I want to share what tools I’ve found useful for managing my events. First, I’ll introduce Meetup.com for those who are unfamiliar with it, and describe how it helps me to publicize my events. Then, I’ll describe why I also have a self-hosted WordPress website using Event Espresso. Lastly, I’ll share some other plugins I’ve found helpful. I hope sharing my experience will be useful to anyone who is looking to explore more ways to manage their own events using some of today’s innovative event registration and networking tools.
Why Do Events Require “Personal” Information From Attendees?
There are four main reasons why an event registration and ticketing website might collect personal information from attendees:
- Providing better service or offering a more personalized event experience.
- Getting an idea of what generates interest.
- Sharing attendee lists with event sponsors and other attendees.
- Contacting attendees after the event with marketing offers and related events.
Most event websites require attendees to provide personal information (such as contact information and billing information) to complete their event registration or purchase a ticket.
In this article, we’ll take a look at what personal information is and explore some of the reasons why event websites require personal information from attendees. (more…)
14 Recommended WordPress Tools for the Non-Profit Event Planner
As a non-profit organization, event planning can be pretty difficult. While the limited availability of funds doesn’t help the problem, a website with the right plugins can be the perfect, cost-effective workaround.
The good news is that with WordPress you can supercharge your non-profit website to organize events, accept donations, and manage volunteers. With this in mind, in this post, we’ll share some of the best WordPress plugins you’ll need on your website to plan, organize, and manage events. (more…)
How to Set the Right Ticket Price and Maximize Revenue for Your Event
Products need to have the right price to appeal to buyers. It’s equally important that the pricing options, or the ticket options, you offer to your audience are attractive to your audience.
While setting your ticket prices may seem like a simple matter of dividing the cost of your event by the number of tickets and charging a small overhead to make a profit, there are additional factors that you need to consider.
So, how do you come up with ticket options and the prices that prospective attendees can’t refuse?
In this article, we’ll show you how you can land on the perfect ticket price for your next event. We’ll talk about different pricing strategies and explain how to set the initial price of your ticket and then adjust the price of the ticket later on to maximize profits.
5 Best Practices for Designing High-Converting Event Registration Forms
If your event registration form isn’t optimized for conversions, you could be driving away attendees without even knowing it.
Minor changes in the form’s design and layout – such as following the asterisk standard or grouping related fields together – can improve your form’s user experience significantly and simplify your registration process.
In this article, we’ll share some best practices for designing high-converting registration forms for your event. (more…)
A Beginner’s Guide to Event Technology
Innovations in event technology have made it easier for event planners to automate and streamline all kinds of event-related processes in the events industry. Event tech has transformed the way events are managed, allowing event professionals to optimize event success, enhance audience engagement, and maximize event ROI.
In this article, we’ll explain what event technology is and how you can use it to plan and host better events, whether they’re virtual events, live events, or the emerging trend of hybrid events. Along the way, we’ll take a look at some of the built-in features and event technology services Event Espresso offers that can help event organizers step in the right direction.
GDPR, Registration Data, and Your Ticketing Website
In preparation for the new GDPR legislation, WordPress 4.9.6 and Event Espresso 4.9.62 have been released. This post will help you become familiar with the GDPR and the new tools in WordPress and Event Espresso that will help with your registration and ticketing website.
GDPR, Registration Data, and Your Ticketing Website 
What is the GDPR?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679 is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union coming into effect on the 25th of this month. It also addresses the export of personal data outside the EU. The GDPR aims primarily to give control to citizens and residents over their personal data and to simplify the regulatory environment for international business by unifying the regulation within the EU.
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The Importance of Analyzing Purchases to Increase Event Ticket Sales
This post was written by our featured developer partner, WisdmLabs.
You’re organizing an event and have started online registrations of tickets using Event Espresso.
You’ve created the entire event and the number of seats available, various pricing options — front seats, back seats, group purchases, etc. — and integrated various modes of payment.
Now it is time to get word about the event out into the virtual world, for which you want to understand the following:
- When should you advertise for inviting registrations?
- Is there a particular time or day to advertise more or less?
- Which demographic should you be targeting to get more conversions?
- What internet trends can you use to create ads for better engagement?
This is where data analysis comes into play.
Analyzing purchases helps you create a strategy for boosting ticket sales by using the right techniques at the right time.
Using Ninja Forms to Create Waiting Lists
The Wait List Manager add-on for Event Espresso 4 has arrived! Now you can automate the process of capturing wait list signups when your events sell out. Easily manage last minute event tickets and provide standby ticketing for your customers and increase profitability for your events.
Don’t lose customers when events sell out!
If your event has sold out that’s great, nobody likes empty seats and shows you are doing a great job promoting your events so congratulations!
However, when an event sells out, registration closes for that event which means you no longer capture details from your customers and you’re missing out on potential sales. Creating a waiting list for your events allows you to continue to obtain attendee details when your event sells out. That’s where Ninja Forms can help.
If you are not quite ready to deploy the new Wait List Manager just yet, you can opt to use the Ninja Forms plugin to capture the attendee details.
Ready to learn how to use Ninja Forms as a waiting list?
Just head on over to our documentation, where we created a step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to use Ninja Forms as the wait list for your sold out events. (more…)
How Event Espresso Helped Easily Amused Launch a Conference Website in Just Weeks
Guest post by Violette Calhoun of Easily Amused, a creative agency.
When a client asks you for a complicated site on a limited budget—and with a tight timeline— you might initially groan inside. Your first question is likely: can I find a quality solution that works within the client’s time and budget constraints?
Our team faced a similar challenge, and we were pleasantly impressed with how smoothly things went using Event Espresso for a recent conference website. Event Espresso helps create websites with ticket booking functionality—and gets the project launched quickly. Here’s a quick overview of our (highly positive) experience.
Challenge: Create a Beautiful, Reusable & Robust Site—On a Budget
A leading pain management group, National Spine & Pain Centers (NSPC), approached our team to create a digital presence for their annual conference. Every year, they host a pain management event called The Business of Pain Medicine. NSPC knew their conference would be an ongoing annual event, so they wanted a website they could launch quickly, then reuse for future conferences.
The deadline for launch was tight, and the budget was limited. So how could we deliver a solution to meet NSPC’s requirements—yet not be overkill?
Our team at Easily Amused aims to treat every client as an individual. So we carefully considered the unique needs of the NSPC project, and we planned the website to fit. This included using tools that were robust yet affordable, including Event Espresso.
How We Delivered a Strategic Solution
Theme Selection
To accomplish the design goals, there was not budget or time for a custom theme. Instead, we researched aesthetically pleasing and well-reviewed themes that would fit the client’s needs. We decided that Conference by WPLook Studio was our best bet to accomplish their goals. The theme is visually compelling and educational.
By using an off-the-shelf theme, we saved on design time. This left us more budget to focus on configuring Event Espresso perfectly—an area of higher importance. It also gave us additional time to help with another area of need: setting up social media for the conference.
Event Espresso Integration
The event management website needed to easily allow multiple groups of attendees to register for the conference. It needed to showcase medical speakers, display schedules, and provide event location info.
The site was also going to manage ticket sales, manage coupon codes for various groups, and play a role in helping the marketing team before the event. Using Event Espresso, the management team could smoothly organize ticket coupon promotions leading up to the event—without needing to continually go back to a developer for assistance.
At the day of the actual event, the Event Espresso portion of the website helped to manage check-in at the event. It also played a major role in accounting for the event—as it provides valuable reporting that helped the organizers.
Our client needed to start selling tickets in a few short weeks. And we delivered a website with the functionality they needed. A win for everyone.
The Easily Amused team created an event management website to fit the client’s budget & show off the opportunity for learning at their annual conference. Event Espresso was a tool that helped make this possible!
Future Use of Website
The Business of Pain Conference website is a tool that can be used over and over again. Next year, the client can use the same plugins and theme to manage new ticket sales. The site will function as an archive of events for past years, while serving as a valuable ongoing promotional tool.
Because we implemented everything in the easy-to-use content management system (CMS) with WordPress and Event Espresso, their staff is able to regularly make updates and manage the events on their own.
Thanks to great tools like Event Espresso, our client gets an easy-to-manage ticketing system—and this keeps them coming back to us for future projects!
In Summary
Our deadline was tight, and the budget was limited, but thanks to great tools—we delivered for our client. This led to a positive recommendation from our client, and our development team is excited to continue using Event Espresso in future projects.
Don’t take our word for it, here’s what our client had to say:
Working with [the Easily Amused team] was a great experience…They made the process so easy. The group was always receptive to my many questions and willing to hop on a conference call to sort through any confusion I had. They simplified the process for me, gave accurate clear timelines, and met deadlines with ease. Highly recommend them for any project.” – National Spine & Pain Centers
Want to learn more about how we launched this project? Check out our Easily Amused blog.