15 Best WordPress Event Calendar Plugins for 2024: In-Depth Guide

Are you looking to turn your WordPress site into an event management powerhouse? Whether you‘re organizing in-person conferences, virtual webinars, classes, or fundraisers, integrating an event calendar is essential.

A well-designed events calendar not only keeps you organized, it engages your audience and drives attendance. In fact, a study by Eventbrite found that 52% of event organizers increased their attendance by using event management software.

But with thousands of WordPress calendar plugins out there, choosing the right one is no simple task. You need a solution that integrates seamlessly with your site, provides an excellent user experience, and delivers the features you need to run successful events.

In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll break down the 15 best event calendar plugins for WordPress in 2024. For each plugin, we‘ll cover:

• Key features and benefits
• Pricing
• Ease of use
• Ideal use cases
• Pros and cons

Plus, we‘ll share expert tips for selecting and implementing the perfect calendar for your unique needs.

Sound good? Let‘s dive in.

Why Use an Event Calendar Plugin for WordPress?

First, let‘s address the elephant in the room. Can‘t you just list your upcoming events on a regular page? Technically, yes. But a dedicated event calendar plugin provides several key advantages:

1. Better user experience: A well-designed calendar makes it easy for visitors to discover and learn about your events at a glance. This improves engagement and attendance.

2. Automation: Robust calendar plugins handle a lot of the tedious event management tasks for you, like registrations, reminders, and syncing event data across platforms. This saves you serious time.

3. Enhanced functionality: Many event calendar plugins offer features a standard page can‘t match, like ticketing, recurring events, user submissions, and more. This expands what‘s possible with your events.

4. Design flexibility: Most quality calendar plugins offer extensive customization options so you can perfectly match the look and feel of your site. Some even offer pre-built templates to get you up and running quickly.

Bottom line: if you‘re serious about running successful events, a dedicated calendar plugin is the way to go. In the next section, we‘ll highlight the key features to look for.

What to Look for in an Event Calendar Plugin

Not all calendar plugins are created equal. When evaluating your options, here are the key factors and features to consider:

• User-friendly interface: The plugin should make it easy to create, manage, and display your events. Look for intuitive navigation, helpful prompts, and clear documentation.

• Responsive design: In 2023, over 60% of web traffic came from mobile devices. Your calendar must look and function flawlessly across all screen sizes.

• Customization options: While pre-built designs are helpful, you‘ll want the ability to personalize your calendar to match your brand. Look for options to customize colors, fonts, layouts and more.

• Event ticketing and registration: If you charge for events, you‘ll need a way to sell tickets and process payments. Look for plugins with built-in ticketing or integrations with tools like WooCommerce.

• Recurring events: Do you run events on a regular schedule, like weekly classes? The ability to set up recurring events is a must to avoid tedious manual entry.

• Calendar feeds & exporting: Make it easy for people to add your events to their personal calendar app of choice. Look for support for iCal, Google Calendar, and other popular platforms.

• Marketing integrations: Some event calendar plugins sync with your email marketing service, allowing seamless promotion to your subscriber base.

• Accessibility: Check that the plugin follows web accessibility guidelines so your events can be enjoyed by all.

Now that we‘ve covered the essential features, let‘s move on to our curated list of the 15 best calendar plugins for WordPress, starting with our top pick.

1. HubSpot Meetings [Top Pick]

For an all-in-one event calendar and CRM solution, you can‘t beat HubSpot Meetings. While it‘s technically a standalone app, it integrates seamlessly with WordPress via the free HubSpot plugin.

What sets HubSpot Meetings apart is how it unifies your calendar and contact data in one place. When someone registers for an event, their info is automatically added to your free HubSpot CRM. This gives you a full view of your event attendees to fuel your marketing efforts.

Other key features include:

• One-on-one and group scheduling
• Customizable intake forms
• Automated event reminders and follow-ups
• Canned meeting responses to save time
• Zoom, Google Calendar and Office 365 integrations

The free plan covers all your basics, while paid versions add more robust functionality like calendar embedding and team scheduling.

Pros:

• Seamlessly unifies event and contact data in free CRM
• Intuitive, user-friendly interface
• Extensive knowledge base and support

Cons:

• Requires HubSpot account & WordPress plugin to use
• Some features limited in free version

Pricing: Starts free with paid plans from $50/month

2. WP Event Manager

WP Event Manager is a freemium plugin built to streamline how you manage events from your WordPress site. The free version is packed with handy features like:

• Customizable event listings
• Frontend user event submissions
• Filterable event search
• SEO optimization
• CSV event importing

The premium add-ons are where this plugin really shines. You can easily expand the functionality with:

• Calendar: Display events in an intuitive calendar view
• Google Maps: Display event locations on an interactive map
• Registrations: Allow user event registrations with custom booking forms
• Sell Tickets: Sell tickets to your events and collect payments
• Zoom Integration: Automatically generate Zoom meetings for virtual events

Compared to some other options on this list, WP Event Manager requires more configuration out of the box. But its modularity and wealth of features make it a smart choice for businesses with diverse event needs.

Pros:

• Highly customizable with modular add-ons
• Optimized for speed and SEO
• Generates structured event schema for enhanced visibility

Cons:

• Many key features limited to paid add-ons
• Requires some setup to match your site design

Pricing: Core plugin free, with premium add-ons sold individually and in bundles starting at $39

3. The Events Calendar

Created by the team behind WordPress.com, The Events Calendar is a hugely popular freemium plugin. It strikes a great balance between ease of use and flexibility.

The free core plugin covers all your event essentials, including:

• Sleek month and list views of your events
• Events categorization & search
• Google Maps integration
• Dropdown attendee registration

For more advanced features, Events Calendar Pro introduces recurring events, custom event attributes, calendar shortcodes, and more. There‘s also a library of free and paid extensions to upgrade your experience, including:

• Virtual Events: Streamlined virtual event management, including Zoom integration
• Community Events: Allow frontend user submissions to your calendar
• Eventbrite Tickets: Sync your calendar with Eventbrite for simplified ticket sales and attendance tracking
• Filter Bar: Allow users to filter events by category, location, and more

One of this plugin‘s biggest selling points is its full compatibility with the new WordPress block editor. You can drop in gorgeous event displays anywhere on your site, perfectly customized to your needs.

Pros:

• Intuitive for beginners but powerful enough for pros
• Large and active user community
• Extensive documentation & support

Cons:

• Some key features restricted to paid add-ons
• Default designs a bit generic (may require CSS tweaks)

Pricing: Core plugin free, with paid add-ons available individually or as part of a bundle starting at $99

4. Modern Events Calendar

Modern Events Calendar is a feature-rich freemium plugin trusted by over 100,000 event organizers. While it‘s one of the more complex tools on our list, that‘s due to its staggering depth of functionality.

Just a few of the advanced features packed into the free core plugin include:

• Over 50 event display styles, including list, grid, slider, and masonry
• Built-in booking for one-time and recurring events
• Google Maps integration for event locations
• Import and export events from Google Calendar or JSON
• Social sharing integrations

Upgrading to Pro introduces advanced event filtering, custom taxonomies, front-end event submissions, WooCommerce integration, and much more. If you can dream it, Modern Events Calendar can probably do it.

Another big selling point is the plugin‘s integration with popular WordPress page builders like Elementor and Divi. This enables you to design totally custom event pages and experiences without touching a line of code.

Pros:

• Mind-boggling depth of features
• Intuitive visual editor for building custom calendars
• Integrates with top WordPress page builders

Cons:

• Steeper learning curve than other options
• So many features can overwhelm new users
• Addons sold separately from main license

Pricing: Lite version free, with Pro version starting at $75/year

5. EventON

EventON is a wildly popular event calendar used to power hundreds of thousands of events. While there‘s no free version, it delivers tremendous bang for your buck.

The core plugin includes a wealth of features to run events of all sizes, including:

• 13 unique calendar styles and views
• Built-in event ticketing and registration
• Recurring events with advanced repeat options
• Integrated Google Maps for event locations
• Auto-generated JSON-LD markup for SEO
• Import/export from Google Calendar, Apple iCal, Facebook, and more

EventON also offers a unique feature called EventCard. This allows you to display event details in an interactive "card" format, with options for animations, backgrounds, and other eye-catching design elements.

For selling tickets, EventOn integrates with PayPal out of the box. It also supports WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads for more payment options.

Pros:

• Powerful features with competitive pricing
• Unique EventCard designs grab attention
• Excellent customer support and documentation

Cons:

• No free version available (but offers a demo)
• Steeper learning curve than simpler plugins

Pricing: $22.50 and up for a single-site license

6. Event Espresso 4 (EE4)

Event Espresso has been a major player in the WordPress calendar space for over a decade. Its latest incarnation, EE4, carries on that tradition with a compelling mix of features and value.

One of EE4‘s standout features is its email marketing integration. It supports most of the popular services, including:

• Mailchimp
• Constant Contact
• Aweber
• Active Campaign
• Drip
• ConvertKit

This allows you to effortlessly sync your event registrants with your subscriber base for seamless email follow-up. You can even define automations based on specific attendee actions.

Other noteworthy EE4 features include:

• Drag-and-drop event builder
• Custom event registration forms
• Automated wait lists and bookings limits
• Customizable event tickets and pricing
• Zapier integration to connect with 2000+ third-party apps

EE4 also provides 8 payment gateway options out of the box, including Stripe, PayPal, and offline payments. And with full support for the new WordPress block editor, building custom event pages is a snap.

Pros:

• Extensive email marketing integrations
• Highly customizable event registration & ticketing
• Stellar customer support

Cons:

• Fairly complex plugin that takes time to learn
• Some key features limited to higher-tier plans

Pricing: Starts free with premium packages from $79.95/year

Wrapping Up

Phew, that was a lot to cover! But now you should have a crystal-clear idea of the best WordPress event calendar plugins for your needs.

To recap, here‘s our top 5 picks for 2024:

1. HubSpot Meetings: Best all-in-one calendar & CRM solution
2. WP Event Manager: Best for modularity and diverse event needs
3. The Events Calendar: Best balance of simplicity and features
4. Modern Events Calendar: Best for advanced customization
5. EventON: Best price-to-feature ratio

Of course, there‘s no one-size-fits-all solution. The right calendar plugin for you will depend on factors like:

• The size and complexity of your events
• Your budget
• Your technical comfort level
• What other tools you need to integrate with

Our advice: start by pinpointing your 2-3 most critical event needs, then choose the plugin that best meets those requirements. Don‘t get dazzled by massive feature lists if you‘ll only use 10% of them.

Also, take advantage of free trials and demos wherever possible. Actually test driving the leading contenders is the best way to gauge how well they‘ll work for your unique use case.

With the right event calendar plugin, you‘ll be well on your way to streamlining your event management and delivering unforgettable experiences for your attendees. Here‘s to your calendar success in 2024 and beyond!