Sugar Calendar | The Blog Pros

April 22, 2022

6 Best WordPress Event Plugins Compared (2022)

Are you looking for the best WordPress event plugins for your site?

Event plugins are a must-have for all kinds of businesses. They help you display event calendars, let users RSVP to events, sell tickets, add and manage venues, and much more.

In this article, we’ve hand-picked some of the best WordPress event plugins for your site.

How to Choose the Right Event Plugin for WordPress?

There are a wide variety of WordPress event plugins that cater to different needs. Some users will need a plugin to manage large scale concerts, while others simply need a plugin for a local writing workshop.

The goal of using a WordPress event plugin is to help make running events easier.

These are some of the most common things to look for in an event plugin:

An event calendar that’s easy to set up and manage
Built-in RSVP and ticketing systems
Integrated payment options for fast payments
Email notifications to stay in touch with your attendees

Overall, you need to find the best plugin for your small business website that caters to the types of events you’ll be running.

That being said, let’s take a look at the best WordPress event plugins you can use with your WordPress site.

1. Sugar Calendar

Sugar Calendar is one of the best WordPress calendar plugins in the market. The plugin is very feature rich but still very easy to use.

Plus, it’s lightweight, so it won’t impact your website’s speed and performance.

It includes all of the event management features you need like recurring events, start and end times, single and multi-day events, event categories, and more.

There’s even a built-in ticketing system, so you can sell tickets through WooCommerce or Stripe.

All of your events are easy to create and manage from the backend of your site through an easy to use editor. The event calendars you display on the front end integrate with your existing WordPress theme.

You’ll also find advanced addons that let you integrate your events calendar with Google Calendar, WPForms, Google Maps, and more.

To learn more, see our guide on how to create a simple event calendar with Sugar Calendar.

2. WPForms

WPForms is the best form builder for WordPress used by over 5 million websites. It comes with an intuitive drag and drop builder that lets you easily create any kind of form.

It includes a template library of over 300+ premade templates to quickly build out your forms, including event planner forms, vendor forms, RSVP forms, and more.

All of these can be customized with the drag and drop builder. You have full control over the form fields, so you can collect all of the information you need from your attendees.

There’s even an event registration form template you can use to sell tickets, and you can accept payments with Stripe or PayPal.

WPForms also integrates with top email marketing providers like Constant Contact, Sendinblue, Drip, and more. This makes it easy to send emails to those who have RSVP’d or registered for an event.

For more details, see our guide on how to create an event registration page in WordPress.

3. Formidable Forms

Formidable Forms is the most advanced WordPress form builder in the market. It allows you to create nearly any kind of form with the drag and drop builder.

The plugin has a unique feature called Views, which lets you take any form data you’ve collected or entered yourself and display it visually.

This makes it easy to create your own events in your WordPress dashboard. You can also set it to automatically create everything you need on the front end of your site, including event information and event calendars.

There’s also a library of over 175+ templates you can use to quickly create event registration forms. It includes online event registration forms, RSVP forms, event planner forms, and much more.

You also have complete access to your data within the plugin dashboard, so it’s very easy to manage all of your attendees.

4. The Events Calendar

The Events Calendar is a feature rich event management system to help you manage nearly every aspect of your events.

The beginner-friendly interface makes it easy to add all your event details, including a separate page for venues and organizers.

You have multiple different views for displaying your event calendar on the front end, including day, week, or month. You can even spotlight events to increase engagement on the events you want the most attention on.

Plus, you can add filtering, so your users can find the exact events they’re looking for.

You can quickly import data from other calendars to speed up the event creation process. Your users can also subscribe to updates in iCal or Google Calendar.

The Events Calendar has many advanced features, but the pricing adds up quickly since you’ll need to pay more for every addon and website you use it on.

5. Smash Balloon Facebook Feed Pro

Smash Balloon Facebook Feed Pro is one of the best Facebook plugins for WordPress in the market.

It makes it easy to connect your WordPress site to Facebook with the click of a button. If you have a large Facebook community and regularly promote and organize events, then this plugin will help you integrate them with your site.

Instead of using multiple plugins, you can simply create a Facebook event, and it will automatically display on your website.

Beyond the event automation and management features, you can use the plugin to display your Facebook feed, posts, and more on your WordPress website. You have full control over how it looks and what information you want to display.

For more details, see our guide on how to display Facebook events on your WordPress site.

6. Event Organiser

Event Organiser is a simple WordPress event plugin that makes it easy to create and manage events.

This plugin uses custom post types, so creating a new event is as simple as writing a blog post. You can also create recurring events, assign events to different venues, and more.

You can view your events within your WordPress dashboard in a list view or calendar format.

It also includes a few widgets to display a calendar of events, event agendas, or the standard WordPress calendar with events added.

If you’re mostly using your website to run events, then you may want to check out our picks of the best WordPress themes for events and conferences.

We hope this article helped you learn about some of the best WordPress event plugins you can use with your WordPress site. You may also want to see our guide on how to register a domain name and our expert picks of the best live chat software for small businesses.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 6 Best WordPress Event Plugins Compared (2022) first appeared on WPBeginner.

December 14, 2020

How to Create a Simple Event Calendar with Sugar Calendar

Do you want to add an event calendar to your WordPress website?

There are lots of different plugins and calendar apps that can do this, but some are much too complicated or don’t work very well with WordPress.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily create a simple event calendar in WordPress with Sugar Calendar.

How to Create a Simple Event Calendar with Sugar Calendar

Sugar Calendar is a simple and lightweight events calendar plugin for WordPress built by Pippin Williamson and the team behind Easy Digital Downloads.

Since we were looking for a lightweight event calendar plugin, we decided to give Sugar Calendar a try, and found it quite easy to use.

Here’s how to create an event calendar in WordPress with Sugar Calendar.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Sugar Calendar plugin on your website. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to the Calendar » Settings page in your WordPress admin. Here, you need to enter your license key. You will find this in your account area on the Sugar Calendar website.

Once you’re done, click the Save Changes button to make sure your license key is saved.

Creating a Calendar in Sugar Calendar

Sugar Calendar divides the functionality into two main sections: Calendars and Events.

You can create multiple calendars, and then add different events or actvities to each calendar accordingly.

To get started, click on the ‘Calendar’ menu item page in your WordPress admin sidebar. After that, you need to select the Calendar tab then click on the ‘Add New Calendar’ button to create a new calendar.

You will then see a popup box for adding your new calendar.

You need to give your calendar a name and a ‘slug‘ which will become the end part of the calendar’s URL (web address).

There’s a box where you can describe your calendar. The description is optional, and you can leave it blank if you want.

Below the description, you can select a color for your calendar. This is very useful if you’re creating multiple calendars because this will make it easier to identify different calendars on your WordPress website.

If you’re just creating one calendar, then you don’t need to set a color.

When you’re done, click the ‘Add New Calendar’ button to create your calendar.

Adding Events in Sugar Calendar

Now, it’s time to add some events to your calendar. Just click on the Events tab then click the ‘Add Event’ button to create your first event.

The ‘Add New Event’ screen has space for all the information about your event. Go ahead and enter the name for your event at the top.

Below this, you can set the start time and end time for your event.

Your event can be on a single day or across multiple days. If it’s an all-day event, then simply check the ‘All-day’ box.

Next, go ahead and add more information about your event in the Details box. If you would like to include images or photos here, go ahead and add those using the ‘Add Media’ buttons.

On the right-hand side of the screen, you need to click on the calendar that you want to add your event onto. You can also create a calendar here if you haven’t done so already.

When you’re ready, go ahead and click the Publish button.

You can repeat this process to add more events to your calendar.

Putting Your Events Calendar on Your Website

You can add your calendar to any page or post on your website. You can even use the Sugar Calendar widget to add it to your sidebar.

We’re going to add our calendar to a new page on our demo site.

First, go to Pages » Add New. Then, enter a title for your page and add a shortcode box to your page.

Next, copy the shortcode [sc_events_calendar] into the shortcode block.

Now, it’s time to preview or publish your page. You will then see the calendar of events on your website.

Visitors on your website can click on an event to see the full details.

Note: This events page will use the fonts, colors, etc from your theme. That means it will match the posts and pages on your blog.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create a simple event calendar with Sugar Calendar. You might also like our article on the best email marketing services and best push notification software, so you can keep your users updated about new events and activities.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create a Simple Event Calendar with Sugar Calendar appeared first on WPBeginner.

February 13, 2019

WPWeekly Episode 345 – The Relationship Between Corporate Cash and Open Source Software

In this episode, John James Jacoby and I discuss a thought-provoking post published by Morten Rand-Hendriksen that takes a deep look at equity in open source software. Morten suggests that the mantra of decisions are made by those who show up be changed to decisions are made by those who can afford to show up.

We talk about the relationship and influence money from businesses can have on open source software, especially if they’re employing someone to contribute to that project full-time. We discuss the pros and cons of financial contributions and whether or not WordPress could fall victim to progressing only at the whims of corporate sponsors.

Near the end of the show, John provides an overview of what’s new in Sugar Calendar 2.0.

Stories Discussed:

PetersenMediaGroup is Relaunched

https://www.petersenmediagroup.com/

WordPress 5.1 Field Guide

Gutenberg 5.0 Adds New RSS Block, Amazon Kindle Embed Block, and FocalPointPicker Component

Gutenberg Blocks Design Library Offers Pre-Built Page Designs Using Existing Core Blocks

Google+ is shutting down in April with some APIs shutting down in March

Sugar Calendar 2.0 Beta Released

The Dark Mode plugin developed by Daniel James is no longer a featured plugin.

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Wednesday, February 20th 3:00 P.M. Eastern

Subscribe to WordPress Weekly via Itunes

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Subscribe to WordPress Weekly via Stitcher Radio

Subscribe to WordPress Weekly via Google Play

Listen To Episode #345:

March 13, 2018

New website and branding for Sugar Calendar

Today I’m really excited to announce the launch of a new, dedicated website for Sugar Calendar! Say hello to sugarcalendar.com.

This is the first in a large series of updates we are working on for our sweet and simple event calendar plugin for WordPress. In the coming months you will see new features released, improved interfaces, numerous add-on plugins, and a whole lot more!

Back in November, 2017, John James Jacoby joined my team at Sandhills Development specifically to work on Sugar Calendar. With the skills and experience that John brings to the table, we will be elevating Sugar Calendar from a small, simple event calendar plugin to a full-featured event platform. Work on this is in progress and a lot of updates will be coming out in the near future.

John and I have both spent considerable time building and maintaining our own event calendar plugins so with our combined knowledge and experience added to the vast wealth of skills at Sandhills Development already, we should be able to deliver a really good platform.

While we are working on the updates, we need to ask a small favor of existing customers. As part of the migration to the new website, we have regenerated all license keys and account records on sugarcalendar.com. In order to ensure your site(s) stays up to date with the latest versions, please follow these steps:

Update to Sugar Calendar version 1.6.6 from within WordPress like any other update.
Reset your account password at https://sugarcalendar.com/account using the same email address you purchased Sugar Calendar with.
Once updated and logged into your account, please retrieve your new license key and update your site(s) that use Sugar Calendar with it. This is the license key you will use from now on.

That’s it!

With the launch of the new site, we also have an affiliate program available that you may join. Help promote Sugar Calendar and earn a commission on every sale!

If you have any questions or issues, do not hesitate to reply to this email or send us a support ticket from the new support page.

P.S. The upcoming updates will include a price change. Upgrade to or purchase an Ultimate license now to lock yourself into the low price forever.

The post New website and branding for Sugar Calendar appeared first on Pippins Plugins.

March 20, 2017

Sugar Event Calendar 1.6 released

Sugar Event Calendar, my simple event calendar plugin for WordPress has just received a large update that resolves a few long-standing issues and introduces several new features, including category filtering of calendars, better mobile display, improved event list widgets, and several new calendar display types.

This release has been a collaborative effort between myself and Daniel Espinoza, who joined me to work on Sugar Event Calendar back in August of 2015, when we released the last major update to the plugin.

New calendar views

By default, the calendar of events will show full-month views that includes all of the events occurring during the month, like the screenshot shown below:

Some sites, however, wish to show calendars with smaller date spans, such as one or two weeks at a time, four days, or even a single day. In 1.6, we have added support for the following date ranges:

Month (default)
Two weeks
One week
Four days
One day

Those views look like this:

Responsive mobile display

Sugar Calendar has always been pseudo-responsive and would adapt reasonably well to small screens. In 1.6, however, we’ve gone all the way and created truly responsive displays for all calendar views to ensure people viewing an event calendar from a small screen will be able to easily read and view the event information.

Better event list widget

Included in Sugar Calendar is a widget that can be added to any widget area that permits site administrators to display a list of upcoming and/or past events. This widget has always been pretty minimal of options so it was not always suitable or flexible enough for many sites.

In version 1.6 we’ve added several options to the widget to give site administrators better control over the exact information that is displayed. These new options include:

Option to show / hide event titles
Option to show / hide event date
Option to show / hide event time
Option to show / hide event categories

These new options are accompanied by the existing options that include:

Number of events to display
Categories of events to display
Display of upcoming and/or past events

Category filters on calendar views

The calendar display has supported showing just events from specific categories for a long time, but this option has always been limited to a shortcode parameter, meaning the site administrator was the only one allowed to control what categories were displayed. There was no way for a site visitor to filter the calendar by category.

With version 1.6, we have added a category drop down to the calendar view so site visitors can filter the calendar down to just specific categories. For sites that have a lot of events and categories, this will make it easier for site visitors to locate the events they’re looking for.

Bugs addressed

Also in version 1.6, we have addressed a number of long-standing bugs. These include:

CSS files did not include proper version numbers
Event titles could not include HTML
Recurring events not shown in the proper order
Recurring events not listed in “Upcoming Events” widget

Updating to 1.6

This update is available free-of-charge to all customers that hold a valid license key and can be installed directly from the Plugins page within the WordPress admin. The update can also be downloaded manually from your account page.

If your license has expired and you wish to update to version 1.6, your license can be renewed from your account page.

If you do not yet own a license key, a new license can be purchased from the product page.

The post Sugar Event Calendar 1.6 released appeared first on Pippins Plugins.