young people with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions come to the hospice for specialist respite stays, symptom management, palliative and end-of-life care. Their families, too, are supported and helped by Rainbows on their difficult journey. At Rainbows the emphasis is on enriching life and making each minute of each short life count. Each child is treated as an individual and helped by the skilled, experienced team to get the most from life and enjoy it to the full.

Providing Care

Rainbows aims to provide 1:1 care wherever possible on a needs led basis for all children and young people who use our service. We are a nurse-led unit with support from a team of doctors with expertise in children’s palliative and end of life care and symptom management. A minimum of 3 qualified nurses (two of whom are children’s nurses) are on duty at all times, and competency based care is delivered by a highly skilled multidisciplinary team.

The Care Team

The Care Team are supported by our Family Support Team who visit families at home or in the community as well as offering support when the children and young people are staying at Rainbows. Their work extends throughout the child’s or young person’s life and beyond into bereavement support as necessary.

Philosophy

Our philosophy is that children are children first and foremost – they are not ‘little adults’. We offer a holistic approach to all our work and aim to involve children and young people and their families at every step of the way.

Visit their website at www.rainbows.co.uk for further details.

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Event Espresso