Posted by Seth Shoultes on Wednesday, February 20th, 2013
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).
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:
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.
We all know Event Espresso can do lots of different types of events. One of the most basic events — by which I mean, one that Event Espresso lends itself naturally to — is concerts and performances. Music venues have a maximum capacity — which can be set with the maximum number of attendees setting — and venue information can be stored in the venue manager and used to provide information and a Google Map about the venue. With the seating chart, ticketing add-on and mobile app, you can sell actual seats and check people in at the door.
One of our users who has been working with Event Espresso for a long time has built a couple sites for a couple music venues in Canada that have really paid off. His name is Mark and he runs Muskoka Graphics, a small design and development studio. His background in the music industry led to some jobs for local venues which ultimately needed to be able to sell tickets online. In the early days, this was handled by a simple, customizable script Mark wrote that would handle the PayPal purchase. But as these websites grew, so did his need for a more robust, reliable platform, and that’s when he found Event Espresso.
Early Event Espresso adoption leads to success
In the early days Mark contacted us often and we saw this as an opportunity to really stress test the plugin for our ideal client — someone running an actual venue on Event Espresso. Mark says the thing he likes most about using Event Espresso is the support. “These guys are right on any problem or issue or even general questions. You can’t really put a value high enough on the kind of support these guys offer.” Most of the early issues in those days had to do with scale — these were venues that were selling events out quickly which wasn’t something we had previously had the opportunity to test for. This led to numerous speed and stability enhancements in the plugin. After a while, we stopped hearing from Mark.
So imagine our surprise and enthusiasm when he contacted us to let us know that one of the two sites he’s built using Event Espresso made over $35,000 in less than 48 hours running the latest version of Event Espresso!
World Class Entertainment
Peter’s Players is a small, 88 seat theatre that specializes in world class artists like Johnny Winter, Taj Mahal and John Lee Hooker. The other venue Mark maintains, the Kee, seats 1000 and also brings in top tier artists and has seen Snoop Dogg, April Wine and The Tragically Hip. Says Mark, “I have watched [Event Espresso] perform on my server after a mass email have over 40 people buying online almost simultaneously. I have watched [Event Espresso] sell 1000 tickets in 3 hours. They are rock solid and I trust them with my clients businesses.” Mark uses mostly the out-of-the-box features of Event Espresso — waiting lists, coupon codes & early registration discounts, and invoices — but also takes advantage of the WP User Integration add-on to provide member discounts for registered users.
Powering 100 million ticket sales a year
This is only the latest success story of Event Espresso. Recently, Garth pulled together some numbers based on the User Survey responses we’ve been collecting over the past year. With the user-survey data we were able to estimate that Event Espresso powers over 250,000 events and sells over 100 million tickets per year! This deserves its own blog post in the future, but we thought you’d find it interesting that the example above is not the exception.
We’ve been busy on our YouTube channel lately. In addition to the monthly Espresso Bar hangouts, we just recently produced two new video tutorials and posted them to our YouTube channel. This screencast walks you through creating a recurring event — specifically for the purpose of creating shifts for people to sign up for, but can apply to other types of recurring events as well.
This tutorial walks you through some of the features of the WP User Integration add-on and the two new shortcodes it adds — the My Events shortcode, to display a list of events an attendee has registered for on the front end of your site, and the Edit Profile shortcode, to allow your users the ability to edit their profile without having to log into the WordPress admin.
Networking with other like-minded people and organizations can make a significant impact on your success as an event manager, website programmer, or designer. If you haven’t already discovered that, then you will soon! We know it’s important, so we’ve created several ways to help you engage with other members of the Event Espresso community:
1. Building New and Strengthening Existing Relationships
Building a relationship is about more than just connecting to someone else’s online profile. You might have 500+ friends on Facebook or the same number of connections on Linkedin, but do you connect with those people on a daily basis about how to grow your business? Quit “liking” or “poking” old friends; connect with the people and organizations who are working on the same projects and have the same goals as you do. That’s a real business relationship.
2. Discovering New Ideas
Do you want to know how Event Espresso users can process 80,000 registrations in a single month or $35,000 in 48 hours? You’re not going to find that by watching your news feed on Facebook. You’ll learn more important ways on how make your events more successful by engaging with the Event Espresso community than any other source. Do you want your friends to “like” you, or do you want your customers to like you (for example, by attending your events)?
3. Building Your Reputation
You might have a thousand points of expertise on your Linkedin profile and your resume might be three pages long, but those aren’t any good to the wrong audience. You’re using Event Espresso and your business is similar to hundreds of other businesses. The Event Espresso community will value your experience and skills the most. Join the discussion and build your own brand today.
4. Finding New Opportunities
Event Espresso probably has more features than your local coffee shop has flavors. But imagine how many combinations you can create with all the coffee flavors or Event Espresso features? Building Event Espresso as a plugin for WordPress also allows you to use a variety of other plugins and themes, but which ones do other people use? There is a wealth of information available among the thousands of Event Espresso users, we just need to ask the right questions and encourage each other to share the right answers. What questions do you have and what insight can you give? What would you like to learn more about?
5. Access to New Information and Learning
Organizing, managing and promoting events is an ever-changing job and there might be a thousand different ways to do something. But if you had the chance to ask someone else who has been there, would you take the opportunity? You might be surprised at what other people know and how it can expand your knowledge. We also can’t read your mind about what you want to know, so the only way for anyone to help you is to ask.
6. Gaining Advice From Other Experts, Find a Mentor
At Event Espresso we ask a lot of questions each day. We ask each person of the team questions about technical issues or how we can better serve our customers; we ask customers each day about how they use Event Espresso and how we can improve our events plugin; and we ask third-party developers and mentors how to deal with the challenges of growing a small business. But no matter who we ask for help, we always get the best answers from people who have walked down that path before. Our mission is to help you grow your business, and as you grow you’ll be faced with many different challenges. You should have a team in your corner who can look at the problem from outside the fight and give you advice on what your next steps could be.
7. Sharing Your Expert Advice, Mentoring Others
One of the most challenging and rewarding things you can do is help someone else be more successful. It takes a lot of courage to give your opinion that might not be accepted, but if you have real-life experience then no one else can refute your knowledge. Your simple opinion is also helpful for others who are uncertain about what path they should take. In nearly every case your participation and encouragement can help other people be more successful.
8. Finding New Products and Services
How did you learn about Event Espresso? You might have had to search for an online event registration plugin for WordPress, or you might have been one of the lucky ones and had a friend recommend it to you and saved you from all the searching costs. Either way, by connecting with other Event Espresso users you will have access to other event organizers who know how to solve your same problem. For example, what website hosting company should you use with Event Espresso or trust?; what merchant account do people like best and is most affordable?; what is a good WordPress theme, etc? Event Espresso will be your best resource for answers to these and many other questions.
9. Generate New Business Opportunities
When was the last time your old high school friend on Facebook was able to help you earn business from a new client? Is your Linkedin profile among the top 10% most-viewed profiles? We know that neither of those relationships or statistics are as productive in generating new business than networking with like-minded businesses and potential customers.
10. Recruit New Members of Your Team
It really is hard to find good help these days. We’re creating new ways for you to find help from other Event Espresso users, programmers, designers, marketers, etc. who can help you make your events more successful. Need to hire someone? We have a Job Board where you can post free (and paid) job listings, and we try to tweet out all the job postings to our extended network for you. We also know that the best place to find good help to manage your online event registration is by building relationships with other people who are doing the same.
11. Have Fun
Event Espresso was started after Garth and Seth worked together for three years. They’ve enjoyed working together, and their work has become their hobby. Some of their best friends are now people they work with. They enjoy networking with customers, programmers, business managers, etc. Hopefully you get to do what you enjoy – we enjoy having you part of the Event Espresso community.
Conclusion
Again, at Event Espresso we know that if you meaningfully engage with on other like-minded people and businesses to achieve your goals, you can learn who to trust and how to do things better. Participate with us in the community today via:
Seth is the original founder of Event Espresso, a project that began as a way for his wife to have people register for her scrapbooking events. He’s one of the lead developers, spending most of his waking hours working on Event Espresso 3.1 features and bugfixes.
Chris is a general handyman around Event Espresso, working the forums, email, custom development and occasional contributions to Event Espresso core and add-on development. Chris is responsible for rewriting much of the Event Espresso Requirements Check plugin and has been with the team for the past 2 years.
Brent is the lead developer for Event Espresso and has been responsible for leading much of the development going into Event Espresso 3.2 as well as wholesale bugfixes and refactoring in 3.1. He’s in British Columbia, so we’ll forgive him for looking like he’s rolled out of bed right before the hangout because it’s probably true.
During the hangout you’ll be able to send us questions or comments live via twitter with the #EventEspresso hashtag or via IRC (our hangout page will have a IRC embed below the video so you can log in and watch live on Tuesday).
As always with our minor point releases, the focus of Event Espresso 3.1.30 was bugfixes, and the biggest of those was the Jetpack compatibility fixes. If you are a Jetpack user and you’ve had to deactivate Jetpack or downgrade to an older version, you’re in luck. This version of Event Espresso has been tested to work with the latest Jetpack.
Payment gateway updates
Another issue that might have affected some of our Dutch users who are using the iDeal gateway was the conflict with the WooCommerce iDeal gateway. That’s been resolved as well, along with a number of other important updates to the rest of the payment gateways. We also removed some of our old, hard-to-support legacy gateways. The reason these were removed was because those gateways do not provide developer accounts — so we couldn’t test them — and we don’t have a lot of users using those gateways. Instead of trying to invest the time in updating them blindly, without knowing if they actually work or not, we’ve put them up in a public GitHub repository. Anyone interested in taking over updating these gateways, can fork them or submit pull requests.
Language file changes
Speaking of GitHub, did I mention that our language files are there now? 3.1.30 introduces the new language “side-load” feature, removing the languages from the core plugin (for a smaller package size) and hosting them on GitHub, automatically downloading them to your site if you are using WordPress in another language. Additionally, .30 introduces the ability to upload your modified language files to /wp-content/uploads/espresso/languages.
Cart registration process and other fixes
We made a modification to the Multi Event Registration cart registration process for events that did not have group registrations active. Previously, those events would display a radio button, but that didn’t always send the number of attendees and a radio button, with no other options, isn’t exactly the best use of a radio button semantically. We’ve replaced this with a dropdown, which makes more sense and actually sends a value every time.
3.1.30 also adds a number of security fixes and updates.
New features
We did add some new stuff, too. The EVENT_LIST shortcode now supports multiple categories in one event list. A new System Status page gives you an overview of your server information and what plugins you have active. And we’ve added support for using hooks in WordPress themes for your Event Espresso registration pages to provide more customization options.
Updated Seating Chart
WordPress Event Ticketing Seating Chart
This release also is required for the new version of the Seating Chart alpha. A number of fixes were made to the Seating Chart to fix things like mis-aligned rows, section alignments, and registration prices.
So go update Event Espresso now, or download the latest version in your account area. If you have any questions or problems be sure to let us know in the support forums.
Please note: WordPress 3.5 is required for the latest version of Event Espresso. Please upgrade WordPress before updating to the latest version of Event Espresso.
We wanted to take a few minutes to talk about the GPL and how it applies to Event Espresso. I tend to be the resident GPL evangelist, so I was asked to be the one to write this post on how the GPL plays into what we do at Event Espresso.
GPL stands for Gnu Public License, and it is the software license under which WordPress is distributed. Briefly, it is an agreement between the software developer and the user about how the software can be used and what the expectations of the software may be. There are a few key points that are important to remember when discussing the GPL:
1. The GPL affects distribution.
The GPL license only affects code that you distribute to other parties. Writing code for a web site or client, that never gets released for public consumption beyond that site, does not need to have the GPL license attached to it.
2. The GPL does not include any warranty or guarantee of support.
3. The GPL grants the user (anyone with a copy of the code) the freedom to take, modify and/or redistribute the code.
This means you can take any GPL code and re-release it as you see fit, though you need to put your name on anything you change, so someone can get in touch with you if there are problems.
4. All WordPress plugins and themes must be released under a GPL-compatible license.
This does not mean that WordPress plugins and themes must be released under the GPL exclusively, nor does it mean that everything in a WordPress plugin or theme must be licensed with the GPL. Internal usage within an organization is totally free and not subject to any conditions. There is no such thing as ‘internal distribution’ that would restrict the usage of your code by requiring it to be GPL’d. It does mean that if you are releasing a WordPress plugin or theme for distribution, that it needs to be — in part or in whole — released under a GPL or compatible license.
What’s a “split-license”?
Matt posted a few days ago a comment in response to Japh, the WP Evangelist at ThemeForest, that there is “no such thing as a split-license”. I’ll therefore avoid perpetuating the misnomer, but clarify what the intended meaning is. A package that is distributed in which one license is applied to one part of the package (e.g. the php files) and another license is applied to another part of the package (e.g. images, css, javascript), has been commonly referred to as a “split-license”, which is what is currently in place on ThemeForest and CodeCanyon. It should be stated that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this — it does not violate the GPL in any way. However, as I point out in my blog post, the reason why it’s an issue when a ThemeForest theme developer volunteers for a WordCamp is because it violates the WordCamp guidelines that have been set out by the WordPress Foundation about who can (and can’t) be involved in the organizing of a WordCamp.
What does that mean for Event Espresso?
As a premium plugin developer, it’s a difficult position to be in. The GPL makes it so anyone can get a copy of your plugin and resell it, or just provide a link to a full version of a piece of software that — in our case — has been the product of literally tens of thousands of hours of development. This is why, when you purchase Event Espresso, you are not buying the code. You are paying for support and updates for the length of the license — the very things that the GPL implicitly does not provide. People are always finding ways to pirate software, and WordPress themes and plugins are no different. However, as I always like to say, good luck getting support. With Event Espresso, if you found a copy online (outside of our site) you would not be able to access the forums except for the free forums or the translator forums (where it would become obvious pretty quickly that you were not using the free version or had a question relating to the translations based on your version and your questions) and only limited access to our support documentation. And you would have no access to updates of any kind.
We are proud of our dedication to open source software. We are actively seeking new partnerships with other WordPress developers, and the API we’re developing will expand Event Espresso events to sites that don’t even run on WordPress. If you have questions about the GPL, take a look at the Frequently Asked Questions on Gnu.org or feel free to contact me on Twitter — I love talking about the GPL helping people understand what it is and how it works!
If your registration transactions through Event Espresso and PayPal were working before but have stopped working today then it is likely related to a current PayPal IPN outage. Paypal is still working toward a resolution to the IPN issue. Another update at 12:00 PM CST. More info: http://t.co/XVIY9D5u
Update 12PM CST No resolution yet from PayPal. Another update scheduled for 2PM CST.
Update 10AM CST From the PayPal developer site:
This issue has been resolved as of Jan 29, 1:25 AM PST (Jan 29, 9:25 AM GMT).
We are happy to officially announce a new feature for Event Espresso users that we quietly rolled out on the website a couple weeks ago: the Event Espresso pre-release channel.
What’s the Event Espresso pre-release channel?
Pre-release channel downloads
The pre-release channel is where we post early versions of Event Espresso and any add-ons for user testing. Since we are just barely rolling this new feature out and switching to a new development schedule all at the same time, the first couple versions we released on the pre-release channel were still very early in the testing. However, our new development cycle goes into effect with the release of 3.1.30, which will include a full month of testing by the support team. After we’ve gone through our testing (the alpha stage), we will post the plugin to the pre-release channel. These should be considered solid release candidates that you can use on your live site, but if you are still nervous, you can hold back, stick with the stable version, which will have had a month of beta testing on the pre-release channel. Any bugs that come up during the beta period (via your testing on the pre-release channel) will be addressed before the final release of Event Espresso.
The great part about the pre-release channel is that it installs into a separate directory on your site, so if there are any issues, you can just switch back to the stable version after reporting the issue.
We need your feedback! We are hard at work on the next version of Event Espresso, and we’d like you to take it out for a spin. When you test out a pre-release edition of Event Espresso you can:
Help test the upcoming software release against a wide variety of server environments and WordPress installations
Get a heads up on new features
Ensure that your customizations will work with the very latest software
Influence how the final product will look and function
Help contribute to a more stable final product
Try out new add-ons before they are officially released
Where to download
If you log into your Event Espresso account page and scroll down to the downloads section and you will see a new checkbox (tickbox) for signing up to the Pre-release channel. You can tick that and agree to the waiver and the Pre-release items will appear in a box below your regular downloads.
Pre-Release Toggle
We have set a waiver in place because we may also be using this space for new, experimental products that may not be fully stable, however, again Event Espresso core and the current add-ons will have gone through testing by our support staff before being posted to the pre-release channel. Full details can be found in the Pre-release documentation.
How to report bugs and give feedback
If you notice anything that isn’t working please report it in the Pre-release forum. There will be a new thread for each major point release.
We will be posting the beta version of 3.1.30 to the pre-release channel today with a planned release of Monday. That means you can get started with the next version a few days early and let us know in the forums if there are any problems.
Are you a WordPress theme or plugin developer? Have you worked with WordPress or Event Espresso enough that you feel comfortable making customizations for clients? Do you want more clients?
If the answer to those questions was “Yes”, we want to hear from you! We’re looking to partner with experienced WordPress developers who are familiar with Event Espresso that want new clients. We get a lot of requests for customization projects that we just aren’t able to work on due to our regular plugin development workload.
Think you fit the bill? Let us know what you specialize in, what your average rates are, and give us an example site that you’ve worked on (preferably a site that’s running Event Espresso). We’ll be adding developers to a Third Party Developers page where we will refer our customers who are requesting custom development projects that we are unable to take on within their timeline. Fill out our Third Party Developer application to get listed in our directory.
Seth is the original founder of Event Espresso, a project that began as a way for his wife to have people register for her scrapbooking events. He’s one of the lead developers, spending most of his waking hours working on Event Espresso 3.1 features and bugfixes.
Chris is a general handyman around Event Espresso, working the forums, email, custom development and occasional contributions to Event Espresso core and add-on development. Chris is responsible for rewriting much of the Event Espresso Requirements Check plugin and has been with the team for the past 2 years.
Brent is the lead developer for Event Espresso and has been responsible for leading much of the development going into Event Espresso 3.2 as well as wholesale bugfixes and refactoring in 3.1. He’s in British Columbia, so we’ll forgive him for looking like he’s rolled out of bed right before the hangout because it’s probably true.
GPL stands for Gnu Public License, and it is the software license under which WordPress is distributed. Briefly, it is an agreement between the software developer and the user about how the software can be used and what the expectations of the software may be. There are a few key points that are important to remember when discussing the GPL:
