WordPress Plugin Event Espresso Listed as a Top Eventbrite Competitor for Event Management

It has come to my attention that the event management and ticketing company Eventbrite announced its $200m IPO recently after rumors of the company’s public offering have swirled for months. However, there’s something here that’s related to WordPress in a big way.

While Eventbrite is known as the best cloud-based ticketing platform, with a 61% market share in the event management industry, it was astonishing to see Event Espresso, a WordPress plugin, listed as one of the top five Eventbrite competitors for “event management” on Datanyze:

Event Espresso Ranked #4 for Event Management Market Share

Another interesting revelation is the fact that Event Espresso is now ranked #4 for event management market share. Coming in at a whopping 2.84% of the total event management market share, with almost 7,000 of the worlds most visited event ticketing sites using the WordPress plugin, Event Espresso:

Close to 150 Event Espresso Websites in the Alexa Top 1 Million

In addition to that, the number of Alexa top 1 million websites running Event Espresso is nearing 150 sites:

Event Espresso’s Rise to Fame

In the spring of 2009, a WordPress plugin called “Advanced Events Registration” was released to the world. This WordPress plugin had a simple purpose: allow someone with a WordPress website to accept registrations and payments for their events without needing to be a computer expert. After a couple of years of improvements, the plugin was renamed to Event Espresso.

But where did Event Espresso get its start?

Co-founder, Seth Shoultes wanted to help his wife who was in an awkward position. She enjoyed organizing and hosting scrap-booking classes in Utah but was tired of being fleeced by high commission/service fees to a third-party event registration platform. These fees can cost event organizers hundreds or even thousands of dollars each year. When Seth looked around for event registration plugins for WordPress, he couldn’t find any that a non-technical, barely computer-savvy person would understand and so he set out on a mission create his own.

After a couple of years later going at it alone, Seth invited his friend Garth Koyle to become a co-founder at Event Espresso. At the time, Garth was obtaining his Master of Business Administration at the University of Utah and heard about an upcoming business competition called the Utah Entrepreneur Challenge. The duo talked briefly about entering the challenge and then rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

The result of over 100 hours of research and preparation was a 30+ page business plan. The business plan was then pitched to a panel of judges, comprised of fifteen business leaders — each thought leaders in their very own businesses and among the most influential people in town. Seth and Garth competed against one hundred and thirty-two entries in the challenge and advanced to the final round where they were up against ten other teams. The moment when the winner was announced on that Wednesday night at Rice–Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah was surreal. Event Espresso was announced as the first place winner of the business competition, a victory that came with an award of $40,000.

When asked about Event Espresso winning the challenge, co-founder Garth Koyle was humble with his response:

“We didn’t expect to win but are very pleased to be recognized with such an award.”

Getting to Know the Event Management Industry

For those of you that would like to learn more about the event management industry and how it relates to almost everything around us, from selling tickets for backyard barbecues, car shows, and festivals, to selling out a concert, class, or conference, let’s take a deeper dive into the subject.

What is Event Management?

Event management involves creating and developing large-scale events which may include conferences, conventions, concerts, trade shows, festivals, and ceremonies. Event management involves identifying the target audience, formulating the event concept, planning the overall logistics of the event and conducting project management of the event as a whole — including managing the teams of people responsible for each function, the budget, and overseeing the execution of the event. Event managers also supervise the services of all outside vendors and professionals, which includes event planners.

The process of planning and coordinating the event is usually referred to as event planning and which can include budgeting, scheduling, site selection, acquiring necessary permits, organizing transportation and parking, arranging for speakers or entertainers, arranging decor, event security, catering, coordinating with third-party vendors, and emergency plans. Each event is different so the process of planning & execution of each event differs by the type of event.

The events industry now includes events of all sizes from the Olympics down to business breakfast meetings. Many industries, charitable organizations, and interest groups hold events to market themselves, build business relationships, raise money, or celebrate an achievement.

Events Industry & Meetings Economic Impact 

Business-to-business (B2B) events industry revenue worldwide amounted to 30.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2016, up from 29.3 billion a year earlier. In 2016, meetings generated $325 billion of direct spending and $845 billion in business sales. These numbers represent a contribution of $446 billion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and $104 billion of federal, state and local taxes. The total tax impact per household was $879 per U.S. household. In total, 1.9 million meetings were held in 2016, with 251 million participants. On average, the direct spending associated with 43 meeting participants supported one U.S. job, including both direct and indirect impacts.

Tools of the Trade

So you’re probably wondering what tools are available to event managers. There are many tools available to event managers on the internet. However, To this day, there are still many thousands of event managers in the world that are using offline registration systems, such as mail-in registrations via a paper registration form or downloadable documents, such as PDF or Word. Meanwhile, many modern-day Event Managers use online tools such as cVent and SignupGenius to create an event website where they can accept online registrations and sell tickets to upcoming events. However, only a few online systems are capable of serving the needs of many different types of events. As event management technology evolves to suit the needs of a diverse community, event managers are streamlining much of their event registrations at a faster rate than ever before. Since the coming of WordPress, Event Espresso has seen many event managers move their entire systems over to WordPress over the last ten years.

Most Popular Event Registration Technology

Here are just a few of the systems that strive to give event managers an online platform for selling tickets to their events:

Cloud-Based: