A calendar is an effective tool for sharing both in-person and virtual events with your audience. It helps promote your upcoming events, increase attendance, and enhance brand visibility.
While WordPress includes a basic calendar feature, its default block offers limited customization. A more efficient way to integrate event calendars is by utilizing a plugin.
At CanadaCreate, we rely on Sugar Calendar for all our scheduling needs. It provides extensive customization options and robust features, giving you greater control over managing your events.
In this article, we will guide you through the process of easily creating a straightforward event calendar in WordPress using Sugar Calendar.
Why Should You Create a Simple Event Calendar for Your WordPress Site?
Incorporating a calendar into your WordPress site allows you to showcase upcoming events to your visitors.
This feature makes it simple for individuals to discover your future webinars, virtual retreats, online sermons, coaching sessions, and more. A calendar serves to promote your events and attract a larger audience.
If you operate a membership site or a forum, you can even allow users to submit their own events. This is an excellent way to foster community engagement, draw in new visitors, and keep your calendar filled with the latest happenings.
You’ll save time by not having to manually research and add upcoming events to your calendar.
Now, let’s explore how to easily integrate a simple event calendar into your website.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Simple Event Calendar in WordPress
The simplest way to add an event calendar to your WordPress site is by utilizing Sugar Calendar.
Sugar Calendar is the top WordPress calendar plugin, offering all the features you need to create multiple calendars, set event start and end times, sync with Google Calendar, and much more.
To get started, install and activate the Sugar Calendar plugin. For detailed instructions, refer to our comprehensive guide on installing a WordPress plugin.
After activation, navigate to the Calendar » Settings page. Here, you can input your license key in the ‘License Key’ field.
You can find this key by logging into your Sugar Calendar account or in the confirmation email you received when you purchased the plugin.
Next, click the ‘Verify’ button to confirm that your license key is valid. Finally, click ‘Save Settings’ at the bottom of the page to apply your changes.
Create a New Calendar
Once you’ve completed that, you’re all set to create a calendar by navigating to SugarCalendar » CalendarsAccess this feature from the WordPress admin dashboard.
Click on the ‘Add Calendar’ button to proceed.
A new page will open where you can enter a title in the ‘Name’ field.
Sugar Calendar allows you to create multiple calendars.
Visitors can easily switch between different calendars using a dropdown menu, as shown in the image below. Therefore, a clear and descriptive ‘Name’ will help users find the appropriate calendar in the dropdown.
You can organize calendars in parent-child relationships, similar to child pages.
Child calendars will be displayed beneath their parent calendars in the WordPress dashboard, making it easier to manage multiple calendars, especially if you have many.
By default, all calendars are set as parent calendars. To create a child calendar, open the ‘Parent’ dropdown and select the calendar you wish to designate as the parent.
You can also add an optional description. Depending on your WordPress theme, this description may be displayed next to the calendar on your website, though not all themes support this feature. If you choose to add a description, be sure to verify that it appears correctly on your WordPress site.
You may want to choose a color that will be displayed next to your calendar in the WordPress dashboard. This color-coding helps you organize related calendars or quickly identify a specific calendar.
To select a color, click on the ‘Select Color’ button and use the provided controls to make your choice.
Once you are satisfied with the details you’ve entered, click on ‘Add New Calendar’ to create your first Sugar Calendar.
You can easily create additional calendars by following the same steps outlined above.
How to Add Events in Sugar Calendar
After creating at least one calendar, you can start adding events to it.
To begin, navigate to Sugar Calendar »Events and click on the ‘Add New Event’ button.
You can now input all the details for your event, including the date and time, duration, and whether it recurs.
Start by giving your event a name.
Next, specify a start time and end date. If your event lasts all day, simply check the ‘All-day’ box.
Alternatively, you can set specific start and end times, as shown in the following image.
By default, Sugar Calendar sets all events as one-time occurrences. However, some events may be recurring, such as a weekly webinar every Monday morning or a monthly meetup for volunteers at your nonprofit organization.
To set up a recurring event, click on the ‘Recurrence’ tab and select an option from the ‘Repeat’ dropdown menu, such as Daily, Weekly, or Monthly.
You can also specify an optional ‘Ending’ date, which indicates when the event will cease to recur. For instance, you might plan to host webinars only until the end of the year.
If you are planning an in-person event, you can select the ‘Location’ tab and enter the venue details.
Next, provide information about the event in the ‘Details’ box.
This section functions just like the WordPress content editor, allowing you to add images, videos, and formatting options.
You can also include a featured image, which will be displayed on the event’s page. This enhances the page’s appeal and may be utilized in search results and on social media platforms.
To add a featured image, click on ‘Set featured image’ and either select an image from the media library or upload a new file.
In the ‘Calendars’ section, locate the calendar where you wish to add this event.
You can select the option by clicking its radio button.
To create a new calendar, simply click the ‘Add New Calendar’ button in this section.
This will open new settings where you can name your calendar and link it to a parent Sugar Calendar.
After entering all the details, click the ‘Publish’ button to save your changes.
You can follow this process to add additional events to your calendar.
Integrating the Events Calendar into Your WordPress Site
You can easily add a calendar to any post or page using the Sugar Calendar WordPress blocks. If you have multiple calendars, visitors can switch between them using a dropdown menu.
You have the option to select which calendars to display in WordPress, giving you control over the events your visitors can view.
For demonstration, we will add the calendar to a new WordPress page, but the steps are similar regardless of where you add the calendar.
Begin by opening the page where you want to insert the calendar. Click the ‘+’ icon to create a new block and type ‘Sugar Calendar.’ There are two available blocks: Events Calendar and Events List.
Select the ‘Events Calendar’ block to include it on the page.
You will now see a preview of your calendar in the WordPress editor.
To choose which calendars to display, click the dropdown menu under the ‘Calendars’ option in the block settings, then select your desired calendar by clicking on it.
If you wish to display multiple calendars, just repeat the process and select the additional calendars you want.
You can now publish or update the page to make the calendar visible on your website.
To view more details about an event in the calendar, simply click on it.
This will open the event’s page, displaying the time, date, and other relevant information.
Sugar Calendar also offers a widget that can be added to any widget-ready area of your WordPress theme, providing an easy way to include a calendar on every page of your website or blog.
To add a widget in WordPress, navigate toAppearance »Widgets. Here, click the blue ‘+’ button.
You can then search for ‘Sugar Calendar.’
There are several different Sugar Calendar widgets, so be sure to select the ‘Event Calendar’ widget.
Next, simply drag and drop the widget into the area where you want the calendar to appear.
At this stage, you can add an optional title and adjust the size of the calendar.
By default, the plugin displays events from all your Sugar Calendars. To customize this, open the ‘Calendar’ dropdown menu and select the calendar you want to display when the page loads.
Sugar Calendar typically shows the current month, but you can choose to display a different month. To do this, simply enter a new date in the ‘Default Month & Year’ field.
Once you have made your changes, remember to click the ‘Update’ button. Your Sugar Calendar widget will now be visible on your site.
Bonus: How to Create a Facebook Event Calendar in WordPress
Do you also share your events on Facebook?
If you utilize Facebook’s built-in events calendar, you can embed this content on your WordPress site to increase visibility. This may encourage visitors to check out your Facebook page, express interest in your events, or follow you on social media.
Custom Facebook Feed Pro is the leading social media feed plugin available. It allows you to effortlessly showcase your Facebook timeline, albums, videos, and events directly on your WordPress website.
You can showcase your events in a lightbox popup, allowing visitors to easily browse your entire schedule. Additionally, Facebook Feed Pro automatically retrieves your latest events, eliminating the need for manual updates on your site.
Once you create an event feed, you can customize its appearance using Smash Balloon’s intuitive editor. This allows you to design a social media feed that aligns perfectly with your WordPress theme.
For comprehensive step-by-step guidance, please refer to our tutorial on how to integrate a Facebook event calendar into WordPress.
We hope this article has helped you learn how to create a straightforward event calendar using Sugar Calendar. You may also be interested in our expert recommendations for the best WordPress event ticketing plugins and how to implement event schema in WordPress.
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