Blog – Tips and Trends For Your Events

Printable tickets updated and included in the Business and Developer Licenses

Espresso Ticketing

Event Ticketing Plugin for WordPress

Event Ticketing Plugin for WordPress

When we launched the new website we also added a few gems into a few of the licenses. One of those jewels is that our WordPress event ticketing plugin (addon) is now included in the Business and Developer Licenses, at no additional cost.

Our event ticketing plugin gives you the ability to require tickets to your event. After registration, attendees are given a PDF or HTML ticket to print (which can be customized) and bring with them to the event. With our WordPress mobile ticketing apps you can scan the tickets to validate payment and check-in attendees at the door.

Event Ticketing Plugin Updated

We’ve also made some upgrades that include:

  • HTML-based tickets that you can customize yourself
  • Print a ticket at home or view it on your mobile device
  • Venue information and Google Map integration right in the ticket
  • Upload your business logo to display on your ticket right from the back-end
  • Support for multiple ticket templates that can be assigned to different events

Our printable event ticketing addon is better than it’s ever been and more affordable than it’s ever been.

WordPress Mobile Ticketing Apps for iPhone and Android

WordPress Mobile Ticketing Apps for iPhone and Android Devices

Save More than 57%

Our event ticketing addon sells for $169.95, but it has been included in the Business License for free. That makes the value of the Business License over $425, but it’s all been bundled for only $179.95. This saves you more than 57%, and you can save even more with the Developer License.

If you have the Business or Developer License, download it today from your account page. If you don’t have the Business or Developer license yet, upgrade today.

Do you already use the Ticketing addon? We’d love for you to comment below with how you use tickets for your event, how it helps you and share an example of your sweet new ticket design.

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Using jQuery in safe mode

From time to time, we receive a support request from one of our customers asking for help with something missing from a new Event Espresso installation. Sometimes, the element in question is the Calendar, or parts on the registration page are not working.

Event Espresso uses jQuery to power both the calendar and the interactive elements of the registration page, and these features depend on jQuery being run in safe (or no-conflict mode). Any theme that has passed the review process for the WordPress.org theme repository will load jQuery in no-conflict mode, but what about the thousands of other themes out there? Read More

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We’re Sponsoring WPCandy Late Night Podcast

WP CandyWe are sponsoring WPCandy’s Late Night podcast for the next few weeks. If you don’t listen already, we’d recommend checking it out. Listeners will receive a special offer from Event Espresso just for listening.

WP Candy Late Night PodcastWe’d also like to know your thoughts about the podcast. Share your feedback in the comments below.

You can download the podcast from WP Candy or iTunes.

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Receiving Multiple Renewal Notice Emails

We have recently had users report receiving multiple renewal notice emails from us this afternoon. We apologize for the interruption. Duplicate emails were being sent because of a recent MySQL upgrade on the server. We have worked with our host to resolve the issues and you should not receive duplicate messages any longer. If you do receive a duplicate email from us, please contact us immediately.

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Introducing the New Event Espresso Website

Welcome to the new Event Espresso website. We have many exciting new features and processes that we would like to orient you to that will make it easier than ever to use Event Espresso.

  • One-click upgrades from your WordPress Plugin dashboard
  • Your Account page
  • Renewing/Upgrading your license
  • New Support Forums
  • New Documentation
  • License names have changed, additional addons are now included
  • How to renew your Event Espresso license

One-click upgrades from your WordPress Plugin dashboard

We now offer customers the added convenience of one-click or “automatic” upgrades right from their WordPress Plugin dashboard. Starting with version 3.1.24, whenever a new version of Event Espresso or an addon is released customers with a current support license will receive prompts to upgrade.

When a new version is available there are four possible prompts:

  • Update Now – means you have access to the new versions with your support license and can use the one-click updates.
  • No License Key  – means you need to enter your license key at the bottom of the General Settings page of the Event Espresso plugin installed on your website, in order for Event Espresso to determine if you have access to automatic upgrades. Login to your account if you need to locate your license/api key.
  • Invalid License Key – means  you need to re-enter your license key because the character string you have entered is not valid. Login to your account if you need to locate your license/api key.
  • Expired License Key – means you need to renew your license. Login to your account and follow the instructions given in your Account Settings.

Note: Automatic upgrades are available in Event Espresso version 3.1.24. In order for the automatic upgrades to work properly, you can not have two versions installed, regardless if it is deactivated.

Your Account page

  • Notifications – We can send all users important notification messages directly to your account so you aren’t left in the dark about important information.
  • Account Settings – this control panel will display your current license, when your license expires, your license keys which activate automatic downloads and the domain which is using the license key, and you will receive instructions for keeping your support license active.
  • Downloads – gives you easy access to downloading all your files and includes links to the documentation.
  • Private Messages – VIP members, and those who have purchased support tokens have the ability to send private messages to other forum users.
  • Subscribed Topics – gives you easy access to the topics you want to follow by receiving email updates from as the conversation happens.
  • My Topics – gives you easy acces to the support topics you’ve created.
  • Bookmarked Topics – gives you easy access to support topics you want to refer to in the future without receiving updates.
  • Recent News – Gives you access to the latest blog content from Event Espresso which will keep you up-to-date with important company information and information about the event industry.

Trouble accessing your account?

How to renew your Event Espresso license

It’s easy to renew. Within 30 days of your license expiring you will receive notification that your license will expire. You will receive a notification on your Account page as well as you will be sent an email. Sign in to your account and follow the update/renew instructions.

Remember, renewing your license before your account expires will give you the best possible price (25-50% off), but waiting to renew your license until after it expires will require that you purchase another support license at full price.

New Support Forums

The new support forums will give you access to our expert technical staff and the Event Espresso community who can all help you be successful. The new forums now have:

  • Forums for each addon to add organization
  • Tags for each topic to enable greater organization
  • Status’ (published, closed, urgen)  – which closes old or complete topics which allows us to report on open topics that need to be monitored or need to be addressed quickly.
  • Notifications – which gives everyone a quick view on the threads that need attention (or not)
  • Assignment – allows the Event Espresso staff the ability to assign a topic/thread to themselves or other staff members when they need a little extra help
  • Search – will provide better results based on timeliness
  • Quick links – are shortcuts to related topics
  • Documentation – are links to the help files
  • Business Hours – are the hours of operations when you can expect staff to be available to help with questions

All these new features are are intended to provide you faster support and access to the information you need to be successful.

New Documentation

With Event Espresso always changing, it is a big job trying to add to keep up on documentation and improve it. In the near future we will add more screencasts (videos) that will make it even easier to understand and use Event Espresso. Right now we have documentation for nearly all of the core Event Espresso functionality and addons. It is organized into the Core documentation, the Addons and then Extending Event Espresso and Use cases. If you need additional documentation, don’t hesitate to fill out the form at the bottom of the documentation pages.

License names have changed and additional addons are now included

We have renamed two of our licenses to better reflect their scope and intended use and includes new addons.

  • The Basic License is now the Personal License to better communicate that the core Event Espresso plugin will suit most independent uses.
  • The Advanced License is now the Business License to better communicate that most businesses want the more advanced features the come with the addons that are included. We have also included the Ticket and Roles & Permissions (BASIC) plugins to this license. 
  • The Developer License name remains the same but we’ve now included the Seating Chart and Roles & Permissions addon to the package. 

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Trouble Accessing Your Account

For anyone having problems with their account, we’d like to explain why this may be happening.

If you don’t care why it’s happening and want it fixed:

  1. Create/Register a new account
  2. Complete the Update Request Form

The longer version – the old website

The old Event Espresso website had one system to handle purchases and a second system for user accounts to access downloads, support and documentation (that’s why you had to create an account on the forums and fill out an update request form after you purchased). With the new website, you are directed to create an account either before the purchase (while paying by credit card through  Authorize.net) or right after payment (if you pay with PayPal). This is a big improvement which will automate your access.

The challenge we had was taking the two systems and combining them into one record. The most accurate way to do this is to take the purchase record and use the customer name and their email address to create an account. That means your account will be under the name and email address of the person who made the purchase. Since it is possible that some people may have used a different email address when they purchased, or are using a different email address now, we have a system in place to create your account and give you the right access.’

If you purchased and did not receive an email (to the email address you used at the time of purchase) then please do the following:

  1. Create/Register a new account
  2. Complete the Update Request Form

We will then update your account manually this one time and it will be automated thereafter.

We apologize for the inconvenience of having to create an account and the down-time from receiving support. We know the new website will be much more convenient for everyone and save you more time.

 

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New Website Launching June 24

We are very excited to announce that the new Event Espresso website will be going live to all users on June 24th. We would like to prepare you for this transition with the following information:

Event Espresso New Website Going Live June 24

 


The website will be down for maintenance

We will be working on it while most of you are asleep. The website will be down for maintenance June 23rd from 9PM EDT – June 24th at 8 AM EDT.


What’s coming with the new website?

Here are just some of the features of the new website:

  • New look and design
  • Access to one-click updates from your WordPress Plugin dashboard
  • Updated website copy to reflect recent plugin development
  • A responsive design that is optimized for viewing on mobile devices
  • New support forums and support options
  • A customer account area where you can view documentation, downloads, support tokens, subscribe to forum threads, private message support staff and other users, manage license keys, edit your forum profile, download receipts (coming soon), and more.
  • An improved membership section with new VIP content
  • Additional support documentation
  • And more!

Our new website makes it easier for you to get the files, documentation and support you need as quickly as possible so you can be more successful.


Your new account on the new website

In order to give everyone access to the appropriate files, documentation and support, we will be creating new accounts for paying customers on the new website. After the website is successfully launched, you will receive an email with login credentials which will get you access to your new account area of the website.

After the new website is launched, if you find problems with your new account, or did not receive a new account email invitation, please contact us.


Extending support for customers that purchased more than 12 months ago

During this time of transition to the new website, we are providing a grace period of an additional 30 days of service, support, and updates for all of our past customers who purchased more than 12 months ago. This grace period assures that all customers will receive support until August 1, 2012, no matter their original purchase date, and have the opportunity to renew at a discounted rate before that date. Customers who purchased after August 1, 2011 will continue to receive support and upgrades as part of their support license until 12 months from their date of purchase.


Transitioning to the new support forums

We will be decommissioning the old website and forum which will do-away with several things including the need to fill out the Update Request Form to get access to downloads. Our new website’s forums offer better organization and search capabilities. After the new website is live we will close all threads and re-post any unfinished support requests in the new forums to resolve on the new website.

The new support forums will give you the ability to mark your support issues as resolved or not so we can be sure all customers are helped and no one is missed.

Your access to different sections of the support forums will be based on the license and/or addons you purchased. For example, only customers who purchased the Recurring Events Manager will have access to that forum; this logic extends to the other addons also. This will ensure that your question is posted in the appropriate area and not confused with other non-related topics. We only ask that when you create a new topic in the support forum that you please try to post in the product-related forum.


Thank you for your help and patience

We’d like to give a big thank you to Darren at Organize Series for helping us build the new functions of the website and Jesse and Michael at Mister Machine for helping us with the new design.

Thank you also to the beta testers and the rest of the Event Espresso team for your hard work to test the new website and update the content to help offer better products and service to our great customers.

This is a big step forward in how Event Espresso will be able to help you be more successful in your events. Feel free to let us know what you’re thinking and tip your hat to everyone who has helped so much along the way.

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Powering 80,000 Registrations & 900 Events for Social Media Week

Event Espresso is a major technology sponsor of Social Media Week. Event Espresso provided core registration functionality and developed powerful user management controls. A major portion of our involvement was making sure the roles and permissions, with the addition of regional manager permissions, set up to work across the network of 12 different sites/event cities.
Seth worked with them personally to make sure that the development went smoothly. Social Media Week had one designer and two developers working on an integrated theme.

About Social Media Week
Social Media Week (SMW) is a global platform that connects people, content, and conversation around emerging trends in social and mobile media. Delivered primarily through a network of internationally hosted biannual conferences and online through social and mobile media, Social Media Week brings hundreds of thousands of people together every year through learning experiences that aim to advance our understanding of social media’s role in society.

UPDATE:

  • In 2011: 20,000 attendees, across 700+ events, in 12 different cities around the world, from September 19th to 23rd, 2011.
  • In 2012: 80,000 attendees at the first event in 2012.

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Meetup.com Alternative

Alternative to Meetup.com

Event Espresso customers come from all parts of the world and use our plugins for a wide variety of reasons. A few of our current customers were looking for an alternative to meetup.com. This is what they said they didn’t like about it:

  • Meetup.com is Expensive – Their fees range between $12 – $24 per group per month!
  • Meetup.com is Controlling – Event organizers have very little over their brand (the style and functionality) of their user’s experience!
  • Meetup.com is Too Simple – While simplicity is good for some people, too simple doesn’t get the job done and they don’t have enough of the features to get everything done the right way.

Event Espresso’s mission is “to empower business and organization leaders with the event registration, ticketing and management tools that maximize the success of events.” With Event Espresso, you can be more autonomous and empowered, and create your own alternative to meetup.com. With Event Espresso, you can save more money, control your user’s experience and your brand, and you can get your event registration done more like you want them. We understand there is a place for some people to want or use these type of services, but we certainly want people to understand there is another option.

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Event Espresso