Blog – Tips and Trends For Your Events

New features: help attendees avoid email address typos, apply a promotion code to an existing registration, plus more!

In this post, we’ll highlight a few improvements that are now available in Event Espresso. These can help you whether you are organizing in-person events, virtual events, or a mix of both types.

1. Ask attendees to confirm their email address by entering it twice

Have you received an email from a frustrated attendee that registered for an event but didn’t receive their ticket or confirmation email? I imagine you went through steps like this to solve this problem:

– Logged in your WordPress dashboard on your website
– Pulled up the attendee’s registration in Event Espresso
– Spotted a typo on their email address in the Contact Details section
– Updated their email address to fix the typo
– Resent their confirmation email or ticket through the Registration Details area
– Replied to their email

Mistakes happen. I recently booked an appointment online for routine service for my car. While setting up the appointment, I typed my email address wrong — an email address that I’ve had for over ten years! Luckily, I realized what I did and fixed it before sending the appointment request.

What if you could almost eliminate having to fix typos on attendee email addresses?

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How Event Espresso Handles Ticket Fees, Refunds and Policies

two people at a table talking

Before choosing an event registration solution for your business, you need to dig deeper to see how it handles ticket fees, refunds, and policies. Here’s why:

  • You have to be clear from the get-go with attendees about refunds and your refund policy if your business offers refunds.
  • The policies of some event registration systems or services can define (and affect) your refund policies.
  • The payment gateways you decide to offer will also have their own policies. For example, some payment gateway providers might not refund their transaction fees.

With this in mind, in this article, we’ll explain how Event Espresso handles ticket fees, refunds, and policies, and share some actionable tips and guidelines along the way.
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What makes a memorable and engaging virtual event?

Studio with three men

Photo credit: Nathan Riley

Since the beginning of 2020, I’ve attended over 25 events online. I created a list with the ones that I remembered vividly like a positivity workshop, calls with vendors, a live course on habits, team meetings, and more — all to find out “what worked well” with each of them. Then I looked for patterns that made each of them memorable. Not all of the virtual events were engaging, so I focused on the ones that were.

In this article, I’ll distill my experiences into actionable advice to help make your next virtual event memorable and engaging. We’ll start by talking about visualization.

Carol Dweck, in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, introduces us to the concept of a concrete plan, which is created through thinking about what you want to do in vivid detail. Dweck says, “These concrete plans — plans you can visualize — about when, where, and how you are going to do something lead to really high levels of follow-through, which, of course, ups the chances of success.”

What Dweck is suggesting, in other words, is that doing some planning in advance can skyrocket your chances of following through. Read More

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Supporting our customers through COVID-19

Photo credit: Pixabay

Last updated: Thursday, April 16th

As author Brené Brown writes in her book, Daring Greatly, “Connection is why we’re here. We are hardwired to connect with others, it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering.”

This post will be a living document with resources to help you stay connected with friends and family and your attendees wherever they may be in the world. Read More

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Formidable Forms vs Event Espresso

Finding the right solution for your event management needs can help you make the sign up process seamless for attendees while taking most of the heavy lifting off your plate. Fortunately, there are many WordPress event plugins that can help you plan and manage successful events.

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at Event Espresso and Formidable Forms, two popular event management tools, to help you decide which one is right for your event needs.

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Options for your events during a crisis: postpone, cancel, or reschedule

Photo credit: Northfolk

Activities like events bring us closer together by creating a connection. We create new memories during these shared experiences. During challenging times, your events may be affected. So what can you do if you find yourself unable to host in-person events for a while?

Here are three ways to overcome moments of uncertainty and take action with your events. We’ll begin with how to postpone an event below. Then we’ll cover how to cancel an event and how to reschedule an event.

1. Postpone an event

How does the thought of postponing an event make you feel? You’ve invested lots of energy and time with your team, and now you are forced to make a decision. It can feel frustrating.

I understand and want to share another perspective to consider.

Try thinking of postponing an event as “now is not the right time, and I know I can host my event in the future.” In doing so, you are 1) showing your attendees that you care about them and their wellbeing enough to say “this is not the right time for us to hold this event,” 2) giving yourself some space, and 3) allowing an opportunity for your event in the future. This change in how you think about delaying your event can instantly brighten your outlook.

One of my roommates from college had to delay his wedding because of coronavirus. Here is part of the conversation that we had:

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How to Use Video Marketing to Supercharge your Event

Blog banner on how to create an engaging event registration

Video is a powerful tool. For brands, it offers the chance to expand reach, attracting more decision-makers. And when it comes to event marketing, it works just as well. Video opens events up to a larger audience, giving more people the opportunity to access live or pre-recorded content, and offering event marketers a chance to generate additional revenue using pay-per-view video solutions.

But should you use video for event marketing?
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How to stay connected and still offer value to your event attendees

6  people talking with each other

Event businesses all over the world have been affected by recent incidents that impact travel including a travel ban, a political crisis, and a pandemic disease.

This article talks about how these occurrences impact event businesses as well as event-goers around the world. We’ll go over some actionable tips and strategies you can implement to minimize the negative effects on your event business and steps you can take to ensure the safety of your attendees and staff members.

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Event Espresso Feature Highlight: Automated Event Reminders

woman in car with laptop

Planning and organizing an event takes a lot of work and it’s easy to lose track of the finer details – like reminding registrants about the upcoming event. The solution: Event Espresso’s Automated Reminders feature.

Automated Upcoming Event Notifications allow you to set up event reminders that will automatically be sent to registrants via email days before the event. This way, you can minimize no-shows, let registrants know about any last-minute changes, and share any helpful information that might help your attendees to better navigate your venue or event.

In this quick feature highlight, we’ll explain what automated reminders are in Event Espresso and how you can use them to take some of the work off your plate. We’ll also cover some different ways to use automated reminders and show you how you can set them up on your event website.

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Event Espresso vs. Ninja Forms for Event Registration

Choosing the right event registration tool can help you bring in more attendees, sell tickets, and ultimate increase sales. Fortunately, there are several WordPress plugins out there that can help you plan and organize successful events.

In this article, we’ll compare Event Espresso and Ninja Forms, two popular online event registration solutions for WordPress, to help you decide which one is right for your specific needs. Read More

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