Event Espresso headquartered in Utah offers an event registration and management platform supplying automated help for ticketing and ticket purchases, registration forms and pricing, promotions and correspondences (e.g. email), multiple attendee registration, and other features.
$79.95
per year
SignUpGenius
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
SignUpGenius in Charlotte offers an event sign up and registration site and service for entities organizing small groups, with payment processing, email and text reminding, forms with visual design themes and templates, among other features.
As far as I have found, Event Espresso has no peer. Yes, there are other WordPress plugins that provide for event registration, including a few available through Code Canyon, but none of them promise the rich feature set and robust support of Event Espresso. It seems to be the only real game in town, but luckily it's a good product. It's highly extensible, so it should scale well to any size or type of event. Through add-ons, it's doubtful there is an event scenario it can't handle. And because it runs on WordPress, you can incorporate it as part of your site--the plugin even does a good job of picking up design cues from your theme, or you can customize it using CSS.
If you are planning large events and you need an accurate headcount, the SignUpGenius is for you! Additionally, if you are trying to get a variety of volunteers to meet various needs, then you should really check out SignUpGenius! One specific way that we have used SignUpGenius is by getting the parents of our youth ministry students to bring refreshments to youth groups on Sunday mornings. We set up a SignUpGenius sign-up sheet where they can all sign up for various Sundays to bring refreshments, which really helps our students focus on Sundays.
Integrating account creation with WordPress should be included in the core product, not an add-on. It's extremely frustrating to have to pay extra for that, especially when that add-on is not as flexible as it needs to be (for example, if someone is enrolling for a class on behalf of someone else).
The data visualization is a mess. That feature doesn't seem to ever work and it should be left out until it does.
The ability to show participant data on the front end is extremely limited. Event Espresso does provide a few hooks and some limited documentation on this feature, but I feel it should be more robust. Perhaps that can be a focus of future releases.
Some of the layout and terminology are a little confusing and could be more user-friendly. It took me some time and playing around to figure out that the days and times you put in are a step which just produces a grid of possible times, and that choosing which slots to activate is a second step required. It later made sense why it was set up this was (allows you to input a large block of times at once and then select the particular ones you need, and makes it possible to add a second person with a different schedule on the same sign up, giving the appointment setters more options overall to choose from)
Wish it would intuitively (or add an option to...) replicate location for any additional days and times you add to the same sign up. Has to be manually added (or copied and pasted).
I don't have any feedback for support because I have not had to use support (if referring to IT support). If this question is in referral to support from other staff/company, then it has been received well in that sense.
I looked at EventBrite, but it wasn't customizable enough for our needs and didn't provide the level of integration with our website that I desired. I also looked at the ticketing system offered by The Events Calendar for WordPress (by Modern Tribe), but it too lacked the feature set we needed. Only Event Espresso offered all the features, customization, and integration we desired and needed.
I prefer the use of SignUpGenius as it is more user-friendly. I am not limited to 10 questions and then have to pay for additional features. While I do not like the additional feature payment, as we are a nonprofit, I will continue using the free services.
Event Espresso has literally changed the lives of our volunteer organization, saving hundreds of hours of time and eliminating the frustration of paper enrollment.
The add-ons allow you to accomplish just about any event registration goals you might have. It's an extremely powerful product.
Integrating the plugin into our website was a breeze, and it's approachable enough where volunteers can create the classes and conduct the online enrollment all in a web browser.
Being able to share the form with people inside and outside your organization allows less back and forth via email when scheduling meetings - saving time and money
The free version is available as long as you'd like - it's not a trial version - a lot of companies can get away with only using the free version
