If you have ever created or managed an online event for any purpose, you know that things can get really tough at times. Whether you hold a webinar, online course, business networking session, or any other event, you should be equipped with the most appropriate tools so that you will be able to manage everything competently.
Thanks to the advantages of WordPress CMS, owning a website is no longer rocket science, and users can start their own website without any knowledge of web programming. Fortunately, the same conditions apply to online WordPress event creation and management with the help of the Modern Events Calendar plugin.
Today we are going to talk about MEC, which is the best WordPress event calendar plugin with a collection of practical and professional features. This plugin lets you turn your current WordPress website into a thorough event management system to get the most out of your online event management.
Without further ado, let’s get down to the review of Modern Events Calendar.
About MEC
The Modern Events Calendar plugin is published by the Webnus team who has more than seven years of successful experience in developing WordPress themes and plugins. The team members have done their best in creating the best event calendar with a world of practical features.
This innovatory WordPress plugin looks highly stylish and modern since it follows the latest global trends of UX/UI designs. It comes in two plans; free and premium. If you are a beginner user or don’t need any special features for your event management experience, the free version will probably suffice for you. Surprisingly, most of the premium capabilities of other similar tools such as EventOn are provided for free in MEC.
On the other side, if you need further capabilities and features, upgrading to the Pro version opens the door to numerous professional tools for creating and managing events. Additionally, you can benefit from more than ten practical add-ons that have been programmed to increase the plugin’s functionality in more specific areas like the generation of advanced, in-depth reports.
To form a better idea about this difference, take a look at the following comparison that includes both Lite and Pro versions.
This great advantage can also be noticed when examining its performance on WordPress.org. The number of users who have installed MEC skyrocketed in less than two years, and it currently has above 60,000 active installations.
The following introductory video shows the general appearance and performance of MEC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjRVKIwD5jY
Creating events with MEC
Either you have plans for a single event or hold regular and recurring ones on specific intervals, the Modern Events Calendar plugin can provide the best experience for you. The available options make it easy to create all kinds of events and let your audience know the smallest details about them. To mention a few, adding hourly plans to each event, descriptions about the event organizer, and locations can help people get a better idea of your activity before attending the event.
Repeated events can be scheduled once and then be displayed on the specified dates automatically without further customizations. This can be extremely helpful for larger businesses that hold a lot of events since they don’t have to worry about them every time the event is supposed to be held.
Moreover, you can add tags, colors, labels, and other details to every event to make your schedules appear more organized. Event sharing has likewise become more convenient since apart from the standard social sharing buttons, you can use QR codes to share your events with others conveniently.
Watch this video that takes you through the event creation experience on MEC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhjw6Tl1gTA
Displaying events with MEC
No matter how valuable and important events you hold, the way you promote them can dramatically increase or decrease the number of attendees you see. Different views such as list, grid, sliders, countdowns, carousels, and timetables all have advantages and disadvantages when it comes to displaying events on a site. Therefore, it is not wise to use a single view for all events in all sections of the website.
For example, the way you promote an event abroad is a different ball of wax compared to an online class. An international business event should convey a different message to people in contrast to what a group of young learners should see for their online course.
Fortunately, MEC has a complete set of display options that can be used in all parts of a website with different sizes. The neat and modern layouts of MEC create a higher engagement for users, which in turn increases your overall positive results.
The view options have compatibility with the widely-used WordPress page builders like Elementor and WP Bakery. It means that that you have the chance to personalize them further and make everything more appealing. Also, all the elements of this plugin have a responsive design and profoundly adapt to different screen sizes, which can be translated into other languages, too.
Booking feature of MEC
Booking feature is another practical tool of MEC that is available in the Pro version. By activating this option, you allow users to make reservations and pay the fees in advance rather than paying locally on the day of the event. The developer team has provided all the standard payment gateways, such as PayPal and Stripe, in the plugin to provide a better experience in purchasing tickets.
You can even go further and use tailor-made tickets, booking fields, and confirmation emails to leave a better impression on participants who are going to attend the event.
Integration of MEC with other tools
No matter if you want to start event management all from the beginning or replace your current plugin with MEC, everything is already in place for you. You can easily import the existing data from other WordPress plugins into MEC without any concerns about losing data in just a few clicks.
Facebook events have also become popular in recent years, and some business owners use them for their activities. The Modern Events Calendar can be easily integrated with your Facebook account to synchronize data between your site and Facebook. Similarly, you can add your Google Calendar and Meetup accounts and turn your WordPress site into an all-in-one integrated event management platform.
Email marketing is an integral part of any business, and many make use of this potential through leading platforms such as MailChimp. If that is the case for you as well, rest assured since MEC can get integrated with this platform as well.
The professional add-ons of MEC
As earlier pointed out, the developer team has published various add-ons that add to the features of MEC even further. Here is a quick overview of these options.
WooCommerce add-on
The WooCommerce add-on is designed to bring users a better experience in their online purchases. It adds your tickets a separate product in the WooCommerce cart to avoid entering the information of bank accounts repeatedly. Users will pay for the tickets simultaneously with other products or services they want to buy from your site.
Elementor add-ons
MEC is an Elementor-based product that allows you to make customized pages most conveniently. The additional Elementor features of MEC are prepared as six add-ons for a better experience. You will be able to make shortcodes, customize elements with a drag-and-drop interface, and so on.
Multisite Event Sync
If you own multiple websites, you can share an event from one site and display it on others simultaneously using the Multisite Event Sync add-on. No matter how many sites you want your events to be displayed on, they all inherit changes from the primary site so you won’t have to edit them one by one.
Event API
APIs can be used in many ways for web development. The Event API add-on, as the title suggests, creates an API for every event that can be copied on other websites that don’t have the MEC plugin. Therefore, you can display your events on other sites with no concerns regarding the possible changes in details.
User Dashboard
You may have seen bigger websites that have more than one author and editors who manage the content. User Dashboard add-on is meant to allow website managers to limit the users’ access to events and enable them to make changes according to the granted permissions.
Advanced Map
Nowadays, people use maps to find information about locations or to navigate to other places. Considering the popularity of this technology, Advanced Map add-on is developed to activate OpenStreetMap instead of the standard Google Maps. Doing so enables your users to enjoy better features and even apply filters to their map.
Ticket and Invoice
Personalized tickets can convey a friendlier personality of yours to attendees. By using the Ticket and Invoice add-on, you can make different tickets and invoices alongside custom-made emails with additional controls over the invoices of users.
Advanced Reports
The Advanced Reports add-on best suits website owners who hold events on a regular basis and need to keep track of the number of attendees, revenues, the level of success, etc. It generates a variety of in-depth reports that can be simplified using filters. You can put your data in comparison and make reports in different formats like JSON, CSV, and XML.
Fluent-view Layouts (FREE)
As we mentioned earlier, the Modern Event Calendar plugin has eye-catching designs of elements by default. The Fluent View Layouts add-on installs a new series of stylish view layouts on your event management tool. These designs are published according to the latest global trends and are available for free.
Pricing plans of MEC
The Modern Events Calendar is a budget-priced product that brings an assortment of useful features to your site at a reasonable price. In case you need a premium plan, a single license will cost you no more than $75. The premium licenses have lifetime updates and a year of full support by the developer team.
The aforementioned add-ons can similarly be purchased at a low price compared to other products. As an example, the WooCommerce integration add-on is available for $35. You can check out the packages and prices on the MEC purchase page and start using it today.
The bottom line
Online event management can be an easy and pleasant experience if done correctly. In this review, we introduced the best WordPress event calendar by which you can manage your next events most conveniently and efficiently. Stay ahead of the competition and turn your event management into a pleasant experience by installing this plugin right away.