Switching from The Events Calendar#

Move your events, venues, organizers, tickets and attendees from The Events Calendar and Event Tickets Plus into Evenzo. The import copies your data. It changes nothing in The Events Calendar or Event Tickets, so you can check the result before you switch anything off.

The importer is in Evenzo 1.1.0 and later. It works with The Events Calendar active or deactivated.

Before you start#

1. Make a full backup of your site: files and database.
2. If you can, run the import on a staging copy first. Check the result there, then repeat it on the live site.
3. Install and activate Evenzo. Leave The Events Calendar, Event Tickets and Event Tickets Plus active for now.
4. Pick a quiet time. New orders during the import are fine, but a quiet store makes the result easier to check.

What moves and what doesn’t#

These import:

• Events, with their dates, times, time zone, all-day setting, status, website link, featured flag and online link.
• Venues, organizers and event categories. A category with the same slug and parent as an Evenzo category is reused.
• Featured images. The import reuses the same media files, so nothing is copied or downloaded.
• Event Tickets Plus WooCommerce ticket products. They are not copied. The same products are linked to the new Evenzo events, so orders, reports, coupons, stock and product URLs stay as they are.
• Attendees of paid and closed orders, with their names, emails, ticket codes, check-in state and field answers. Staff can type an old ticket code at check-in to find the attendee.

These don’t import. The dry run lists each one with the reason:

• RSVP tickets and their attendees. Evenzo tickets are WooCommerce products, and an RSVP has no order.
• Tickets Commerce tickets, orders and attendees. They have no WooCommerce order either, and the payment lives with Stripe or PayPal.
• Event tags. They are listed in the report, not imported.
• Series passes, the event cost text, and the second and later organizers of an event. Evenzo keeps one organizer per event.
• Attendees of orders that are pending or on hold. Evenzo creates their tickets from the buyer’s details when the order is paid.

Recurring events from Events Calendar Pro import as one Evenzo event per date. Every date keeps its sold tickets and attendees. See Recurring events after the switch.

The Event Tickets Plus part of the import was tested with sample data. Run the dry run first and read the report before you import.

Run the dry run#

1. Go to Events > Import.
2. Open the The Events Calendar tab.
3. Click Run dry run.
4. Wait for the report. A large site can take a minute or two.

The dry run reads everything and writes nothing. The report shows, for venues, organizers, categories, events, ticket products and attendees:

• Will create: what the import adds.
• Already imported: what an earlier import already brought over.
• Skipped: what won’t import, with the reason.
• Flagged: what imports with a change you should check, such as a time zone or an attendee field that becomes a text field.

The report also lists recurring events with their number of dates. Click Download report (CSV) to keep the full list.

If the report warns that Event Tickets Plus is active, read Switch off the old plugins before you sell more tickets.

Import#

1. Click Start import under the report.
2. Keep the tab open. A progress bar shows each step: venues, organizers, categories, events, ticket products, then attendees.
3. When it finishes, the counts show what was created, skipped and failed.

The import sends no emails and fires no webhooks. Running it again later imports only what is new, such as events and orders added since the last run. It doesn’t update events it already imported.

Check the result#

1. Go to Events > All Events and open a few imported events. Check the dates, times, time zone, venue and organizer.
2. Open Events > Venues and Events > Organizers.
3. Open a ticket product. The Event Ticket tab links it to the imported event.
4. Go to Events > Attendees and filter by an imported event. Check names, ticket codes and check-ins.
5. View an imported event on your site.
6. Place a test order for a ticket. Evenzo should create the attendee and send the ticket email.

Switch off the old plugins#

Deactivate Event Tickets Plus as soon as you are happy with the result.

Two ticket plugins must not issue tickets for the same product. While both are active, a new order for a linked product creates a ticket in Event Tickets Plus and a ticket in Evenzo. Buyers get two emails and two codes, and your counts stop matching.

1. Go to Plugins.
2. Deactivate Event Tickets Plus.
3. Place another test order and check that only Evenzo creates the ticket.
4. When you don’t need the old event pages any more, deactivate Event Tickets and The Events Calendar.

Deactivating keeps their data in the database. The import can still read it later, for example to bring over orders that were still pending during the first run.

Recurring events after the switch#

Each date of a recurring event is now its own Evenzo event. Past and sold dates stay exactly as they were.

To keep selling future dates:

1. Create a new Evenzo event for the next date.
2. Set Repeat Event to the pattern you need.
3. Link a ticket product to it.
4. Move the old future dates that have no sales to the trash.

See Recurring Events for the patterns Evenzo supports.

URLs#

Imported events keep their slugs. The Events Calendar and Evenzo both use event as the default event base, so most event links keep working once The Events Calendar is deactivated. The dates of a recurring event get their date added to the slug.

If you changed the event base in The Events Calendar, or you link to its /events/ pages, set up redirects with a redirect plugin.

RSVP and Tickets Commerce#

RSVP and Tickets Commerce attendees stay in The Events Calendar. To take RSVPs in Evenzo, use a free ticket:

1. Create a simple WooCommerce product with a price of 0.
2. In its Event Ticket tab, link it to the event.
3. Turn on Collect attendee info if you need each guest’s name.

Guests then check out without paying and get a ticket like any other.

Undo#

Undo removes what the import made, from every run.

1. Go to Events > Import > The Events Calendar.
2. Read the Undo import table. It shows what will be removed, put back and kept.
3. Tick the box to confirm.
4. Click Undo import.

What undo does:

• Imported attendees and the import’s marks on orders are removed.
• Imported events, venues and organizers go to the trash. Nothing is deleted for good.
• Categories the import created are deleted. Reused categories stay.
• Ticket products get back the settings they had before the import.
• Events with new Evenzo sales are kept, with their imported tickets. The table lists them.
• On events that are undone, check-ins recorded after the switch are removed too.

Nothing in The Events Calendar changes, so you can import again after an undo. If you then restore an old copy from the trash, you get two copies of the same event. Leave old copies in the trash, or empty it.

Troubleshooting#

The import stopped#

Closing the tab or losing the connection pauses the import. Open the tab again and click Resume. The import carries on from where it stopped and doesn’t import anything twice.

If a step failed with an error, the tab shows the error above Resume.

An import is already running#

Another tab or another admin is running the import. Wait for it to finish, or try again in 5 minutes.

Something was skipped or looks wrong#

1. Click Download log (CSV). It lists every skipped and flagged record, and every error, with the reason.
2. Errors also go to WooCommerce > Status > Logs, in the emwc log. Turn on debug mode in Evenzo’s settings to log the other lines there too.

Times look off by some hours#

Check the time zone of the event. The report flags events whose time zone was stored as UTC in The Events Calendar, because the original time zone may be lost.