Excellent Event Plugin Options
I know there are a lot of solutions out there for events and event calendaring when it comes to WordPress. If you haven't seen a recent list, let me give you a quick one:
- Sugar Event Calendar – probably one of the most well coded ones I've seen in a while
- Event Espresso – the grand-daddy of them all, that has tons and tons of features
- All in One Event Calendar – this one is by timely, who has been doing event calendars a long time
- The Events Calendar – free with a ton of add ons and a premium version
At some point in the future, I'm sure I'll write a comparison post of these four solutions, but today I want to talk about events and event ticketing.
Event Ticketing
Most of the people I know find themselves suddenly facing event ticketing a bit by surprise. Either because a client initially said they would take care of ticketing separately, or because it was never brought up, an event's site can easily go live without ticketing.
And then the call comes when someone discovered how much eventbrite tickets would be, and so the question arises – “What would it take to sell tickets online?”
Now, if you're going to collect money online, you know I want you to start thinking, right away, about PCI compliance. But with that out of the way, let's look at a really simple and inexpensive solution.
WooCommerce + Stripe + SSL
One way to handle your PCI compliance is to use the combination of some of my favorites – WooCommerce and Stripe. If you have an SSL certificate, you can combine these two players to create a basic commerce solution that is safe. The good news is that WooCommerce is free, Stripe is cheap, and if you already have a private IP address, an SSL cert doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg.s
WooTickets
So let's assume you've put the basics in place. Now what? Well remember that last event plugin I mentioned above? The Events Calendar? Yup, that's the one. It is an incredibly awesome plugin – and it's free. So with WooCommerce free and Events Calendar free, you should be jumping up and down.
For a single site, the only cost is for an add-on – WooTickets – which at $50 feels like a steal!
Think about it – normally you end up with that “per person” ticket fee. If your event has more than 50 folks, it will cost you more than this combination.
- WooCommerce is free and easy to install.
- Events Calendar is free and easy to install.
- WooTickets costs $50 and is easy to install.
You know what you have here?
A solution that let's you focus on event planning instead of your online ticketing system. Now that's just pure awesome!
Want some help deploying a solution like this? Talk to my friend Brian.