Event – Add Event

Calendar Add Event is located under My Calendar > Add Event.

When you create a new event in My Calendar, you are creating one primary record in the database, with one start date and time and one set of event details. The primary record is linked to a set of dates that represent recurring events, a category ID that ties it to a category, and a location ID that ties it to a location. The location is optional, but categories are required.

Event title & Event description

These sections should be fairly self-explanatory. Description is the main event content area where you can add text, video, image information about the event. It supports the classic editor, but does not have block editing integration.

Excerpt

You are able to select to show an excerpt in the event popup or other places. The excerpt is meant to give a short overview of the event. It can be enabled in display settings or added in custom templates. If empty, it will be automatically generated from your main content.

Categories

Select an existing category or create new category/categories for your event by clicking the Add Categories button. After adding new categories, you can edit them in the Categories editor.

The short form for adding a category only supports a category name; icons, colors, and other settings must be edited later.

Defining a Primary Category.

Choosing a primary category sets which icon or category color will be used for an event when multiple categories are assigned. If any of the selected categories are Private, the event will be considered private.

In the above example, I have added three categories Travel, Spain and Summer.

I can now select Travel category as the Primary Category for this event. The other categories become secondary.

Date and Time

Start Time and End Time of the event. Date and End Date (optional) if needed. If the end time is left empty, it will default to one hour after the start time. If the end date is left empty, it will default to the same date as the start date.

Instead of adding a Start and End Time you can click the All day event. The label can be adjusted for all day events to suit the event.

You can also hide the end time, if only the start time is important for this event. Hiding the end time will hide it anywhere a My Calendar template is used, though a time is still stored in the database.

Date and Time + Add Copy

By clicking Add Copy the add copy screen is seen and one additional copy of the event is added. Here one can add additional copies of the event, adjusting the date and time as is needed. The result is that all the events are added to an Event Group and connected to each other. Each event is a unique event in the database, and can be edited and modified separately, unlike repeating events.

More documentation about Adding Event Copies or Managing Event Groups.

Repetition Pattern

In the Repetition Pattern section you can create a pattern for repeating an event, starting from the first event and ending at the date “Repeat Until” field. I have included a separate documentation page for Repetition Pattern, where you can learn more about getting the most out of this feature.

Featured Image

The featured image is available in individual modal views, the single event view, and card views. If your theme supports featured images, your theme’s images will take precedence over the My Calendar single event template. There are some edge cases where neither image will show due to differences in how Block Themes and Classic Themes work. In these cases, you may need a custom single event template.

The featured image selection uses the standard WordPress media modal.

Event Details

There are a few additional details that aren’t easily categorized that you may want to set.

Host – The front end will show an avatar if available and the words: “Hosted by (display name)”
More Information – The front end will show a “More information” link pointing to this URL. The text can be changed under Settings > Text. Links can be set to expire, in which case the link will stop rendering once the event is in the past.

Event Location

Select an event location from the location selector. The location selector may be either a drop down or an autocomplete search, depending on how many locations you have.

Event Location – Add a new location

Click the “Add a new location” button to open up the fields to add a new location. (This will not exist if your user doesn’t have permission to create locations.) Prior to version 3.6, there was a checkbox here to add the location to the locations database. This is no longer necessary, as location data is no longer stored in the events table.

Fill in the information you need for your location.

Accessibility

Click the check boxes to select accessibility options for your event. These will also be seen on the front end events screen.

Registration Settings

Add a link to an URL where users can get tickets for your events. The front end will show a “Buy Tickets” link. This text can be customized at Settings > Text. You can also add additional text information related to tickets.

Check out my plugin My Tickets if you need additional registration or need to sell tickets. It integrates with My Calendar to handle ticket sales, with support for multiple payment gateways and a wide variety of ticket types. Read the My Tickets documentation.

Next: Events -> My Events -> Click the title of an event to Edit the Event.