Event Essentials Erfahrungen

Event Essentials is great for small businesses

Kommentare: I have really enjoyed working with Event Essentials. They have taken the time to get to know our needs and modified their based products to develop a custom solution that meets our needs. They are

Vorteile:

The main thing I love about this product is how it can be, and has been, customized to meet our needs. I love the ability to automatically have vendor bios (business name, contact information, description of services and products, and a photo) to be automatically posted to a web page once we approve the vendor. I really like the easy to use interface to view and manage vendors. I can quickly find vendors, view their status, make changes and approve or reject them. Our vendors love the "Returning Exhibitor" feature that allows the vendor to submit an application using most of the data they entered on their prior application. This saves them a lot of time.

Nachteile:

The system does not (currently) allow vendors to make changes to content. This requires us to make changes on their behalf. Fortunately, this is not difficult to do.

Customizing a flexible event management platform

Kommentare: Our experience has been very good. Custom configuring a management system like ours is not for the feint of heart. Nor does it happen overnight. I think the EE team underestimated the complexity of our business process. We worked through that. I think a stronger guiding hand from EE's project manager would have helped us better organize ourselves. However, I commend their dedication and follow through because in the end, we have what we envisioned.

Vorteile:

Event Essentials enabled us to take an existing event management platform and configure it to our specific and quite unique needs. The flexibility of their platform is amazing. The EE team configured the system to accommodate our workflow. No more work-arounds. And that is a huge plus. The other farmers market management platforms were not able to be as responsive to customization. Interface is important to me and Event Essentials is quite good. Search and filtering are robust and snappy making it easy to view data as desired. Organizing content under a tab system is very helpful and essentially provides pre-filtered data sets. They have a robust Portal allowing our market vendors to access their accounts, view their applications, their registrations, email history and soon, invoices and payments. Vendors may initiate changes through their portal. And, the system has customized email notification that are associated with specific actions confirming status to vendors and notifying our staff action is required. We develop and manages about 15 seasonal farmers markets. We needed to integrate our management system tying together the two primary functional areas of our company -- Vendor sales & management and Market Operations management. We deal with a large amount of data and lots of moving parts. We needed to integrate a robust daily market reporting system. We needed a robust reporting system with great filters. Event Essentials is doing this for us

Nachteile:

There a couple of things that could be better. We do a fair amount of data entry in the field and the display on smaller screens, i.e. iPad Mini's needs some attention. I suspect the EE team will work this out at some point. It is important to us to be able to self manage some back end features. Currently they are giving us that ability incrementally which is probably a good thing. It would be helpful to be able to create report templates, update more text areas, ourselves. That too, I think come in time.

Horrible experience; I could never recommend this.

Vorteile:

They only good thing about Event Essentials was the price; they were very affordable and during the sales process, it was easy to communicate with the sales managers.

Nachteile:

Literally everything else. When we signed our contract, we had a very long list of things that we were told would be able to be implemented and customized. As soon as we signed on, everything went dark as far as communication went. We went multiple weeks without updates, sometimes months. While things were made and created, almost nothing worked as we expected it to. We were told that it was because "we were on the old system" but never offered a chance to upgrade to a new system. Critical updates and deadlines were missed frequently by our account representatives to the point that we had to move to an entirely different event management company because the system was not functional for us. Truly a disappointment, because Event Essentials had such great potential; they overpromised and vastly underdelivered.

Event Essentials is THE multi-purpose tool you never knew you needed to have in your event arsenal!

Kommentare: EE is extremely user friendly and intuitive. Without any training whatsoever, I got thrown into EE and surprisingly, navigation was easy and adding information, exporting data, reports, etc. was straightforward and uncomplicated. Considering the sheer size of data over a multitude of areas, it is amazing how simple their program is to use. Besides all that EE has to offer and how they truly work with clients as a team, I have been impressed with their ability to pivot during Covid-19. In the event industry, social distancing is an obvious issue (among many) so we have been continually changing policies, adding new information, etc. and EE has not only responded swiftly in implementing our changes but were crucial in our decision making as well. They were also able to offer extremely helpful advice as well as create new opportunities when the world went on lock down. Overall, EE has been a game changer by creating our different types of computer programs designed to perform specific tasks in a variety of areas. Each with different principle goals that we required our programs to achieve. We are continually impressed with EE’s quality and professionalism and are very happy with their product and customer service. Give them a try and add them as a supplement to your team. You’ll be surprised how much your efficiency will soar while reducing stress. And you will not be disappointed.

Vorteile:

We use EE as our platform for our festival (two-day event w/200,000 + attendees) and it manages three important yet completely different areas for us: volunteers, vendors and our parade. With over 564 shifts in 120 different positions, we rely on EE to manage the 350+ volunteers for our event with additional management of other smaller events associated with our festival offsite and/or before the festival (i.e. Golf Tournament, stages, etc.). In our vendor program, we handle roughly 577 vendors of various types such as Arts & Crafts, food, sponsors, non-profits, etc. EE works with us in creating and implementing all 7 of our vendor applications as well as manages all the information as a result. As for our parade, we average around 75 different entrants ranging from bands and floats to horses and VIPs. It is a varied yet entertaining parade and having EE keep track of each participant is effortless.

Nachteile:

As is the case with anything, sometimes things come up and there isn't a feature or option to capture it on EE. That said, whenever it has happened to us, we let EE know and they immediately come up with a solution(s) and tweak our program. I don't consider this a complete con, though, since events are fluid and as such, the software must be as well and EE definitely works well for this.

Transformative Experience

Kommentare: Event essentials has been great for allowing us to fully automate our online ticketing, while giving us fully flexible ticketing options as well as a way to manage the sign up and tracking of a variety of different vendors and competition groups at our event. Going from a manual method to online database management also allows us to retain customer information for future events, and get an accurate assessment of our advertising campaigns and the value of our ticket options.

Vorteile:

In my third year in running this event, we brought on Event Essentials. The amount of volunteer hours their software has freed up has given flexibility back to our organization, and made efficiencies possible that we once only dreamed of. Automating portions of our event that have been done by hand for over four decades, has created a sea change in how we are getting the job done. I am so grateful we partnered with the Event Essentials team.

Nachteile:

My biggest disappointment was that we didn't get started sooner. I am already looking forward to next year's event knowing we have these tools at our disposal from day one.

Perfectly Personalized

Kommentare: EE has automated our vendor application process while still allowing us to personalize and approve each application. I used to bring applications into a spreadsheet, prepare individual invoices, and keep a record of payment in the credit card processor account as well as the spreadsheet. Now, everything is integrated. I can customize a response and hit "approve", and the vendor receives an email with a payment link. We were also able to set up a payment plan which was super helpful.

Vorteile:

We are able to keep all of our event information in one place, personalized to exactly fit our needs. It is a relief to know that when our event opens, we'll have everything at our fingertips, accessible to everyone on our team. The EE programmers patiently worked with us to tweak every last form, field and font to our satisfaction. Our EE pages match our web site exactly, looking professional and easy to use.

Nachteile:

Everything is working as we expected and I haven't found anything disappointing.

Ticket sales/sponsor/vendor management for a 400 person fundraiser

Vorteile:

HTML. Lots of useful tools, great customer service. Nice reports, ticket sales by type/coupon code, etc. Additional options to manage workers, vendors, sponsors. Built in safeguards to prevent costly mistakes. Can use your companies own credit services. Ticket fee revenue sharing. You keep all the data.

Nachteile:

No custom-field reports, must be requested through customer service. Time for auto sign out really short. Seemed like 15 minutes or so.

Easy and seamless

Kommentare: They understand how to create a great experience at point of check in.

Vorteile:

For a volunteer organization, the software program was easy to understand and gave us up to date and pertinent data. The check in process with bar codes is fast and efficient.

Nachteile:

There is nothing I can think of at this time.

Event Essentials has been a tremendous asset to our main fundraiser BrewFest. 5 star experience!

Vorteile:

It is easy to administer which allows us to capture the data needed to help us internally manage our event. It is very user friendly and easy to grasp a hold of from an end users point of view.

Small Agricultural Fair Application

Kommentare: In my opinion I don't know if we could have found a better company to take from knowing little to nothing about event software through to the development of our unique application, implementation, and use.

Vorteile:

EE offered a suite of products to help us better manage our country. The start-cost were fair and reasonable. They leased the required hardware which allowed us to not have to make a large capital investment while learning and trialing the benefits of the product. EE modified the software to fit our needs. They made almost instant changes when requested. Provided us with ended suggestions and advice about the implementation of the process.

Nachteile:

I cannot think of any problems with the way the software performed.

It has been a pleasure to work with Event Essentials. They've made our festival management so easy!

Kommentare: It's very easy to use and it integrates well into our current website. Managing festivals used to be a pain. Now, it's a breeze. No more trying to keep track of a bunch of data in different spreadsheets. The Event Essentials dashboard makes it easy to get a quick view of approved vendors, ticket sales and sponsors. And, everything is very automated. When we approve a vendor they are automatically sent an email that provides them with the link to submit a payment. I did my homework before selecting Event Essentials and it paid off! I truly think they are the best value when it comes to event management software!

Vorteile:

It was very easy to get this product customized and integrated into our current website! The Event Essentials team was very responsive any time we had and requested changes that they needed to make. I am very pleased at how much easier it has become to manage our festivals, including reviewing and approving exhibitors, receive payments and selling ticket online. I also love their exhibitor profile feature that allows each exhibitor to have their own bio page. Best of all, their prices were very competitive.

Nachteile:

The only downside that comes to mind is that they are located on the West Coast and we are on the East Coast. Regardless, they have been very responsive and I am amazes at how quickly they respond to any change requests.

Wish we discovered EE sooner!

Kommentare: Tucson Meet Yourself is a Multi Cultural festival that attacks over 120,000 people over the span on 3 days. We host over 60 different food vendors, 160 performers, & 700 volunteers. Event Essentials fits our needs and allows us to use 1 software for multiple components of our sign up/managing needs.Rep is wonderful to work with! I would highly suggest Event Essentials.

Vorteile:

We love how Event Essentials has created a software that is customizable to our specific needs. They are prompt to address the issues that may arise or adjust things that we need changed.

Nachteile:

I can hardly think of any cons. Hopefully this business can grow and expand. I think it would be wonderful for a representative to visit/physically interact each organizations within Event Essentials to completely understand and have a good grasp of what we do.

It was so easy to use and our attendees were impressed with how fast they got into our event.

Kommentare: Dear Event Essentials I wanted to take a moment and thank you and your staff on behalf of the Kiwanis Club of Thousand Oaks and our Charitable Foundation. Your support and customer service were outstanding before and during our BrewFest event this year. When we first discussed our needs with you for more efficiently handling our check in process and our vendor registration, your solution sounded like it would solve our needs. It in fact was better than we hoped for. Our vendors found the system easy to use and had no issues using it. We actually received more complete information so we could make a decision on them attending the event and also with the information provided; we were able to update our own BrewFest and Facebook web sites in a manner of minutes. The check in process and how it would work on event day was a major concern of ours. The software not only streamlined our check-in process, our attendees entered our event even quicker than we dreamed possible. Checking in over 400 attendees in 20 minutes was over the top successful and helped make the customer experience extremely enjoyable. The 3rd area of concern for us was the online ticketing process. Not only was this easy for our attendees, the tracking capabilities of the Event Essentials back office is just fantastic. All of the information we were looking to capture is there and very easy to work with. We now have a complete mailing list so we can stay in contact throughout the year. We understand that we have only use just a portion of the capabilities of your system and we look forward to integrating it more next year. Thank you again for the customer service, support and especially the marketing help with our event. Feel free to contact me at 805-490-4024 for an outstanding reference anytime. Sincerely, Randy Senzig
Immediate Past President
4th Annual BrewFest Co-Chairperson

Great tool with full customization and personalized customer support!

Kommentare: Working with Event Essentials has been great! They have been very responsive to our needs and generally implement our change requests within a few days.

Vorteile:

I really appreciate the ability to customize the tool's user interface and features to meet our business needs.

Nachteile:

The software doesn't currently allow us to approve several vendors at once. But, to be fair, we haven't requested this ability. I'm willing to bet they will be able to add this feature once we request it.

The Blue and the Gray - Civil War Reenactment

Kommentare: Event Essentials helped us analyze past customer purchases, both at the gate and on line and help us design a completely new ticket package. It definitely gave the customer more choices and allowed us to upsell our offerings. Our contacts were knowledgeable and got back to us quickly on ticket issues and quickly came up with solutions.
For this past year, they were definitely worth the money.
Lyle Pennington
Rotary Club of Moorpark
Marketing Chair - The Blue and the Gray

Vorteile:

It gives us excellent summary data to do planning going forward.

Nachteile:

I am not aware of any issues. Our Secretary may have some different input.

More than software or event management - Event Essentials is T R A N S F O R M A T I O N A L

Vorteile:

The whole package; yes it started with my organization needing help with a fairly large venue festival; it needed updating and modernizing. Event essentials came in, took charge, proposed among other things a ticket eFulfillment solution and and auction manager -This festival has never run so smoothly! There used to be lines 6 and 7 blocks long of disgruntled festoival goers waiting to be admitted into the venue. The lines are down to a few people deep, remarkable. So much easier than the way we used to do things.

Nachteile:

Well frankly it is alot of new technology to learn and its alot to grasp for some of the staff; we had alot of inertia as to how things were supposed to be run, way of doing things and it is now almost 180 degrees different; but the lines are shorter, people leave happier, security has an easier job because the new ticket system kept the bad guys out!

Sherman Oaks Street Festival

Kommentare: The Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce has been organizing the Sherman Oaks Street Fair for 24 years. This past year we decided to work with Event Essentials to develop a new website to try to automate what was a very paper intensive process of managing about 150 vendors, multiple entertainment zones, volunteers and sponsors. Our new website and administrative site saved us hours and hours of manual work. We were able to keep track of our vendors online, create excel spreadsheets to sort vendors and analyze results and even send ad-hoc emails (both mass ones and ones to just certain kinds of vendors) quickly and easily. We were able to update information in real time. Whether we had a last minute change on the stage, a new sponsor or a community update, it was easy to log-on and keep our website accurate. We even created a great photo gallery of our event loading the hundreds of photos took about 5 minutes! The staff at Event Essentials were responsive and went out of their way to solve any issue that came up. We look forward to celebrating our 25th Anniversary of the Sherman Oaks Street Fair working with Event Essentials.

Reliable Service

Kommentare: I have worked for over 4 years with Event Essentials and always have received personal service, swift response to our needs, thorough follow-up and very helpful insights on how to improve the project at hand.

Vorteile:

Software is very easy to navigate and very helpful tracking on all levels. Integration to my business at hand was swift and thorough

Nachteile:

I'm totally satisfied with the service I receive

ViVa! Vienna! - Rotary Club of Vienna VA

Kommentare: Promoting and managing our festival fundraising event that attracts over 60,000 visitors over Memorial Day weekend; 100% of the proceeds go to charities.

Vorteile:

The responsiveness of the team to make timely changes on the fly.

Nachteile:

I do not have anything to comment for Cons.

Event Essentials has been good to us!

Vorteile:

They have been able to customize our registration forms in a way that other big competitor companies cannot. And CSR is kind and accommodating -- and goes the extra mile to help us!

Nachteile:

Just wish they had an app for event check-in. But the web browser has been suffice.

Perfect! This system is indispensable!

Kommentare: Increased speed, efficiency and accountability at check-in. Happy customers!

Vorteile:

Speed, efficiency and accountability at check-in. No long unmanageable lines! This software aids us in growing our event at a greater pace. Cust support representative was there two hours prior to our event training our team. And, was there for us all evening. What a Pro!

Nachteile:

I honestly don't have any Cons to share. Make sure you have an adequate wireless signal.

Blue Sun Music Festival Westlake Village CA

Kommentare: The Company provided outstanding B2B and B2C services. We will hire and partner with them again and again...

Vorteile:

ease of use, data collecting capabilities, saved time, saved money, created impact immediately

Nachteile:

What I like least is actually a positive, I like least that they pushed us to perform, they were always a-head of the curve, and that is so welcomed and at the same time, a positive challenge to our staff. We found ourselves trying to e-mail them first, as they were always consistent and often a bit in-front of us... BRAVO...

Simi Valley Days

Kommentare: We have used them for years and being able to track our numbers is giving us a better feel for how our event is doing.

Vorteile:

Customization that is offered for us and the ability to track our numbers

Nachteile:

Trouble with the hot spot and connectivity

Amazed with all of the features Event Essentials provides.

Vorteile:

Adaptability, capability, and proficiency. Event Essentials is so patient yet proficient with changes our organization continues to make that is modified to exactly what is useful to us. They are able to tweak the program to our needs...opposed to wokring with a program that we need to adapt to with many functions that aren't necessary. The best software progam we have ever used especially for our growing festival! Highly recommended!

Hearts of Gold and Competence to Match

Kommentare: We are a local non-profit serving about 4,500 kids and families a year - we rely on our special events to keep the doors open. Event Essentials has completely run the transaction and pre-order / fulfillment side of our events form start to finish four years running. They really brought us into the modern era of eFulfillment and online auction as well as sponsor, attendee, vendor and entertainment management through their custom admin pages and reporting features. Every detail was handled and recap of totals waiting in our inboxes. Its not that we didn't want to get into the nitty gritty, our time was freed up to thank sponsors, talk to supporters, attendees to help or control - finally we were able to be present at our key events because Event Essentials carried the weight. Highly highly recommend these guys - ask for Kiffin or Craig!