Setting up multi-session, multi-track, multi-day conferences

WP Easy Events Enterprise edition allows creating multi-session, multi-track, multi-day large conferences or summits. Conference sessions can be offered at multiple dates and times and venues. To offer more flexibility to event planners, each conference session can also be hosted by multiple organizers. There might be one or many speakers in each session.

In this tutorial, we will create a 4-day conference which includes a main event and 33 sessions using WP Easy Events Enterprise. We will also group our sessions under 4 tracks. Users will be able to register paid or non-paid sessions. We plan to offer a discount for users purchasing full conference program. Users purchasing full conference program can choose to attend multiple sessions.

Conference requirements

Each attendee will be offered a ticket at a different pricing point depending on his or her membership level and how each ticket was purchased. Event Attendees will be able to purchase tickets as "Personal member", "Member", "Nonmember", "Nonsalaried member", "Retired member" and "Full-time student". In addition, there will be discounts offered for "Early Bird" or "Onsite" purchases.

Conference organizers decided to promote the main conference, each conference session, speaker, venue and organizer in its page. Multiple conference sessions will be organized under one to many tracks. Event Attendees will be able to rate the main conference, sessions, organizers, speakers and venues individually. We will use star rating on these pages.

Event Sponsors will be able to register as a sponsor and pay for sponsorship levels; "Silver", "Gold" and "Platinum". Each Event Sponsor will be promoted in its own page displaying the events sponsored. Sponsors will be allowed to sponsor specific sessions.

All information should be entered and updated using our "non-technical" staff from the frontend of our site after successfully logging in.

Required software

To be able accomplish this task, we will use:

• WP Easy Events Enterprise Edition WordPress Plugin to create events, event sessions, venues, organizers.
• WP Easy Events - WooCommerce Addon WordPress Plugin
• WooCommerce WordPress Plugin

Conference Setup Workflow

1. Create Conference Venue pages.
2. Create Conference Performer (Speaker) pages.
3. Create Conference Organizer pages.
4. Create Sponsor pages.
5. Create Event Tickets and Sponsorship Packages in WooCommerce.
6. Create Conference Event and Session pages.

Setting up Event Venue Pages

A event venue is a place where one or more events happen. WP Easy Events WordPress plugin allows multiple events happen on a venue at the same or different times. A venue page displays all its upcoming events.

You can use event categories to group Venues as well. For example, if you categorize a venue under "Conferences" event group, it is displayed along with the events belonging to that category. Like events, venues can be tagged for further grouping.

To create a venue page in the admin area:

1. Log in to your Administration Panel.
2. Click the 'Venues' tab.
3. Click the 'Add New' sub-tab or the “Add New” button in the venue list page.
4. Fill in Venue name, description, all address fields and excerpt. Description is detailed, promotional information which is displayed in the Venue's page only. Excerpt is displayed as summary information in all Venue cards. Make sure the map displays the venue address correctly.
5. Upload all venue images. If multiple images are uploaded, an image slider is displayed. You can configure the slider using the fields in the "Slider" tab.
6. As needed, set venue category, tags and other optional fields. If set a venue category and tag(s), the venue record is displayed when customers click on them.
7. When you are ready, click Publish.

Setting up Event Performer Pages

A performer is a person or thing that entertains people by speaking, acting, singing, dancing, or playing music. An event can have many performers. A performer can perform in many events. A performer's page displays all the upcoming events that the performer will be in attendance.

Performers can be grouped and tagged to connect them to other performers or related events, venues, or organizers.

To create a performer page in the admin area:

1. Log in to your Administration Panel.
2. Click the 'Performers' tab.
3. Click the 'Add New' sub-tab or the “Add New” button in the performer list page.
4. Fill in performer name, description and excerpt. Description is detailed, promotional information which is displayed in the Performer's page only. Excerpt is displayed as summary information in all Performer cards.
5. Upload all performer images. If multiple images are uploaded, an image slider is displayed. You can configure the slider using the fields in the "Slider" tab.
6. As needed, set performer category, tags and other optional fields. If set a performer category and tag(s), the performer record is displayed when customers click on them.
7. When you are ready, click Publish.

Setting up Event Organizer Pages

An event organizer is a person who plans and runs an event from start to finish. Events can be hosted many event organizers. Event organizers can plan and run multiple events.

WP Easy Events WordPress plugin displays all the upcoming events hosted by an event organizer on that organizer's page. You can group and tag event organizers to relate them to the organizers or certain events, venues, performers.

To create an organizer page in the admin area:

1. Log in to your Administration Panel.
2. Click the 'Organizers' tab.
3. Click the 'Add New' sub-tab or the “Add New” button in the organizer list page.
4. Fill in organizer name, description and excerpt. Description is detailed, promotional information which is displayed in the Organizer's page only. Excerpt is displayed as summary information in all Organizer cards.
5. Upload all organizer images. If multiple images are uploaded, an image slider is displayed. You can configure the slider using the fields in the "Slider" tab.
6. As needed, set organizer related event category, tags and other optional fields. Although you can set multiple tags per organizer, you can only set at most one category.
7. When you are ready, click Publish.

Setting up Event Sponsor Pages

An event sponsor is a person, group of people or a company interested in funding or providing products or services to an event in exchange for generating visibility and brand awareness at that event. WP Easy Events WordPress plugin allows to promote event sponsors in their own pages.

Event Sponsors can purchase sponsorship packages for multiple events at different levels. For example, a sponsor could be a "gold" sponsor for an event but a "platinum" sponsor for another event.

All the upcoming events sponsored by a sponsor are displayed in the sponsor's page. In addition, you might want to display all your sponsors in one page. Alternatively, you can display certain types of sponsors using shortcodes at the same or different pages. You can disable accepting sponsorships by unchecking "Accept Sponsorship" checkbox in the event editor page.

Event sponsors, like other entities in WP Easy Event, can be grouped and tagged, providing a unified view for a certain term relevant to your business or brand.

To create a sponsor page in the admin area:

1. Log in to your Administration Panel.
2. Click the 'Sponsors' tab.
3. Click the 'Add New' sub-tab or the “Add New” button in the sponsor list page.
4. Fill in Sponsor name, description, email, website and excerpt. Description is detailed, promotional information which is displayed in the Sponsor's page only. Excerpt is displayed as summary information in all Organizer cards.
5. Upload the logo or featured image of your sponsor.
6. Optionally, set sponsor category, tags and other optional fields. Although you can set multiple tags per sponsor, you can only set at most one category.
7. Create connections to sponsored events.
8. When you are ready, click Publish.

Setting up Event Tickets and Sponsorship Packages

To be able to accept payments from your conference customers and sponsors, you must create associated tickets (products) in WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads WordPress plugins. In this tutorial, we will use WooCommerce and create first Event Ticket and then Sponsorship packages.

After creating Event Tickets and Sponsorship Packages in WooCommerce as two separate products, you must link them to your paid events and/or the event you accept sponsors. Once the connections are created, you will see a purchase button for the tickets and another purchase button for sponsorship packages.

To get more information about how to create tickets and sponsorhip pages in WooCommerce, please refer to Creating WooCommerce event ticket article.

Setting up Conference Events

WP Easy Events WordPress plugin defines an event as a happening that occurs in a certain place during a particular interval of time. Each event is uniquely identified by its name and start date. Events can be connected to one to many related events. Related events are displayed on the connected event's page. An event can be set as a repeating event. For example, yearly, quarterly, weekly or, as in more advanced cases, every 2 weeks on Thursdays.

An event can have one to many sessions events. A session is an event which is dependent on its main event. A session event can be both a session and main event if it is connected to other session events.

Session events are displayed on the main event's page based on the date they start. The sessions starting at the same date are categorized under that date. The session event display order is determined by the order a session is connected to its main event.

A session event may or may not share its attendee with the main event providing flexibility to offer special events that are part of the main event but visitors need purchase additional ticket to attend.

Events can be categorized as seminars, award ceremonies, board meetings etc. An event can belong to at most one category. You can also tag events to categorize them further such as VIP, Teens, High rollers etc.

To create an event page in the admin area:

1. Log in to your Administration Panel.
2. Click the 'Events' tab.
3. Click the 'Add New' sub-tab or the “Add New” button in the event list page.
4. Fill in the name of your event name, description, start date and excerpt fields at minimum.
5. Upload event image(s) if they are available. You can upload multiple images. Multiple images are displayed as an image slider.
6. Fill in the other relevant event fields.
7. Optionally, configure the event image slider.
8. As needed, set event category and tag the event with one to many terms if needed. Use tags to categorize session events under one to many tracks.
9. Create connections for the related events if needed.
10. Create connections to session events if the event is the main event.
11. Connect Organizers, Venues, Performers (Speakers) and Sponsors to the events.
12. Connect Event Tickets and Sponsorship Packages for paid events. Please note that the main event could be a free event but you could charge for specific sessions of the main event.
13. When you are ready, click Publish.

Check out the demo site to see a fully configured conference site using WP Easy Events Enterprise WordPress plugin.