Guide to WordPress Event Calendar and Booking Plugins
WordPress calendar plugins let users make bookings, schedule events, pay for appointments, and more.
Calendars help organize and keep track of things so they don’t get out of hand. For example, they help us plan and schedule seminars, webinars, workshops, events, appointments, automatic payments, follow up on leads, check availability, remind us of important meetings, and so on.
If you’re a blogger or content manager, calendars help you schedule assignments, plan how to release and publish content, and so on.
If your website does any of these things, you need a calendar plugin to help you create calendars that your visitors can interact with.
In this article, we’ll look at calendar plugins available on CodeCanyon.
- 29 Best WordPress Calendar Plugins and Widgets (With 4 Free Plugins)Daniel Strongin23 Jul 2022
- 22 Best Booking Plugins in WordPress for Reservations (2023)Franc Lucas24 Sep 2021
Introduction
The sheer quantity of things one needs to juggle when running a business is overwhelming. Without a calendar, your business can fall into disarray. And that quickly translates into unsatisfactory user experiences. This means significant losses not only in income but also in customers and potential customers.
This is why you need a calendar plugin for your website.
What Is a Calendar Plugin?
A calendar plugin is a piece of code that helps you incorporate a calendar tool into your WordPress website so you can display dates, events, schedules and so on neatly in one place on your website.
Calendars are added to the front-end of your website. Simple calendars allow you to display things like dates and availability. Advanced calendar plugins come with comprehensive solutions for booking and scheduling, including features like purchase and payment integration.
Why Do You Need a Calendar Plugin?
Calendars help us organize and keep track of things so they don’t get out of hand.
Calendar plugins can be used in the following ways:
- to help with planning, organizing, and publicizing
- showing the time, date, and location of events
- creating, managing, and showing events on your website
- scheduling appointments online or taking bookings online
In practical everyday use, calendars can help you plan and schedule seminars, webinars, workshops, events, or appointments. They can also make automatic payments, follow up on leads, check availability, remind us of important meetings, and so on.
Not only that, but if you're a blogger or content manager, a calendar plugin helps you manage your editorial calendar. It also allows you to schedule posts through different channels, be it website, blog, or social media.
Some Features You Will Find in Calendar Plugins
A great calendar plugin will provide the following:
- templates you can customize to reflect your style
- drag-and-drop builder so you can create your calendar easily
- recurring events to automate events that occur regularly
- ability to import and export data for backup and recovery
Things to Consider When Choosing a Calendar Plugin
Ease of Use: Using a calendar plugin should be straightforward. Expect little or no learning curve for the best plugins.
Responsiveness and Mobile Readiness: This is a no-brainer because over 70% of anything that happens online is through a mobile device.
Cross-Browser Compatibility: Not everyone uses Firefox or Safari.
Social Sharing: Users should be able to share their calendars with other users on social media.
Rating and Reviews: Check what others say about the calendar plugin you are considering.
Integration: Seamless integration with popular calendars like Google Calendar or iCal is a feature to look for, and so is integration with popular payment and marketing gateways.
WordPress Calendar Plugins on CodeCanyon
On CodeCanyon you will find the best premium calendar plugins that will help you offer a satisfying user experience to your website visitors. These plugins offer a wide range of solutions, from very simple to advanced.
All-Purpose Calendars
If you need lots of flexibility and a variety of functions, the following calendar plugins are your best choice.
Calendars for Events
These calendar plugins are best for event scheduling—for example, seminars and workshops.
- WP Pro Events Calendar
- Stachethemes Event Calendar
- WooEvents
- Event Calendar Registration and Booking
- Event Schedule
- Eventer
- Event Calendar Shortcode and Templates Pro
Responsive Calendars
Calendars for Bookings
Adding any of the following calendar plugins to your website will enable visitors to your website to make bookings for events you create.
Business Calendars
These calendars cater to very specific niches. However, in that niche they offer comprehensive solutions that cater to specific businesses.
Booking and Reservation Plugins
Finally, it is important to note that while a calendar by itself allows you to do some things, not incorporating it with other extensions limits what you can do online and what you can earn. Booking and Reservation Plugins are built around calendars. They offer the most extensive and advanced calendar solutions that combine calendars with the ability to make reservations and pay for booking and appointments.
Bonus
I couldn't think of a category for these items, but they were too good to pass up!
- EventOn Slider Addon—for a beautiful way to present your events in slider format. However, it requires the EventOn plugin.
- gAppointments—If you already have Gravity Forms, you can use the gAppointments add-on for an appointment calendar.
Conclusion
I hope these calendar plugins for WordPress help you keep track of things while providing a great user experience for visitors to your website.
The following articles will add to your knowledge of calendar plugins:
- Choose the Best WordPress Event Calendar PluginsNona Blackman28 Feb 2019
- How to Use the WordPress Event Calendar PluginDaniel Strongin15 Jul 2019
- How to Create a Google Calendar Plugin for WordPressAshraff Hathibelagal07 Feb 2019
- 29 Best WordPress Calendar Plugins and Widgets (With 4 Free Plugins)Daniel Strongin23 Jul 2022
- How to Add a Calendar to Your WordPress Site With the Events Schedule PluginJessica Thornsby14 Mar 2019
- Definitive Guide to Installing a Free or Premium WordPress PluginRachel McCollin23 Jul 2019
- How to Use WordPress Push Notifications and the Smart Notification PluginEsther Vaati06 Aug 2019
- 22 Best Booking Plugins in WordPress for Reservations (2023)Franc Lucas24 Sep 2021
- Create a Booking System With a WordPress Booking PluginRachel McCollin10 May 2019
- Best Free WordPress Calendar PluginsMonty Shokeen18 Jun 2019