If you run The Events Calendar and are thinking about leaving, the short version is this: events, venues and organizers move across fairly cleanly, recurring series move only where the new plugin can read the rule, and ticket sales history does not move at all. The best alternative for a site with a member community is Eventonomy, which we make at Wbcom, because it has a documented importer for The Events Calendar. Stay put if you rely on a specific add-on or only need a plain public calendar.
Everything about The Events Calendar below was read on its own listing and documentation pages in October 2026. Those pages change, so confirm anything that affects a purchase before you act.
In this guide
- Why site owners leave The Events Calendar, and why many should not
- How The Events Calendar is built, so you know what you are moving
- The alternatives, with Eventonomy first and clearly flagged as ours
- What breaks when you move: events, venues, organizers, recurring series, tickets, URLs
- A safe migration, step by step, with a check at the end of each step
- When to stay on The Events Calendar
- Questions people ask
Why do people look for an alternative to The Events Calendar?
People leave The Events Calendar for four practical reasons: the features they want sit in separate paid add-ons, the calendar clashes with their theme, ticketing is split across several products, or the events need to live inside a member community rather than beside it. None of these is a defect. They are the price of a plugin built as a core with an ecosystem around it.
The plugin’s own WordPress.org listing is candid about the other side. It lists complaints from reviewers: crawlable URL combinations that can add server load, calendar-control settings that are hard to find, styling overrides that can clash with theme CSS, and friction with some page builders such as Elementor. The same listing shows a 4.2 out of 5 rating and praise for the design, the features and the support. Both things are true at once.
One more thing has changed recently. The listing now describes the plugin as coming from Nexcess, formerly StellarWP. The old theeventscalendar.com address redirects to a Liquid Web page, and the documentation redirects to docs.nexcess.com. If the ownership change is part of why you are reading this, our agency plan for leaving the StellarWP stack covers that angle. This article is for a different reader: one site, one calendar, one decision.
If you want a broader list of event plugins first, read our roundup of WordPress event calendar plugins. We will not repeat that comparison here. This guide assumes you already run The Events Calendar and want to know what leaving would cost.
What exactly are you moving away from?
The Events Calendar is a free core plugin with paid add-ons around it. Knowing the pieces matters, because each piece may or may not have a counterpart in the plugin you move to.
Here is the structure, from the plugin’s WordPress.org listing and its documentation.
- The free core. Month, list and day views, event search, saved venues and organizers, categories and tags, Google Calendar and iCal export, REST API endpoints, structured data and a CSV importer. The documentation lists the free views as Month, List and Day.
- Events Calendar Pro (paid). Recurring events, plus the Photo, Map, Summary and Week views, shortcodes and extra fields. The documentation describes recurring events as a Pro feature.
- Event Tickets (free) and Event Tickets Plus (paid). A separate plugin for RSVPs and tickets. The documentation says Event Tickets Plus adds attendee registration forms, QR check-in and WooCommerce ticketing.
- Other add-ons. Community Events for front-end submissions, Filter Bar for advanced filtering, Event Aggregator for imports from sources such as Google Calendar, Meetup and Eventbrite, Promoter for email marketing, and a seating builder.
That structure is a strength if you want to buy only what you need. It is a cost when you want to leave, because your data is spread across a core plugin, a ticketing plugin and perhaps two or three add-ons. A migration has to account for each one.
How does The Events Calendar store your data?
Events, venues and organizers are WordPress posts. The documentation says that “Venue and Organizer are custom post types, just like Event”. A custom post type is a WordPress content type with its own list in the admin, its own fields and its own address on the front end.
Recurring events in Pro work in a specific way. Each occurrence is created when you save the event, and each becomes its own event. If the event is not already in a Series, a Series with the same name is created. The All Events list shows the recurring event once. You edit single dates through the Series, and choosing “This event” in the save dialog turns that date into a standalone event inside the Series.
Why does this matter? Because the plugin you move to has to read posts, post meta and Series data, and decide what to do with a recurring rule it may not support. Keep that in mind as you read the next sections.
What are the best alternatives to The Events Calendar?
For a reader who wants to leave, the practical shortlist is Eventonomy if events belong inside a member community, Modern Events Calendar if you want many display layouts, Events Manager if bookings are the main job, and a lighter option such as Sugar Calendar for a small site. We make Eventonomy, so it comes first and we say so. Each of the others has a case where it is the better choice.
Eventonomy (ours)
Eventonomy is Wbcom’s events plugin, and it runs on its own. It does not need any other Wbcom plugin. As of October 2026 its pages describe:
- One-off events plus daily, weekly and monthly recurring series in the base plugin, with some recurrence rules needing a paid licence. Check the product page for the current split.
- Grid, list, month and upcoming views, with week and day grids needing a paid licence.
- RSVPs with going, maybe and no answers, guest counts, waitlists, guest RSVPs and custom RSVP questions.
- A shared catalog of venues and organizers that any event can reuse.
- An ICS calendar feed and CSV exports.
- Blocks that inherit your theme’s styles, and a public REST API.
- Paid tickets through Stripe, PayPal or WooCommerce, door check-in and maps, which need a paid licence. Check the Eventonomy site for the current list.
One design choice is relevant to a migration. Eventonomy’s documentation says events use their own database tables rather than custom post types. In plain terms, your events stop being posts. That keeps long recurring series fast, since each occurrence is pre-computed, but it means anything that treated events as posts (a search plugin, a sitemap rule, a snippet that queries the event post type) needs a second look.
Where Eventonomy is not the better pick: The Events Calendar has the larger ecosystem, longer documentation history and more add-on choices. Eventonomy’s own comparison page says as much.
Modern Events Calendar
Modern Events Calendar, usually called MEC, is built around display variety and a booking module. Its product page lists 60+ layouts, recurring events in the Lite version and migration from The Events Calendar among its import sources. Pick it if the way the calendar looks is your main concern and you are happy to spend an afternoon in a large settings panel.
Events Manager
Events Manager is the strongest of the group when bookings are the main job. Its page lists multiple tickets, capacity limits, approvals, check-in and several payment methods. Pick it for a venue, a class series or anything where every seat has to be counted. The page I read did not cover recurring events, so check that before you commit.
Sugar Calendar
Sugar Calendar is a lighter calendar with daily to yearly repeats, tickets through Stripe or WooCommerce and an Event Import feature. It suits a small site with a tidy calendar and a few ticketed events. Its page does not say which sources the importer reads, so test with a copy of your own data.
How do they compare for someone leaving?
The table below is limited to what each product’s own pages say, as of October 2026. “Not stated” means the page I read did not say, not that the feature is missing. Wbcom makes Eventonomy.
| Plugin | Import from The Events Calendar | Recurring events | Tickets and RSVPs | Best fit when leaving |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eventonomy (ours) | Importer described on its comparison page: events, venues, organizers, dry run, redirects, undo | Daily, weekly, monthly in the base plugin; more rules need a paid licence | RSVPs in the base plugin; paid tickets need a paid licence | Events that belong inside a member community |
| Modern Events Calendar | Listed as an import source | In Lite | Pro booking module and ticket add-on | Many layouts, design control |
| Events Manager | Not stated on the page read | Not stated on the page read | Multiple tickets, capacity, several payment methods | Bookings that must be counted and paid |
| Sugar Calendar | Event Import listed, sources not stated | Daily to yearly repeats | Tickets via Stripe or WooCommerce | Small site, simple calendar |
| The Events Calendar (staying) | Not applicable | Pro add-on | Event Tickets (free) and Event Tickets Plus | Specific add-ons, plain public calendar |
What breaks when you leave The Events Calendar?
The things most likely to break are ticket history, recurring series with complex rules, anything custom built on the event post type, and the old event URLs. Events, venues and organizers are the easiest to carry over. Each item below says what to check, using Eventonomy’s documented importer as the worked example, since it is the one we can describe from its own pages.
Events, venues and organizers
These move best. Eventonomy’s comparison page says its importer reads events, venues and organizers directly from The Events Calendar’s database, works even with The Events Calendar deactivated, and never changes the source data. A venue in The Events Calendar has a name, description, address, city, state, ZIP, phone, website and map coordinates, and an organizer has a name, description, phone, website and email. Compare those fields with the destination after a test import. If you used extra custom fields from Pro, plan to check those by hand.
One mismatch to watch for is multiple organizers. Eventonomy’s documentation says each event has one primary organizer and one primary venue by default, and that extra organizers and venues need a paid licence. The importer’s dry run is said to flag events with several organizers, so read that report before you start.
Recurring events
Recurring series move only as far as the destination can read the rule. According to Eventonomy’s comparison page, daily, weekly and monthly rules are supported, rules that need a paid licence (such as “the second Saturday”) need that licence, and rules the importer cannot translate arrive as single events. Treat that last point seriously. A weekly class that ran for a year might arrive as dozens of separate events that you then have to tidy up.
There is also a behaviour difference worth knowing before you commit. In The Events Calendar Pro you can edit one date inside a Series and it becomes a standalone event. Eventonomy’s recurring events documentation says editing a recurring event changes the whole series, there is no “this occurrence only” option, and a date that needs different details should be created as a separate one-off event. It does offer a “Cancel this date” control for a single occurrence. If your team edits single dates all the time, test that workflow before you switch.
Tickets, orders and attendees
Ticket history does not move. Eventonomy’s comparison page lists attendees, orders and tickets under “does not carry over”, and our agency guide says the same about orders, sold tickets and check-in records. This is true of nearly any move between ticketing systems, because an order belongs to the payment records of the system that took the money.
In The Events Calendar’s world, ticketing is a separate plugin. Event Tickets handles RSVPs and tickets, and the documentation says Tickets Commerce works with PayPal, Stripe and Square. Event Tickets Plus adds WooCommerce ticketing. One more fact from the documentation: standard tickets cannot be added to recurring events, and Series Passes can grant access to all events in a Series. If your recurring events use Series Passes, you will need to rebuild that idea in the new plugin, not import it.
The practical rule: do not switch while a paid event is on sale. Export attendee and order records to CSV first, and keep them until the old events have passed.
URLs and redirects
This is the quiet one. Every event, venue and organizer in The Events Calendar has an address that search engines have indexed and that people have saved or shared in newsletters. The documentation notes that with Pro, venues and organizers get their own pages at /venue/[name] and /organizer/[name].
When those addresses stop working, you lose both search traffic and trust. Eventonomy’s comparison page says the importer sets up 301 redirects from the old event addresses. A 301 redirect tells browsers and search engines that a page has moved permanently and where it went. Do not assume redirects exist for venues, organizers, category pages or your main calendar page, because the page names events only. Check each pattern yourself, as step five below explains.
Views, blocks and custom code
The Events Calendar documentation shows that its views are customised by copying templates into your theme under tribe/events/v2/ (and tribe/events-pro/v2/ for Pro), and by filters such as tribe_events_views_v2_view_repository_args. None of that carries over. Custom templates and snippets written for The Events Calendar need rewriting for the new plugin. If you have a developer, list those files before you decide.
Blocks are the happier case. The Events Calendar has event, venue and organizer blocks in the editor, plus an Events List and a Mini Calendar block, some of them Pro-only. Pages where you placed those blocks will show missing blocks after you deactivate the plugin, so you will need to replace each one with the new plugin’s equivalent. Eventonomy documents a Calendar block, an Events List block and an Upcoming Events block.
How do you migrate from The Events Calendar safely?
Migrate on a staging copy first, move during a gap when no paid events are on sale, keep the old plugin installed but inactive for a few weeks, and check redirects before you tell anyone. The steps below use Eventonomy because its importer is the one we can describe from its documentation. The same order applies to any destination.
A note on sources: Eventonomy’s comparison page describes the importer’s steps, but I did not find a separate step-by-step guide in its documentation index. Read the in-plugin importer screens as you go, and treat this section as the plan around them.
Step 1: Take stock before you touch anything
Write down what you actually use. Count events, venues, organizers and recurring series. List which add-ons are active: Pro, Event Tickets, Event Tickets Plus, Community Events, Filter Bar. Note any page that uses an events block or shortcode, and any template override in your theme.
To confirm it worked, you should have one page that answers “what does this site depend on?” If you cannot answer it, you are not ready to move.
Step 2: Back up and clone to staging
Take a full backup of files and database, then restore it to a staging copy of the site. Staging is a private duplicate where mistakes cost nothing. Never run your first import on the live site. Our LearnDash and Kadence move uses the same staging-first order for a course site.
To confirm it worked, open the staging site and check that your events, venues and ticket settings look the same as on the live site. If you are also changing themes, our piece on the hidden costs of changing a WordPress theme covers what to protect.
Step 3: Export what will not move
Export attendee and order records for every paid event that is recent or upcoming. Also export your venue and organizer lists, and take screenshots of your main calendar page, a single event, a venue page and an organizer page. The screenshots are your reference when you compare the new site.
To confirm it worked, open the exported files and check that the last few orders and attendees are in them.
Step 4: Install the new plugin and run a dry run
Install Eventonomy on staging and run its setup. Per the comparison page, choose The Events Calendar on the Tools screen and run the dry-run scan, which lists what will change, such as events with several organizers or recurring rules it cannot translate. The same import can also be run from the command line with WP-CLI.
To confirm it worked, read the dry-run report line by line and write down each warning. Every warning is a thing you will need to fix by hand after the real import.
Step 5: Run the import and check redirects
Start the import, which runs in background batches. When it finishes, open ten old event addresses from your own analytics or sitemap. Choose a mix: a recent event, an old one, a recurring one, a venue page and an organizer page.
To confirm it worked, each old address should land on the matching new page after a single redirect. If you use an SEO plugin, check that the new events appear in your sitemap and that the old ones are gone from it. Anything that does not redirect gets a manual redirect rule.
Step 6: Compare against your screenshots
Open the calendar, one event of each type, a venue, an organizer and a member-facing page. Compare against your screenshots. Check time zones on a few events, because a one-hour shift is the classic migration bug. Check recurring series by counting the dates against the old calendar.
To confirm it worked, the count of upcoming events should match between old and new for the next three months.
Step 7: Rebuild tickets and replace blocks
Recreate ticket types for upcoming paid events in the new system and test one purchase with a real payment method in test mode. Replace the old plugin’s blocks and shortcodes with the new equivalents, and rewrite any custom template.
To confirm it worked, buy a ticket as a test customer, check that the confirmation email arrives, and check the attendee shows up in the admin.
Step 8: Go live, then wait before deleting anything
Repeat the process on the live site during a quiet window, or deploy the staging copy. Leave The Events Calendar installed but deactivated for a few weeks. Eventonomy’s comparison page says the importer does not change the source data, so the old events remain available for reference. Delete the old plugin only after your orders from old events are no longer needed and Search Console shows no spike in errors.
To confirm it worked, watch the Pages report in Google Search Console for new 404 errors over the following weeks. Our community site checklist before launch is a useful companion for the final pass.
How does the events plugin fit the rest of your community site?
If your site is turning into a community, the calendar is no longer a standalone page. It is one of several features members use, next to a feed, groups, courses and profiles. That is the main argument for moving, not any single feature.
On a Reign site you can run Eventonomy for events, BuddyNext for the community, Learnomy for courses and WB Gamification for points, each of them able to run on its own. Reign is the theme that styles all of them from one place, with five header layouts, colour tokens and dark mode, and no code needed. Our walkthrough on running community events on your Reign site shows what that looks like in practice, and the piece on upgrading a Reign site with BuddyNext explains the community side.
Be honest about the other path as well. If your events never need members, profiles or a feed, and a visitor only needs to see a date and a place, you do not need a community-aware events plugin at all. That leads to the next section.
When should you stay on The Events Calendar?
Stay if you depend on a specific add-on, if you support the plugin across many client sites, or if all you need is a solid public calendar. Leaving is a project with a real cost, and a reason to leave should be worth that cost.
The Events Calendar has real strengths, and its listing and documentation show most of them:
- Reach and track record. The listing shows 600,000+ active installations. Most hosts and agencies already know it.
- Add-ons you cannot easily replace. Filter Bar, a seating builder, an import service for Google Calendar, Meetup and Eventbrite, Promoter and Community Events exist today. If you use one, check the destination for an equivalent before you move.
- Free ticketing. Event Tickets is free, and its documentation lists PayPal, Stripe and Square through Tickets Commerce. That is more than a basic RSVP tool.
- Views. A product page lists seven views: month, list, week, day, photo, map and summary. Several need Pro, but the range is wide.
- Documentation. Years of tutorials and forum threads cover most situations.
- Single-date editing in a series. If you change individual dates often, it handles that more directly than Eventonomy does.
Also stay if the thing bothering you is a styling clash. A theme conflict is often fixed with a few lines of CSS or a template override, which is much cheaper than a migration. And if the thing bothering you is cost, ask first whether you truly use the paid add-ons you are paying for. Check each product’s current pricing page rather than trusting an old figure.
A good test: if you could solve your problem inside The Events Calendar for a day of work, do that. If the problem is that events need to live inside a member community, a day of work will not solve it, and a move may.
Questions people ask
Is there a free alternative to The Events Calendar?
Several plugins have a free version. Eventonomy’s base plugin and Modern Events Calendar Lite both give you a way to start, and each keeps some features behind a paid licence. Compare the specific feature you need, such as recurring events or tickets, because that is usually where the free line sits.
Can I import events from The Events Calendar into another plugin?
Yes, with some plugins. Eventonomy’s comparison page describes an importer that reads events, venues and organizers from The Events Calendar’s database and keeps the source data unchanged. Modern Events Calendar lists The Events Calendar among its import sources. Attendees, orders and tickets do not transfer, so export those first.
Will I lose my search rankings if I switch?
You can avoid most of the loss. Rankings drop when old addresses stop working, so the job is making sure each old event address redirects to its new page. Eventonomy’s comparison page says its importer sets up 301 redirects for old event addresses. Test a sample of your own URLs, including venue and organizer pages, and watch Google Search Console for errors for several weeks.
What happens to my recurring events?
Rules the new plugin can read carry over as recurring series. Rules it cannot translate arrive as single events, according to Eventonomy’s comparison page. Count the upcoming dates on the old and new calendars before you go live, and expect to tidy complex series by hand.
Do I have to leave The Events Calendar if I want a community site?
No. You can run a community alongside it. The question is whether you want events and members to share one system, with RSVPs tied to member accounts and events shown inside the community. If you do not, keep what works.
If you decide to move, Reign gives you the theme layer for it: one design for the community, the calendar and the rest of the site. See the Reign theme page for features and demos, or try the BuddyNext live demo to see a working community first.