Organizing successful events at the enterprise level involves managing all sorts of event-related tasks like event planning, registrations, ticketing, and email marketing.
In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the most popular event management plugins for WordPress that can help you showcase events, accept registrations, sell tickets, and run email marketing campaigns on your enterprise website.
Before we begin, let’s step through some of the key features you should look for in a WordPress event plugin.
What to Look for in an Event Plugin for Enterprise Websites
Choosing the right WordPress events plugin for your enterprise website becomes much easier when you know what features to look for. A WordPress events plugin can help you streamline and automate day-to-day tasks that come with organizing an event such as registrations, attendee tracking, collecting payments, and customer support.
Here’s what you need to look for in a WordPress event plugin for your enterprise website:
- Events calendar. Choose an events plugin that showcases all of your events in one place. This way, visitors can easily view everything without going to individual event pages. They should also be able to click links in the event calendar if they want to find out more about a particular event or register for it.
- Online event registration and ticketing. The event management plugin should allow you to accept online event registrations as well as offer flexible ticketing options. Online event registration makes it easy for attendees to complete the entire registration process without leaving your site.
- Accepting payments. You need a way to accept payments for the tickets you will sell. The event plugin you choose should offer multiple payment methods that you can integrate into your event website such as PayPal, Stripe, credit cards, and offline payment methods.
- Email marketing features. The events plugin should integrate with popular email marketing services like Mailchimp. This way, you can reach out to attendees with promotional offers and notifications.
Now that you know what features to look for, let’s step through some of the best WordPress event plugins and highlight the benefits each one offers.
Best WordPress Event Plugins for Enterprise Websites of 2020
Here are some of the most popular WordPress event plugins for enterprise websites:
#1: Event Espresso
Event Espresso is an easy-to-use, premium event ticketing and registration plugin for WordPress. It gives you access to a number of powerful event management features out of the box and offers a variety of premium add-ons for advanced functionality.
You can create an events calendar to display event information such as venue, date, and time. Plus, users can filter events based on event venues and event categories. This enables prospective attendees to quickly find the event they wish to attend and click to register for it.
Event Espresso lets attendees register for events quickly by filling out online registration forms that pre-populate fields when users are logged in to their account. Moreover, you can also set up waiting lists and accept group registrations. You’ll be able to create and sell multiple types of tickets, set prices, ticket quantity limits, and much more.
The event plugin lets you collect payments via check, invoice, PayPal, and credit cards. It also allows you to collect payments at the door on the day of the event. The plugin offers six payment gateways out of the box and 17 additional payment processors are offered as add-ons.
Event Espresso’s built-in marketing tools enable you to increase registrations and ticket sales by offering special discounts and promotional codes to prospective attendees and enabling social sharing options. You’ll also be able to build your Mailchimp mailing list or group to supercharge your email marketing efforts.
Event Espresso helps you easily organize successful events such as seminars, conferences, workshops, and other enterprise-level events. It comes with full-time support so, if you need help getting started, Event Espresso’s knowledgeable team will be there to help you out. Plus, all event features are available in the same plugin making it the ideal solution for any enterprise website.
#2: The Events Calendar
The Events Calendar helps you plan and display a powerful event calendar on your site with different calendar views (including photo, map, and week view) and save venues and organizers for future use. It comes with a user-friendly interface that lets you quickly create and list events on your website.
You’ll be able to create weekly, monthly, or custom recurring events which make it easy to manage your calendar. It supports location-based search on Google Maps so attendees can easily find event venues in a map view.
The Events Calendar comes with a variety of handy widgets for displaying upcoming events list, featured venue, and to show a countdown to your next event. You can sync your events on different devices with Google Calendar and iCal.
It offers RSVP and ticketing features (like creating and selling tickets, collecting attendee information for each ticket, and including QR codes on tickets) as a separate plugin.
The Events Calendar comes with built-in email marketing features (i.e. Promoter available as a separate plugin) which helps you connect with your community, boost event attendance, and manage notifications efficiently.
This plugin also integrates with Eventbrite allowing you to transfer events between Eventbrite and your website’s event calendar. The Events Calendar plugin is multi-site compatible and offers reliable customer service.
#3: EventON
EventON is a premium WordPress event plugin that helps you create interactive, customizable event calendars for your enterprise website. It has an intuitive back-end and offers a modern and colorful portfolio-like layout to list your events.
This plugin displays event venues, time, and cancellation information on the main calendar page. Event information is neatly organized so images, social media buttons, maps, and purchasing buttons look great on your website.
It gives you access to a number of add-ons for extending the functionality and user experience of your site. These add-ons let you add RSVP, bookings, and ticket creating and selling features to your event pages.
EventON is designed for enterprise users that simply need to display event details on their website.
#4: Events Manager
Events Manager is another powerful event management plugin that offers flexible, AJAX-based calendars. It offers a complete event creation and sharing platform. In addition to this, it integrates with BuddyPress which means you can share your events on social media sites.
This plugin also has a free version that can be upgraded to Events Manager Pro. The free version lets you manage event registrations, however, you’ll be charged an extra fee to collect payments from attendees using PayPal, Stripe Checkout, Authorize.net (AIM), as well as through offline payment methods.
Using Events Manager, you’ll be able to create recurring and multi-day event registrations and approve and reject booked seats. Events Manager is the go-to solution for event organizers that don’t need to sell tickets for their events.
#5: Modern Events Calendar
Modern Events Calendar is a user-friendly event management plugin for WordPress websites. It gives you access to an event calendar with tons of display layouts and lets you customize it to match your enterprise website’s theme and branding.
With Modern Events Calendar, you can easily transfer all your events from any other WordPress event management plugin to its platform. It lets you create customized forms using its powerful booking system. In addition to this, it offers ticketing features including setting up ticket variations, displaying ticket statuses, and setting different ticket prices.
Modern Events Calendar allows you to create regular events, repeat events, and offers a ton of event options. This plugin offers integration with WPML, WooCommerce, Elementor, Facebook, and other platforms.
It lets you directly collect payments from event attendees using various payment gateways including credit cards, PayPal, and Stripe.
Modern Events Calendar is great for enterprises that need to accept event submissions from users and are looking for reliable customer support.
Conclusion
Knowing what features to look for in a WordPress event plugin will help you pick the right tool for your enterprise website and use it to plan and organize successful events.
- If you’re looking for a complete event registration and ticketing solution, we recommend going for Event Espresso. It offers everything you need to organize enterprise-level events.
- However, if you’re looking for a simple way to list events on your enterprise website and don’t need to accept registrations or sell tickets, EventON is worth a shot.
- Finally, if you’re in the market for a WordPress event plugin that lets you accept event submissions from users, consider going for Modern Events Calendar.
What features do you consider when choosing a WordPress events plugin for your enterprise website? Let us know by commenting below.
