WordPress has a myriad of event management plugins available. As a longtime developer for associations, consultants, and other organizations that host a lot of events, here are my go-to ones (and some are pretty lightweight, others are more traditional “big” event management systems.) I also have a downloadable chart of options to review at the end of this blog. These are my favorite WordPress Event Management Plugins (from a developer of websites, not a developer of plugins!) This is a biased review – they are all ones that I’ve used successfully for clients for years.
I’ll organize this from “light to robust” – but know that all of these solutions will let your customers know about and rsvp (or register) for an event:
Don’t need anything fancy? Try WP Forms Plus – this basic form tool allows for some really nice (and short) forms that collect funds – a client of ours that does dog training uses these for her classes. It’s not fancy but it’s super easy to use and collects all the basics, including payments! It’s not a calendar, but if you have just a few events, want to display them on your own custom-created “event” page, you can do this pretty easily. Just put them in order, put in the dates yourself and go.
The Events Calendar plus Ticketing option – this is a combo of about $260 so it’s on the pricier side, but their interface is really clean and super easy to use.. It also has Apple Wallet, an app and QR code checkins for eventgoers, which is really nice. It has a user-selectable list view, calendar view with day, week, month views, a search bar and a really nice interface. You have to add ticketing plus (their add on) to get paid ticketing.
Modern Events Calendar – another calendar-based option, this also has a really streamlined interface, is easy to use and has a lot of robust features. I like this one for clients who have multiple organizers, who need some paid and some free events and want a clean interface for both the admin and the user. A client who hosts playdates for small kids uses this – they host events in a five-county area and different organizers host them, at a variety of locations, so this really works well for them.
Event Espresso – one of the “big” events plugin packages, this one offers all the bells and whistles. A recent update a few years ago changed the interface (it was dated) and it got a little wonky for a while. I still use this for clients who need a highly customizable event management system – and that is what it is – that allows for everything you could want – but it’s recent redo and the fact that it’s been around a while means it’s complex and has a ton of features. A number of clients have used this (for decades!) and it’s probably the one with the “we need the most complex registration system ever” solution – I’ve had a number of associations use this for their annual conferences, workshops, regional conferences.
If you need event management to integrate with user management – the ONLY ones that offer a direct connection is MemberPress or Paid Memberships Pro and both work with Event Espresso. You CAN protect access to certain tickets in all of the remainder calendar + ticketing plugins (The Events Calendar, WP Forms, Modern Events Calendar) by protecting certain blocks of tickets so they are only shown to those that are logged in with that level of membership. You may have to create custom event pages and embed the ticketing blocks to ‘hide” or show options for members to choose from.
I use event management plugins for WordPress regularly as I configure them for clients who need it. None of my clients need my ongoing dev support – once I create and do the configuration, they are more than capable of creating and managing new events, adding fields and using their events platform without my involvement, which is as it should be. I come in when technical problems arise, or integration with a new plugin is required.
If you want a roundup of various event platforms and their integration with member management systems, you can request this download. I prepared it in initially for an association client and I’ve since used it for other clients too. It’s a great review of what works with what and how to manage event + membership management when you have both member and non-member ticketing options for all of your events.
