Eventbrite Archives | Event Espresso

Happy Birthday Event Espresso!!

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

Happy Birthday Event Espresso

The original version of Event Espresso, first named “Events Registration with PayPal IPN”, later renamed to “Advanced Events Registration”, was released on April 20, 2009 and has been rewritten a total of three times since its initial inception, and is now aptly named “Event Espresso”. After three name changes and three complete rewrites, here we are. It all started out as a simple plugin for my wife. All she needed was a way for people to register for her scrapbooking classes and events. I couldn’t find any good plugins that were easy for a non-tech person to manage events and accept payments. So I went ahead and created my own solution.

In addition to celebrating our second year as the premiere events registration and management plugin for WordPress, this month was especially awesome! Thanks to my business partner and long time friend, Garth Koyle, Event Espresso is $40,000 richer. Garth wrote a winning 30-page business plan and gave an outstanding presentation that ended up winning first place–and $40,000–in the Utah Entrepreneur Challenge. This extra money will allow us to spend more time expanding our current services and framework, to bring you the best event registration system for WordPress.

As of January 2011, we had 1400+ purchases of the premium version, and over 15,000 downloads of the free version on WordPress.org. We now have over 18,000 downloads of the free version and almost a 5 star rating! We have been featured on WP Plugins.com, WPCandy (several times), and WPMU.org (two times). This year is also bringing us the first Mobile Ticketing App for WordPress (very excited about this!) In addition to all of that, we have also given out over 200 non-profit discounts to non-profit organizations all over the world.

Last, but NOT least, I would like to give a BIG THANKS! To all of our customers and the WordPress community that have made this an awesome two years. Without YOU and ALL of the wonderful feedback you have provided throughout these past two years, we would all still be paying high fees to Eventbrite and the other companies. This year we plan to make a dent in their pocket books and bring even more features, while still keeping you in control of your data, events, and hard-earned cash!

Please take the time to:

Share your Event Espresso story with us, using the comment form below or email
Let us know how Event Espresso has helped you grow your event business or organization
Tell your friends, your community, your church, or the world about Event Espresso
Sponsor a WordCamp!

Posted in News, WordPress, WordPress Plugins, Eventbrite, Open Source, Event Management | 3 Comments »

How do you save $30,000 on your WordCamp registrations?

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Keep the Cash Campaign

This weekend we had the opportunity of attending WordCamp Utah. For those who haven’t attended a WordCamp, it’s a great opportunity to be inspired by and network with skilled developers, writers, webmasters, and entrepreneurs. We even had a town hall meeting with WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg and a live presentation from Will it Blend, yeah, seriously! Needless to say, we had a great time.

Even though we had a great time at WordCamp, there was a $30,000 problem that really bothered us. Each of the 153 attendees had to pay an additional $1.49 to cover the cost of registering for WordCamp through Eventbrite. With all the plugin development around WordPress, why would WordCamp not use Event Espresso to manage their events? Event Espresso only costs $59.95 for unlimited events, and no fee per registrant (compare that to $1.49 per registrant with Eventbrite). WordCamp could either use that $1.49 for cool WordCamp things, or they could give us all a discount.

There have been or will be 136 WordCamps in 2010 and if, on average, each WordCamp gets about the same number of attendees as WordCamp Utah, attendees could collectively pay $30,396 just to register for WordCamps! That could fund the development of a sweet new feature or theme or be used to publicize WordPress as a CMS. Developers can help their clients save more money too by using Event Espresso.

To help make WordCamp better, and save a lot of cash, we have decided to donate our event manager plugin, Event Espresso, to every WordCamp site. We do not want to see all that money go toward just registration fees – we’d like to see WordCamp use that money to make it better or let us all keep the cash. We’re here to help you manager your events better, so if you’re in charge of planning or hosting a WordCamp, contact us to get your free event manager plugin.

You too should make more money from your events, or make them more affordable with Event Espresso.

Put a Banner on Your Site:

Save the Cash Campaign 125x125

Save the Cash Campaign 234x60

Save the Cash Campaign 468x60

Save the Cash Campaign 728x90

Tags: save, event espresso, wordcamp, eventbrite, free, management, registration
Posted in News, WordCamp, WordPress, WordPress Plugins, Featured Posts, Eventbrite, Open Source | 7 Comments »

Friends Don’t Let Friends Host Events on Eventbrite

Saturday, August 21st, 2010

The Truth Is Out!

Event Espresso beats Eventbrite by keeping YOU in full control of your money, customer data, and style.

Are you holding a paid event? Are you willing to give away 2.5% of your ticket value + $0.99 per ticket sold? If so then by all means, host your next event on Eventbrite. Hosting an event on Eventbrite means that you have to fork over a percentage of every ticket you sell.

With Event Espresso you are in control of your money, customer data and style.

Event Espresso is a one-time payment. That means no monthly fees or registration fees.

Protecting Your Customers’ Privacy

Do you value your customers’ privacy? If so, then then why would you use a third party to host your events and keep all of your customers’ data? You might as well let the guy down the street host your next event and collect the money and registration data.

Companies like Eventbrite collect and keep personal information provided by you and the people registering for your events, as stated in the Eventbrite Privacy Policy.

Event Espresso is as secure as you and your server. When you install Event Espresso on your website or blog, you are in total control of the registration data. Every registration performed on your site is stored safely in your database. Accessing and exporting the registration data is as easy as logging into the WordPress admin. With Event Espresso’s easy-to-use interface, you have immediate access to the information you need.

Style and Integration

Have you ever used Eventbrite’s iframe code to showcase your events on your website? Did you ever get the colors just right for each event? I am willing to bet that you may have come close, then gave up after wasting twenty minutes of your valuable time, only to have your customers leave your website to register on the Eventbrite website.

Style is no longer an issue when you have Event Espresso installed on YOUR website. Event Espresso is fully integrated with your WordPress website or blog. That means you spend less time matching colors, pasting in arbitrary code, or just trying to look professional.

So, if you own a WordPress website or blog, stop wasting your time and money with third-party event registration systems. Event Espresso gives you all the tools you need to host, manage, and collect payments for events on your own WordPress website or blog.

For a limited time, get $10 off the basic license using the discount code EVENTBRITE when checking out.

Don’t Have a WordpPress Website? Check out One of These Sponsors:

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Smart Website Solutions
31two Creative Studio

Posted in News, WordPress, WordPress Plugins, Featured Posts, Eventbrite, My Plugins, Open Source, PayPal | 12 Comments »

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