Keeping your audience informed about upcoming events can boost engagement and participation if you’re running a business, community group, or personal blog. Whether it’s a webinar, workshop, or local meetup, showing upcoming events on your WordPress site makes it easier for visitors to find important details and encourages them to get involved.

This guide will walk you through the simple steps to add and display upcoming events on your WordPress website, helping to raise awareness and increase participation.

Why Show Upcoming Events on Your WordPress Website?

Displaying upcoming events on your website offers several benefits:

• Boost Participation: Showcasing events encourages more people to attend.
• Keep Visitors Updated: Regularly updating event information gives users a reason to return to your site.
• Improve User Experience: Making event details easily accessible helps visitors plan their schedules more effectively.
• Monetization Opportunities: You can sell event tickets directly on your site or create exclusive, members-only events.

Let’s explore how you can easily display upcoming events in WordPress.

How to Show Upcoming Events in WordPress (Step-by-Step)

We’ll use Sugar Calendar, a powerful and easy-to-use plugin for managing events in WordPress to simplify things.

Step 1: Install and Activate Sugar Calendar

The first step is to install the Sugar Calendar plugin. Here’s how:

1. Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard.

2. Go to Plugins > Add New.

3. Search for “Sugar Calendar” and click Install Now.

4. Once installed, click Activate.

5. Navigate to Calendar > Settings, and enter the license key to verify your purchase (you can find this in your Sugar Calendar account).

Step 2: Create a New Event Calendar

Once activated, you can create a new calendar:

1. In the WordPress dashboard, go to Sugar Calendar > Calendars.

2. Click the + Add Calendar button.

3. Enter a calendar name and customize options like color, description, and slug.

4. Click Add New Calendar to save your calendar.

Check in the calendars section if it is added successfully or not.

This step allows you to categorize events, making it easier to manage multiple events simultaneously.

Step 3: Add Upcoming Events

After creating your calendar, you can now start adding events:

1. Navigate to Sugar Calendar > Events and click Add New Event.

2. Enter the event title, date, and time.

3. You can set the frequency under the Recurrence tab if it’s a recurring event.

4. Add a location for in-person events, or include the relevant links for online events.
5. Assign the event to the correct calendar and hit Publish.

Go to the events section to see if the event is added successfully to the calendar.

You can add as many events as you want and even include event details like ticket information or a redirection to another page for more information.

Step 4: Display Upcoming Events on Your WordPress Site

Once your events are set up, you must display them on your website. Here’s how:

1. Go to the page or post where you want to display your upcoming events.

2. In the block editor, click the + icon and search “Sugar Calendar.”

3. You will see two blocks: Events Calendar (for a calendar view) and Events List (for a list view).
4. Select the block you prefer and add it to the page.

5. Customize the display (e.g., grid or list view) and click Save or Publish.

Visitors can now see your upcoming events, either as a calendar or list, depending on your setup.

Bonus: Monetizing Your Events

Now that your events are visible on your WordPress site, there are several ways to monetize them:

1. Sell Event Tickets

Sugar Calendar allows you to sell tickets for events directly from your website. You can use their Event Ticketing add-on to enable ticket sales and allow users to pay via credit/debit cards.

2. Run Members-Only Events

Consider creating members-only events for exclusive events. This feature can be implemented using plugins like MemberPress or Paid Memberships Pro to restrict access to certain events to paying members only.

Conclusion

Adding and displaying upcoming events on your WordPress site is a great way to boost participation and keep your audience engaged. With the Sugar Calendar plugin, managing events, creating calendars, and monetizing them through ticket sales or member-only access becomes simple.

Following the steps outlined earlier, you’ll have a fully functional events calendar on your WordPress site, helping you reach a broader audience and make your events more accessible. WordPress makes event management easy and effective for a business, a community group, or a personal blog.